It was an unspeakable relief to Muriel that, in congratulating her upon her engagement, Daisy made no reference to Nick. She did not know that this forbearance had been dictated long before by Nick himself.
The days that followed her engagement had in them a sort of rapture that she had never known before. She felt as a young wild creature suddenly escaped from the iron jaws of a trap in which it had long languished, and she rioted in the sense of liberty that was hers. Her youth was coming back to her in leaps and bounds with the advancing spring.
She missed nothing in Blake's courtship. His gentleness had always attracted her, and the intimacy that had been growing up between them made their intercourse always easy and pleasant. They never spoke of Nick. But ever in Muriel's heart there lay the soothing knowledge that she had nothing more to fear. Her terrible, single-handed contests against overwhelming odds were over, and she was safe. She was convinced that, whatever happened, Blake would take care of her. Was he not the protector she would have chosen from the beginning, could she but have had her way?
So, placidly and happily, the days drifted by, till March was nearly gone; and then, sudden and staggering as a shell from a masked battery, there fell the blow that was destined to end that peaceful time.
Very late one night there came a nervous knocking at Muriel's door, and springing up from her bed she came face to face with Daisy'sayah. The woman was grey with fright, and babbling incoherently. Something about "baba" and the "mem-sahib" Muriel caught and instantly guessed that the baby had been taken ill. She flung a wrap round her, and hastened to the nursery.
It was a small room opening out of Daisy's bedroom. The light was turned on full, and here Daisy herself was walking up and down with the baby in her arms.
Before Muriel was well in the room, she stopped and spoke. Her face was ghastly pale, and she could not raise her voice above a whisper, though she made repeated efforts. "Go to Blake!" she panted. "Go quickly! Tell him to fetch Jim Ratcliffe. Quick! Quick!"
Muriel flew to do her bidding. In her anxiety she scarcely waited to knock at Blake's door, but burst in upon him headlong. The room was in total darkness, but he awoke instantly.
"Hullo! What is it? That you, Muriel?"
"Oh, Blake!" she gasped. "The child's ill. We want the doctor."
He was up in a moment. She heard him groping for matches, but he only succeeded in knocking something over.
"Can't you find them?" she asked. "Wait! I'll get you a light."
She ran back to her own room and fetched a candle. Her hands were shaking so that she could scarcely light it. Returning, she found Grange putting on his clothes in the darkness. He was fully as flurried as she.
As she set down the candle there arose a sudden awful sound in Daisy's room.
Muriel stood still. "Oh, what is that?"
Grange paused in the act of dragging on his coat. "It's that damnedayah," he said savagely.
And in a second Muriel understood. Daisy'sayahwas wailing for the dead.
She put her hands over her ears. The dreadful cry seemed to pierce right through to her very soul. Then she remembered Daisy, and turned to go to her.
Out in the passage she met the white-faced English servants huddling together and whispering. One of them was sobbing hysterically. She passed them swiftly by.
Back in Daisy's room she found theayahcrouched on the floor, and rocking herself to and fro while she beat her breast and wailed. The door that led into the nursery was closed.
Muriel advanced fiercely upon the woman. She almost felt as if she could have choked her. She seized her by the shoulders without ceremony. Theayahceased her wailing for a moment, then recommenced in a lower key. Muriel pulled her to her feet, half-dragged, half-led her to her own room, thrust her within, and locked the door upon her. Then she returned to Daisy.
She found her sunk in a rocking-chair before the waning fire, softly swaying to and fro with the baby on her breast. She looked at Muriel entering, with a set, still face.
"Has Blake gone?" she asked, still in that dry, powerless whisper.
Muriel moved to her side, and knelt down. "He is just going," she began to say, but the words froze on her lips.
She remained motionless for a long second, gazing at the tiny, waxen face on Daisy's breast. And for that second her heart stood still; for she knew that the baby was dead.
From the closed room across the passage came the muffled sound of theayah'swailing. Daisy made a slight impatient movement.
"Stir the fire," she whispered. "He feels so cold."
But Muriel did not move to obey. Instead she held out her arms.
"Let me take him, dear," she begged tremulously. Daisy shook her head with a jealous tightening of her clasp. "He has been so ill, poor wee darling," she whispered. "It came on so suddenly. There was no time to do anything. But he is easier now. I think he is asleep. We won't disturb him."
Muriel said no more. She rose and blindly poked the fire. Then—for the sight of Daisy rocking her dead child with that set, ashen face was more than she could bear—she turned and stole away, softly closing the door behind her.
Again meeting the English servants hovering outside, she sent them downstairs to light the kitchen fire, going herself to the dining-room window to watch for the doctor. Her feet were bare and freezing, but she would not return to her room for slippers. She felt she could not endure that awful wailing at close quarters again. Even as it was, she heard it fitfully; but from the nursery there came no sound.
She wondered if Blake had gone across the meadow to the doctor's house—it was undoubtedly the shortest cut—and tried to calculate how long it would take him.
The waiting was intolerable. She bore it with a desperate endurance. She could not rid herself of the feeling that somehow Nick was near her. She almost expected to see him come lightly in and stand beside her. Once or twice she turned shivering to assure herself that she was really alone.
There came at last the click of the garden-gate. They had come across the drenched meadows. In a transient gleam of moonlight she saw the two figures striding towards her. Grange stopped a moment to fasten the gate. The doctor came straight on.
She ran to the front door and threw it open. The wind blew swirling all about her, but she never felt it, though her very lips were numb and cold.
"It's too late!" she gasped, as he entered. "It's too late!"
Jim Ratcliffe took her by the shoulders and forced her away from the open door.
"Go and put something on," he ordered, "instantly!"
There was no resisting the mastery of his tone. She responded to it instinctively, hardly knowing what she did.
Theayah'sparoxysm of grief had sunk to a low moaning when she re-entered her room. It sounded like a dumb creature in pain. Hastily she dressed, and twisted up her hair with fingers that she strove in vain to steady.
Then noiselessly she crept back to the nursery.
Daisy was still rocking softly to and fro before the ore, her piteous burden yet clasped against her heart. The doctor was stooping over her, and Muriel saw the half-eager, half-suspicious look in Daisy's eyes as she watched him. She was telling him in rapid whispers what had happened.
He listened to her very quietly, his keen eyes fixed unblinking upon the baby's face. When she ended, he stooped a little lower, his hand upon her arm.
"Let me take him," he said.
Muriel trembled for the answer, remembering the instant refusal with which her own offer had been met. But Daisy made no sort of protest. She seemed to yield mechanically.
Only, as he lifted the tiny body from her breast, a startled, almost a bereft look crossed her face, and she whispered quickly, "You won't let him cry?"
Jim Ratcliffe was silent a moment while he gazed intently at the little lifeless form he held. Then very gently, very pitifully, but withal very steadily, his verdict fell through the silent room.
"He will never cry any more."
Daisy was on her feet in a moment, the agony in her eyes terrible to see. "Jim! Jim!" she gasped, in a strangled voice. "He isn't dead! My little darling,—my baby,—the light of my eyes; tell me—he isn't—dead!"
She bent hungrily over the burden he held, and then gazed wildly into his face. She was shaking as one in an ague.
Quietly he drew the head-covering over the baby's face. "My dear," he said, "there is no death."
The words were few, spoken almost in an undertone; but they sent a curious, tingling thrill through Muriel—a thrill that seemed to reach her heart. For the first time, unaccountably, wholly intangibly, she was aware of a strong resemblance between this man whom she honoured and the man she feared. She almost felt as if Nick himself had uttered the words.
Standing dumbly by the door, she saw the doctor stoop to lay the poor little body down in the cot, saw Daisy's face of anguish, and the sudden, wide-flung spread of her empty arms.
The next moment, her woman's instinct prompting her, she sprang forward; and it was she who caught the stricken mother as she fell.
It was growing very hot in the plains. A faint breeze born at sunset had died away long ago, leaving a wonderful, breathless stillness behind. The man who sat at work on his verandah with his shirt-sleeves turned up above his elbows sighed heavily from time to time as if he felt some oppression in the atmosphere. He was quite a young man, fair-skinned and clean-shaven, with an almost pathetically boyish look about him, a wistful expression as of one whose youth still endured though the zest thereof was denied to him. His eyes were weary and bloodshot, but he worked on steadily, indefatigably, never raising them from the paper under his hand.
Even when a step sounded in the room behind him, he scarcely looked up. "One moment, old chap!" He was still working rapidly as he spoke. "I've a toughish bit to get through. I'll talk to you in a minute."
There was no immediate reply. A man's figure, dressed in white linen, with one arm quite invisible under the coat, stood halting for a moment in the doorway, then moved out and slowly approached the table at which the other sat.
The lamplight, gleaming upwards, revealed a yellow face of many wrinkles, and curious, glancing eyes that shone like fireflies in the gloom.
He stopped beside the man who worked. "All right," he said. "Finish what you are doing."
In the silence that followed he seemed to watch the hand that moved over the paper with an absorbing interest. The instant it rested he spoke.
"Done?"
The man in the chair stretched out his arms with a long gesture of weariness; then abruptly leapt to his feet.
"What am I thinking of, keeping you standing here? Sit down, Nick! Yes, I've done for the present. What a restless beggar you are! Why couldn't you lie still for a spell?"
Nick grimaced. "It's an accomplishment I have never been able to acquire. Besides, there's no occasion for it now. If I were going to die, it would be a different thing, and even then I think I'd rather die standing. How are you getting on, my son? What mean these hieroglyphics?"
He dropped into the empty chair and pored over the paper.
"Oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you," the other answered."You're not an engineer."
"Not even a greaser of wheels." admitted Nick modestly. "But you needn't throw it in my teeth. I suppose you are going to make your fortune soon and retire—you and Daisy and the imp—to a respectable suburb. You're a very lucky chap, Will."
"Think so?" said Will.
He was bending a little over his work. His tone sounded either absent or dubious.
Nick glanced at him, and suddenly swept his free right hand across the table. "Put it away!" he said. "You're overdoing it. Get the wretched stuff out of your head for a bit, and let's have a smoke before dinner. I'll bring her out to you next winter. See if I don't!"
Will turned towards him impulsively. "Oh, man, if you only could!"
"Only could!" echoed Nick. "I tell you I will. Ten quid on it if you like. Is it done?"
But Will shook his head with a queer, unsteady smile. "No, it isn't. But come along and smoke, or you will be having that infernal neuralgia again. It was confoundedly good of you to look me up like this when you weren't fit for it."
Nick laughed aloud. "Man alive! You don't suppose I did it for your sake, do you? Don't you know I wanted to break the journey to the coast?"
"Odd place to choose!" commented Will.
Nick arose in his own peculiarly abrupt fashion, and thrust his hand through his friend's arm.
"Perhaps I thought a couple of days of your society would cheer me up," he observed lightly. "I daresay that seems odd too."
Will laughed in spite of himself. "Well, you've seen me with my nose to the grindstone anyhow. You can tell Daisy I'm working like a troop-horse for her and the boy! Jove! What a knowing little beggar that youngster used to be! He isn't very strong though, Daisy writes."
"How often do you hear?" asked Nick.
"Oh, the last letter came three weeks ago. They were all well then, but she didn't stop to say much because Grange was there. He is staying with them, you know."
"You haven't heard since then?" There was just a hint of indignation in Nick's query.
Will shook his head. "No. She's a bad correspondent, always was. I write by every mail, and of course, if there were anything I ought to know, she would write too. But they are leading a fairly humdrum existence just now. She can't have much to tell me."
Nick changed the subject. "How long has Grange been there?"
"I don't know. Some time, I think. But I really don't know. They are very old pals, you know, he and Daisy. There was a bit of a romance between them, I believe, years ago, when she was in her teens. Their people wouldn't hear of it because they were first cousins, so it fizzled out. But they are still great friends. A good sort of fellow, I always thought."
"Too soft for me," said Nick. "He's like a well-built ship adrift without a rudder. He's all manners and no grit—the sort of chap who wants to be pushed before he can do anything. I often ached to kick him when we were boxed up at Wara."
Will smiled. "The only drawback to indulging in that kind of game is that you may get kicked back, and a kick from a giant like Grange would be no joke."
Nick looked supremely contemptuous. "Fellows like Grange don't kick.They don't know how. That's why I had to leave him alone."
He turned into Will's sitting-room and stretched himself out upon an ancientcharpoyfurnished with many ancient cushions that stood by the window.
Will gave him a cigarette, and lighted it. "I wonder how many nights I have spent on that old shake-down," he remarked, as he did it.
Nick glanced upwards. "Last year?"
Will nodded. "It was like hell," he said, with terrible simplicity. "I came straight back here, you know, after Daisy left Simla. I suppose the contrast made it worse. Then, too, the sub was ill, and it meant double work. Well," with another sigh, "we pulled through somehow, and I suppose we shall again. But, Nick, Daisy couldn't possibly stand this place more than four months out of the twelve. And as for the kiddie—"
Nick removed his cigarette to yawn.
"You won't be here all your life, my son," he said. "You're a rising man, remember. There's no sense in grizzling, anyhow, and you're getting round-shouldered. Why don't you do some gymnastics? You've got a swimming bath. Go and do a quarter of a mile breast-stroke every day. Jupiter! What wouldn't I give to"—He broke off abruptly. "Well, I'm not going to cry for the moon either. There's thekhiton the verandah. What does he want?"
Will went out to see. Nick, idly watching, saw the native hand him something on a salver which Will took to the lamp by which he had been working. Dead silence ensued. From far away there came the haunting cry of a jackal, but near at hand there was no sound. A great stillness hung upon all things.
To Nick, lying at full length upon the cushions, there presently came the faint sound of paper crackling, and a moment later his friend's voice, pitched very low, spoke to the waiting servant. He heard the man softly retire, and again an intense stillness reigned.
He could not see Will from where he lay, and he smoked on placidly for nearly five minutes in the belief that he was either answering some communication or looking over his work. Then at last, growing impatient of the prolonged silence, he lifted his voice without moving.
"What in the world are you doing, you unsociable beggar? Can't you tear yourself away from that beastly work for one night even? Come in here and entertain me. You won't have the chance to-morrow."
There was no reply. Only from far away there came again the weird yell of a jackal. For a few seconds more Nick lay frowning. Then swiftly and quietly he arose, and stepped to the window.
There he stopped dead as if in sudden irresolution; for Will was sunk upon his knees by the table with his head upon his work and his arms flung out with clenched hands in an attitude of the most utter, the most anguished despair. He made no sound of any sort; only, as Nick watched, his bowed shoulders heaved once convulsively.
It was only for a moment that Nick stood hesitating. The next, obeying an impulse that he never stopped to question, he moved straight forward to Will's side; and then saw—what he had not at first seen—a piece of paper crumpled and gripped in one of his hands.
He bent over him and spoke rapidly, but without agitation. "Hullo, old boy! What is it! Bad news, eh?"
Will started and groaned, then sharply turned his face upwards. It was haggard and drawn and ghastly, but even then its boyishness remained.
He spoke at once, replying to Nick in short, staccato tones. "I've had a message—just come through. It's the kiddie—our little chap—he died—last night."
Nick heard the news in silence. After a moment he stooped forward and took the paper out of Will's hand, thrusting it away without a glance into his own pocket. Then he took him by the arm and hoisted him up. "Come inside!" he said briefly.
Will went with him blindly, too stricken to direct his own movements.
And so he presently found himself crouching forward in a chair staring at Nick's steady hand mixing whiskey and water in a glass at his elbow. As Nick held it towards him he burst into sudden, wild speech.
"I've lost her!" he exclaimed harshly. "I've lost her! It was only the kiddie that bound us together. She never cared a half-penny about me. I always knew I should never hold her unless we had a child. And now—and now—"
"Easy!" said Nick. "Easy! Just drink this like a good chap. There's no sense in letting yourself go."
Will drank submissively, and covered his face. "Oh, man," he whispered brokenly, "you don't know what it is to be despised by the one being in the world you worship."
Nick said nothing. His lips twitched a little, that was all.
But when several miserable seconds had dragged away and Will had not moved, he bent suddenly down and put his arm round the huddled shoulders. "Keep a stiff upper lip, old chap," he urged gently. "Don't knock under. She'll be coming to you for comfort presently."
"Not she!" groaned Will. "I shall never get near her again. She'll never come back to me. I know. I know."
"Don't be a fool!" said Nick still gently. "You don't know. Of course she will come back to you. If you stick to her, she'll stick to you."
Will made a choked sound of dissent. Nevertheless, after a moment he raised his quivering face, and gripped hard the hand that pressed his shoulder. "Thanks, dear fellow! You're awfully good. Forgive me for making an ass of myself. I—I was awfully fond of the little nipper too. Poor Daisy! She'll be frightfully cut up." He broke off, biting his lips.
"Do you know," he said presently in a strained whisper, "I've wanted her sometimes—so horribly, that—that I've even been fool enough to pray about it."
He glanced up as he made this confidence, half expecting to read ridicule on the alert face above him, but the expression it wore surprised him. It was almost a fighting look, and wholly free from contempt.
Nick seated himself on the edge of the table, and smote him on the shoulder. "My dear chap," he said, with a sudden burst of energy, "you're only at the beginning of things. It isn't just praying now and then that does it. You've got to keep up the steam, never slack for an instant, whatever happens. The harder going it is, the more likely you are to win through if you stick to it. But directly you slack, you lose ground. If you've only got the grit to go on praying, praying hard, even against your own convictions, you'll get it sooner or later. You are bound to get it. They say God doesn't always grant prayer because the thing you want may not do you any good. That's gammon—futile gammon. If you want it hard enough, and keep on clamouring for it, it becomes the very thing of all others you need—the great essential. And you'll get it for that very reason. It's sheer pluck that counts, nothing else—the pluck to go on fighting when you know perfectly well you're beaten, the pluck to hang on and worry, worry, worry, till you get your heart's desire."
He sprang up with a wide-flung gesture. "I'm doing it myself," he said, and his voice rang with a certain grim elation. "I'm doing it myself. And God knows I sha'n't give Him any peace till I'm satisfied. I may be small, but if I were no bigger than a mosquito, I'd keep on buzzing."
He walked to the end of the room, stood for a second, and came slowly back.
Will was looking at him oddly, almost as if he had never seen him before.
"Do you know," he said, smiling faintly, "I always thought you were a rotter."
"Most people do," said Nick. "I believe it's my physiognomy that's at fault. What can any one expect from a fellow with a face like an Egyptian mummy? Why, I've been mistaken for the devil himself before now." He spoke with a semi-whimsical ruefulness, and, having spoken, he went to the window and stood there with his face to the darkness.
"Hear that jackal, Will?" he suddenly said. "The brute is hungry. You bet, he won't go empty away."
"Jackals never do," said Will, with his weary sigh.
Nick turned round. "It shows what faithless fools we are," he said.
In the silence that followed, there came again to them, clear through the stillness, and haunting in its persistence, the crying of the beast that sought its meat from God.
There is no exhaustion more complete or more compelling than the exhaustion of grief, and it is the most restless temperaments that usually suffer from it the most keenly. It is those who have watched constantly, tirelessly, selflessly, for weeks or even months, for whom the final breakdown is the most utter and the most heartrending.
To Daisy, lying silent in her darkened room, the sudden ending of the prolonged strain, the cessation of the anxiety that had become a part of her very being, was more intolerable than the sense of desolation itself. It lay upon her like a physical, crushing weight, this absence of care, numbing all her faculties. She felt that the worst had happened to her, the ultimate blow had fallen, and she cared for nought besides.
In those first days of her grief she saw none but Muriel and the doctor. Jim Ratcliffe was more uneasy about her than he would admit. He knew as no one else knew what the strain had been upon the over-sensitive nerves, and how terribly the shock had wrenched them. He also knew that her heart was still in a very unsatisfactory state, and for many hours he dreaded collapse.
He was inclined to be uneasy upon Muriel's account as well, at first, but she took him completely by surprise. Without a question, without a word, simply as a matter of course, she assumed the position of nurse and constant companion to her friend. Her resolution and steady self-control astonished him, but he soon saw that these were qualities upon which he could firmly rely. She had put her own weakness behind her, and in face of Daisy's utter need she had found strength.
He suffered her to have her way, seeing how close was the bond of sympathy between them, and realising that the very fact of supporting Daisy would be her own support.
"You are as steady-going as a professional," he told her once.
To which she answered with her sad smile, "I served my probation in the school of sorrow last year. I am only able to help her because I know what it is to sit in ashes."
He patted her shoulder and called her a good girl. He was growing very fond of her, and in his blunt, unflattering way he let her know it.
Certain it was that in those terrible days following her bereavement, Daisy clung to her as she had never before clung to any one, scarcely speaking to her, but mutely leaning upon her steadfast strength.
Muriel saw but little of Blake though he was never far away. He wandered miserably about the house and garden, smoking endless cigarettes, and invariably asking her with a piteous, dog-like wistfulness whenever they met if there were nothing that he could do. There never was anything, but she had not the heart to tell him so, and she used to invent errands for him to make him happier. She herself did not go beyond the garden for many days.
One evening, about three weeks after her baby's death, Daisy heard his step on the gravel below her window and roused herself a little.
"Who is taking care of Blake?" she asked.
Muriel glanced down from where she sat at the great listless figure nearing the house. "I think he is taking care of himself," she said.
"All alone?" said Daisy.
"Yes, dear."
Daisy uttered a sudden hard sigh. "You mustn't spend all your time with me any longer," she said. "I have been very selfish. I forgot. Go down to him, Muriel."
Muriel looked up, struck by something incomprehensible in her tone. "You know I like to be with you," she said. "And of course he understands."
But Daisy would not be satisfied. "That may be. But—but—I want you to go to him. He is lonely, poor boy. I can hear it in his step. I always know."
Wondering at her persistence, and somewhat reluctant, Muriel rose to comply. As she was about to pass her, with a swift movement Daisy caught her hand and drew her down.
"I want you—so—to be happy, dearest," she whispered, a quick note of passion in her voice. "It's better for you—it's better for you—to be together. I'm not going to monopolise you any longer. I will try to come down to-morrow, if Jim will let me. It's hockey day, isn't it? You must go and play as usual, you and he."
She was quivering with agitation as she pressed her lips to the girl's cheek. Muriel would have embraced her, but she pushed her softly away. "Go—go, dear," she insisted. "I wish it."
And Muriel went, seeing that she would not otherwise be pacified.
She found Blake depressed indeed, but genuinely pleased to see her, and she walked in the garden with him in the soft spring twilight till the dinner hour.
Just as they were about to go in, the postman appeared with foreign letters for them both, which proved to be from Sir Reginald and Lady Bassett.
The former had written briefly but very kindly to Grange, signifying his consent to his engagement to his ward, and congratulating him upon having won her. To Muriel he sent a fatherly message, telling her of his pleasure at hearing of her happiness, and adding that he hoped she would return to them in the following autumn to enable him to give her away.
Grange put his arm round his youngfiancéeas he read this passage aloud, but she only stood motionless within it, not yielding to his touch. It even seemed to him that she stiffened slightly. He looked at her questioningly and saw that she was very pale.
"What is it?" he asked gently. "Will that be too soon for you?"
She met his eyes frankly, but with unmistakable distress. "I—I didn't think it would be quite so soon, Blake," she faltered. "I don't want to be married at present. Can't we go on as we are for a little? Shall you mind?"
Blake's face wore a puzzled look, but it was wholly free from resentment. He answered her immediately and reassuringly.
"Of course not, dear. It shall be just when you like. Why should you be hurried?"
She gave him a smile of relief and gratitude, and he stooped and kissed her forehead with a soothing tenderness that he might have bestowed upon a child.
It was with some reluctance that she opened Lady Bassett's letter in his presence, but she felt that she owed him this small mark of confidence.
There was a strong aroma of attar of roses as she drew it from the envelope, and she glanced at Grange with an expression of disgust.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"It's only the scent," she explained, concealing a faint sense of irritation.
He smiled. "Don't you like it? I thought all women did."
"My dear Blake!" she said, and shuddered.
The next minute she threw a sharp look over her shoulder, suddenly assailed by an uncanny feeling that Nick was standing grimacing at her elbow. She saw his features so clearly for the moment with his own peculiarly hideous grimace upon them that she scarcely persuaded herself that her fancy had tricked her. But there was nothing but the twilight of the garden all around her, and Blake's huge bulk by her side, and she promptly dismissed the illusion, not without a sense of shame.
With a gesture of impatience she unfolded Lady Bassett's letter. It commenced "Dearest Muriel," and proceeded at once in terms of flowing elegance to felicitate her upon her engagement to Blake Grange.
"In according our consent," wrote Lady Bassett, "Sir Reginald and I have not the smallest scruple or hesitation. Only, dearest, for Blake Grange's sake as well as for your own, make quite surethis timethat your mind is fully made up, and your choice final."
When Muriel read this passage a deep note of resentment crept into her voice, and she lifted a flushed face.
"It may be very wicked," she said deliberately, "but I hate LadyBassett."
Grange looked astonished, even mildly shocked. But Muriel returned to the letter before he could reply.
It went on to express regret that the writer could not herself return to England for the summer to assist her in the purchase of her trousseau and to chaperon her back to India in the autumn; but her sister, Mrs. Langdale, who lived in London, would she was sure, be delighted to undertake the part of adviser in the first case, and in the second she would doubtless be able to find among her many friends who would be travelling East for the winter, one who would take charge of her. No reference was made to Daisy till the end of the letter, when the formal hope was expressed that Mrs. Musgrave's health had benefited by the change.
"She dares to disapprove of Daisy for some reason," Muriel said, closing the letter with the rapidity of exasperation.
Grange did not ask why. He was engrossed in brushing a speck of mud from his sleeve, and she was not sure that he even heard her remark.
"You—I suppose you are not going to bother about a trousseau yet then?" he asked rather awkwardly.
She shook her head with vehemence. "No, no, of course not. Why shouldI hurry? Besides, I am in mourning."
"Exactly as you like," said Grange gently. "My leave will be up in September, as you know, but I am not bound to stay in the Army. I will send in my papers if you wish it."
Muriel looked at him in amazement. "Send in your papers! Why no, Blake! I wouldn't have you do it for the world. I never dreamed of such a thing."
He smiled good-humouredly. "Well, of course, I should be sorry to give up polo, but there are plenty of other things I could take to. Personally, I like a quiet existence."
Was there just a shade of scorn in Muriel's glance as it fell away from him? It would have been impossible for any bystander to say with certainty, but there was without doubt a touch of constraint in her voice as she made reply.
"Yes. You are quite the most placid person I know. But please don't think of leaving the Army for my sake. I am a soldier's daughter remember. And—I like soldiers."
Her lip quivered as she turned to enter the house. Her heart at that moment was mourning over a soldier's unknown grave. But Grange did not know it, did not even see that she was moved.
His eyes were raised to an upper window at which a dim figure stood looking out into the shadows. And he was thinking of other things.
Daisy maintained her resolution on the following day, and though she did not speak again of going downstairs, she insisted that Muriel should return to the hockey-field and resume her place in Olga's team. It was the last match of the season, and she would not hear of her missing it.
"You and Blake are both to go," she said. "I won't have either of you staying at home for me."
But Blake, when Muriel conveyed this message to him, moodily shook his head. "I'm not going. I don't want to. You must, of course. It will do you good. But I couldn't play if I went. I've strained my wrist."
"Oh, have you?" Muriel said, with concern. "What a nuisance! How did you manage it?"
He reddened, and looked slightly ashamed. "I vaulted the gate into the meadow this morning. Idiotic thing to do. But I shall be all right. Never mind about me. I shall smoke in the garden. I may go for a walk."
Thus pressed on all sides, though decidedly against her own inclination, Muriel went. The day was showery with brilliant intervals. Grange saw her off at the field-gate.
"Plenty of mud," he remarked.
"Yes, I shall be a spectacle when I come back. Good-bye! Take care of yourself." Muriel's hand rested for an instant on his arm, and then she was gone—a slim, short-skirted figure walking swiftly over the grass.
He stood leaning on the gate watching her till a clump of trees intervened between them, then lazily he straightened himself and began to stroll back up the garden. He was not smoking. His face wore a heavy, almost a sullen, look. He scarcely raised his eyes from the ground as he walked.
Nearing the house the sudden sound of a window being raised made him look up, and in an instant, swift as a passing cloud-shadow, his moodiness was gone. Daisy was leaning on her window-sill, looking down upon him.
Though she had not spoken to him for weeks, she gave him no greeting.Her voice even sounded a trifle sharp.
"What are you loafing there for?" she demanded. "Why didn't you go with Muriel to the hockey?"
He hesitated for a single instant. Then—for he never lied toDaisy—quite honestly he made reply. "I didn't want to."
Her pale face frowned down at him, though the eyes had a soft light that was like a mother's indulgence for her wayward child.
"How absurd you are! How can you be so lazy? I won't have it, Blake.Do you hear?"
He moved forward a few steps till he was immediately below her, and there stood with uplifted face. "What do you want me to do?"
"Do!" echoed Daisy. "Why, anything—anything rather than nothing. There's the garden-roller over there by the tool-shed. Go and get it, and roll the lawn."
He went off obediently without another word, and presently the clatter of the roller testified to his submissive fulfilment of her command. He did not look up again. Simply, with his coat off and shirt-sleeves turned above his elbows, he tackled his arduous task, labouring up and down in the soft spring rain, patient and tireless as an ox.
He had accomplished about half his job when again Daisy's voice broke imperiously in upon him.
"Blake! Blake! Come in! You'll get wet to the skin."
He stopped at once, straightening his great frame with a sigh of relief. Daisy was standing at the drawing-room window.
He pulled on his coat and went to join her.
She came to meet him with sharp reproach. "Why are you so foolish? I believe you would have gone on rolling if there had been an earthquake. You must be wet through and through." She ran her little thin hand over him. "Yes, I knew you were. You must go and change."
But Grange's fingers closed with quiet intention upon her wrist. He was looking down at her with the faithful adoration of a dumb animal.
"Not yet," he said gently. "Let me see you while I can."
She made a quick movement as if his grasp hurt her, and in an instant she was free.
"Yes, but let us be sensible," she said. "Don't let us talk about hard things. I'm very tired, you know, Blake. You must make it easy for me."
There was a piteous note of appeal in her voice. She sat down with her back to the light. He could see that her hands were trembling, but because of her appeal he would not seem to see it.
"Don't you think a change would be good for you?" he suggested.
"I don't know," she answered. "Jim says so. He wants me to go to Brethaven. It's only ten miles away, and he would motor over and look after me. But I don't think it much matters. I'm not particularly fond of the sea. And Muriel assures me she doesn't mind."
"Isn't it at Brethaven that Nick Ratcliffe owns a place?" askedGrange.
"Yes. Redlands is the name. I went there once with Will. It's a beautiful place on the cliff—quite thrown away on Nick, though, unless he marries, which he never will now."
Grange looked uncomfortable. "It's not my fault," he remarked bluntly.
"No, I know," said Daisy, with a faint echo of her old light laugh. "Nothing ever was, or could be, your fault, dear old Blake. You're just unlucky sometimes, aren't you? That's all."
Blake frowned a little. "I play a straight game—generally," he said.
"Yes, dear, but you almost always drive into a bunker," Daisy insisted. "It's not your fault, as we said before. It's just your misfortune."
She never flattered Blake. It was perhaps the secret of her charm for him. To other women he was something of a paladin; to Daisy he was no more than a man—a man moreover of many weaknesses, each one of which she knew, each one of which was in a fashion dear to her.
"We will have some tea, shall we?" she said, as he sat silently digesting her criticism. "I must try and write to Will presently. I haven't written to him since—since—" She broke off short and began again. "I got Muriel to write for me once. But he keeps writing by every mail. I wish he wouldn't."
Grange got up and walked softly to the window. "When do you think of going back?" he asked.
"I don't know." There was a keen note of irritation in the reply. Daisy leaned suddenly forward, her fingers locked together. "You might as well ask me when I think of dying," she said, with abrupt and startling bitterness.
Grange remained stationary, not looking at her. "Is it as indefinite as that?" he asked presently.
"Yes, quite." She spoke recklessly, even defiantly. "Where would be the use of my going to a place I couldn't possibly live in for more than four months in the year? Besides—besides—" But again, as if checked by some potent inner influence, she broke off short. Her white face quivered suddenly, and she turned it aside. Her hands were convulsively clenched upon each other.
Her cousin did not move. He seemed to be unaware of her agitation.Simply with much patience he waited for her end of the sentence.
It came at last in a voice half-strangled. She was making almost frantic efforts to control herself. "Besides, I couldn't stand it—yet. I am not strong enough. And he—he wouldn't understand, poor boy. I think—I honestly think—I am better away from him for the present"
Blake made no further inquiries. From Daisy's point of view, he seemed to be standing motionless, but in reality he was quite unconsciously, though very deliberately, pulling the tassel of the blind-cord to shreds.
The clouds had passed, and the sun blazed down full upon him, throwing his splendid outline into high relief. Every detail of his massive frame was strongly revealed. There was about him a species of careless magnificence, wholly apart from arrogance, unfettered, superb.
To Daisy, familiar as she was with every line of him, the sudden revelation of the sunlight acted like a charm. She had been hiding her eyes for many days from all light, veiling them in the darkness of her grief, and the splendour of the man fairly dazzled her. It rushed upon her, swift, overmastering as a tidal wave, and before it even the memory of her sorrow grew dim.
Blake, turning at last, met her eyes fixed full upon him with that in their expression which no man could ignore. She had not expected him to turn. The movement disconcerted her. With a sharp jerk She averted her face, seeking to cover that momentary slip, to persuade him even then, if it were possible, into the belief that he had not seen aright.
But it was too late. That unguarded look of hers had betrayed her, rending asunder in an instant the veil with which for years she had successfully baffled him.
In a second he was on his knees beside her, his arms about her, holding her with a close and passionate insistence.
"Daisy!" he whispered huskily. And again, "Daisy!"
And Daisy turned with a sudden deep sob and hid her face upon his breast.
In spite of Olga's ecstatic welcome, Muriel took her place on the hockey-field that afternoon with a heavy heart. Her long attendance upon Daisy had depressed her. But gradually, as the play proceeded, she began to forget herself and her troubles. The spring air exhilarated her, and when they returned to the field after a sharp shower her spirits had risen. She became even childishly gay in the course of a hotly-contested battle, and the sadness gradually died out of her eyes. She had grown less shy, less restrained, than of old. Youth and health, and a dawning, unconscious beauty had sprung to life upon her face. She was no longer the frightened, bereft child of Simla days. She no longer hid a monstrous fear in her heart. She had put it all away from her wisely, resolutely, as a tale that is told.
The wild wind had blown the hair all loose about her face by the time the last goal was won. Hatless, flushed, and laughing, she drew back from the fray, Olga, elated by victory, clinging to her arm. It was a moment of keen triumph, for the fight had been hard, and she enjoyed it to the full as she stood there with her face to the sudden, scudding rain. The glow of exercise had braced every muscle. Every pulse was beating with warm, vigorous life.
She laughed aloud in sheer exultation, a low, merry laugh, and turned with Olga to march in triumphant procession from the field.
In that instant from a gate a few yards away that led into the road there sounded the short, imperious note of a motor-horn, repeated many times in a succession of sharp blasts. Every one stood to view the intruder with startled curiosity for perhaps five seconds. Then there came a sudden squeal of rapture from Olga, and in a moment she had torn her arm free and was gone, darting like a swallow over the turf.
Muriel stood looking after her, but she was as one turned to stone. She was no longer aware of the children grouped around her. She no longer saw the fleeting sunshine, or felt the drift of rain in her face. Something immense and suffocating had closed about her heart. Her racing pulses had ceased to beat.
A figure familiar to her—a man's figure, unimposing in height, unremarkable in build, but straight, straight as his own sword-blade—had bounded from the car and scaled the intervening gate with monkey-like agility.
He met the child's wild rush with one arm extended; the other—Muriel frowned sharply, peering with eyes half closed, then uttered a queer choked sound that had the semblance of a laugh—in place of the other arm there was an empty sleeve.
Through the rush of the wind she heard his voice.
"Hullo, kiddie, hullo! Hope I don't intrude. I've come over on purpose to pay my respects."
Olga's answer did not reach her. She was hanging round her hero's neck, and her head was down upon Nick's shoulder. It seemed to Muriel that she was crying, but if so, she received scant sympathy from the object of her solicitude. His cracked, gay laugh rang out across the field.
"What? Why, yesterday, to be sure. Spent the night in town. No, I knowI didn't. Never meant to. Wanted to steal a march on you all. Why not?I say, is that—Muriel?"
For the first time he seemed to perceive her, and instantly with a dexterous movement he had disengaged himself from Olga's clinging arms and was briskly approaching her. Two of the doctor's boys sprang to greet him, but he waved them airily aside.
"All right, you chaps, in a minute! Where's Dr. Jim? Go and tell himI'm here."
And then in a couple of seconds more they were face to face.
Muriel stared at him speechlessly. She felt cold from head to foot. She had known that he was coming. She had been steeling herself for weeks to meet him in an armour of conventional reserve. But all her efforts had come to this. Swift, swift as the wind over wheat, his coming swept across her new-born confidence. It wavered and bent its head.
"Does your Excellency deign to remember the least and humblest of her servants?" queried Nick, with a deep salaam.
The laugh in his tone brought her sharply back to the demand of circumstance. Before the watching crowd of children, she forced her white lips to smile in answer, and in a moment she had recovered her self-possession. She remembered with a quick sense of relief that this man's power over her belonged to the past alone—to the tale that was told.
The hand she held out to him was almost steady. "Yes, I remember you,Nick," she said, with chilly courtesy. "I am sorry you have been ill.Are you better?"
He made a queer grimace at her words, and for the second that her hand lay in his, she knew that he looked at her closely, piercingly.
"Thanks—awfully," he said. "As you may have noticed, there is a little less of me than there used to be. I hope you think it's an improvement."
She felt as if he had flung back her conventional sympathy in her face, and she stiffened instinctively. "I am sorry to see it," she returned icily.
Nick laughed enigmatically. "I thought you would be. Well, Olga, my child, what do you mean by growing up like this in my absence? You used to be just the right size for a kid, and now you are taller than I am."
"I'm not, Nick," the child declared with warmth. "And I never will be, there!"
She slid her arm again round his neck. Her eyes were full of tears.
Nick turned swiftly and bestowed a kiss upon the face which, though the face of a child, was so remarkably like his own.
"Aren't you going to introduce me to your friends?" he said.
"There's no need," said Olga, hugging him closer. "They all knowCaptain Ratcliffe of Wara. Why haven't you got the V.C., Nick, likeCaptain Grange?"
"Didn't qualify for it," returned Nick. "You see, I only distinguished myself by running away. Hullo! It's raining. Just run and tell the chauffeur to drive round to the house. You can go with him. And take your friends too. It'll carry you all. I'm going the garden way with Muriel."
Muriel realised the impossibility of frustrating this plan, though the last thing in the world that she desired was to be alone with him. But the distance to the house was not great. As the children scampered away to the waiting motor-car she moved briskly to leave the field.
Nick walked beside her with his free, elastic swagger. In a few moments he reached out and took her hockey-stick from her.
"Jove!" he said. "It did me good to see you shoot that goal."
"I had no idea you were watching," she returned stiffly.
He grinned. "No, I saw that. Fun, wasn't it? Like to know what I said to myself?"
She made no answer, and his grin became a laugh. "I'm sure you would, so I'll tell you. I said, 'Prayer Number One is granted,' and I ticked it off the list, and duly acknowledged the same."
Muriel was plainly mystified. He was in the mood that most baffled her. "I don't know what you mean," she said at last.
Nick swung the hockey-stick idly. His yellow face, for all its wrinkles, looked peculiarly complacent.
"Let me explain," he said coolly; "I wanted to see you young again, and—my want has been satisfied, that's all."
Muriel looked sharply away from him, the vivid colour rushing all over her face. She remembered—and the memory seemed to stab her—a day long, long ago when she had lain in this man's arms in the extremity of helpless suffering, and had heard him praying above her head, brokenly, passionately, for something far different—something from which she had come to shrink with a nameless, overmastering dread.
She quickened her pace in the silence that followed. The rain was coming down sharply. Reaching the door that led into the doctor's walled garden, she stretched out her hand with impetuous haste to push it open.
Instantly, with disconcerting suddenness, Nick dropped the hockey-stick and swooped upon it like a bird of prey.
"Who gave you that?" he demanded.
He had spied a hoop of diamonds upon her third finger. She could not see his eyes under the flickering lids, but he held her wrist forcibly, and it seemed to her that there was a note of savagery in his voice.
Her heart beat fast for a few seconds, so fast that she could not find her voice. Then, almost under her breath, "Blake gave it to me," she said. "Blake Grange."
"Yes?" said Nick. "Yes?"
Suddenly he looked straight at her, and his eyes were alight, fierce, glowing. But she felt a curious sense of scared relief, as if he were behind bars,—an eagle caged, of which she need have no fear.
"We are engaged to be married," she said quietly.
There fell a momentary silence, and a voice cried out in her soul that she had stabbed him through the bars.
Then in a second Nick dropped her hands and stooped to pick up the hockey-stick. His face as he stood up again flashed back to its old, baffling gaiety.
"What ho!" he said lightly. "Then I'm in time to dance at the wedding.Pray accept my heartiest congratulations!"
Muriel murmured her thanks with her face averted. She was no longer afraid merely, but strangely, inexplicably ashamed.
The news of Nick's return spread like wildfire through the doctor's house, and the whole establishment assembled to greet him. Jim himself came striding out into the rain to shake his hand and escort him in.
His "Hullo, you scapegrace!" had in it little of sentiment, but there was nothing wanting in his welcome in the opinion of the recipient thereof.
Nick's rejoinder of "Hullo, you old buffer!" was equally free from any gloss of eloquence, but he hooked his hand in the doctor's arm as he made it, and kept it there.
Jim gave him one straight, keen look that took in every detail, but he made no verbal comment of any sort. His heavy brows drew together for an instant, that was all.
It was an exceedingly clamorous home-coming. The children, having arrived in the motor, swarmed all about the returned hero, who was more than equal to the occasion, and obviously enjoyed his boisterous reception to the uttermost. There never had been any shyness about Nick.
Muriel, standing watching in the background with a queer, unaccountable pain at her heart, assured herself that the news of her engagement had meant nothing to him whatever. He had managed to deceive her as usual. She realised it with burning cheeks, and ardently wished that she had borne herself more proudly. Well, she was not wanted here. Even Olga, her faithful and loving admirer, had eyes only for Nick just then. As for Dr. Jim, he had not even noticed her.
Quietly she stole away from the merry, chattering group. The hall-door stood open, and she saw that it was raining heavily; but she did not hesitate. With a haste that was urged from within by something that was passionate, she ran out hatless into the storm.
The cracked, careless laugh she knew so well pursued her as she went, and once she fancied that some one called her by name. But she did not slacken speed to listen. She only dashed on a little faster than before.
Drenched and breathless, she reached home at length, to be met upon the threshold by Blake. In her exhaustion she almost fell into his arms.
"Hullo!" he said, steadying her. "You shouldn't run like that. I never dreamed you would come back in this, or I would have come across with an umbrella to fetch you."
She sank into a chair in the hall, speechless and gasping, her hair hanging about her neck in wildest disorder.
Blake stood beside her. He was wearing his worried, moody look.
"You shouldn't," he said again. "It's horribly bad for you."
"Ah, I'm better," she gasped back. "I had to run—all the way—because of the rain."
"But why didn't you wait?" said Blake. "What were they thinking of to let you come in this down-pour?"
"They couldn't help it." Muriel raised herself with a great sobbing sigh. "It was nobody's fault but my own. I wanted to get away. Oh, Blake, do you know—Nick is here?"
Blake started. "What? Already? Do you mean he is actually in the place?"
She nodded. "He came up in a motor while we were playing. I suppose he is staying at Redlands, but I don't know. And—and—Blake, he has lost his left arm. It makes him look so queer." She gave a sudden, uncontrollable shudder. The old dumb horror looked out of her eyes. "I thought I shouldn't mind," she said, under her breath. "Perhaps—if you had been there—it would have been different. As it was—as it was—" She broke off, rising impetuously to her feet, and laying trembling hands upon his arms. "Oh, Blake," she whispered, like a scared child. "I feel so helpless. But you promised—you promised—you would never let me go."
Yes, he had promised her that. He had sworn it, and, sick at heart, he remembered that in her eyes at least he was a man of honour. It had been in his mind to tell her the simple truth, just so far as he himself was concerned, and thereafter to place himself at her disposal to act exactly as she should desire. But suddenly this was an impossibility to him. He realised it with desperate self-loathing. She trusted him. She looked to him for protection. She leaned upon his strength. She needed him. He could not—it almost seemed as if in common chivalry he could not—reveal to her the contemptible weakness which lay like a withering blight upon his whole nature. To own himself the slave of a married woman, and that woman her closest friend, would be to throw her utterly upon her own resources at a time when she most needed the support and guidance of a helping hand. Moreover, the episode was over; so at least both he and Daisy resolutely persuaded themselves. There had been a lapse—a vain and futile lapse—into the long-cherished idyll of their romance. It must never recur. It never should recur. It must be covered over and forgotten as speedily as might be. They had come to their senses again. They were ready, not only to thrust away the evil that had dominated them, but to ignore it utterly as though it had never been.
So, rapidly, the man reasoned with himself with the girl's hands clasping his arm in earnest entreaty, and her eyes of innocence raised to his.
His answer when it came was slow and soft and womanly, but, in her ears at least, there was nothing wanting in it. She never dreamed that he was reviling himself for a blackguard even as he uttered it.
"My dear little girl, there is nothing whatever for you to be afraid of. You're a bit overstrung, aren't you? The man isn't living who could take you from me."
He patted her shoulder very kindly, soothing her with a patient, almost fatherly tenderness, and gradually her panic of fear passed. She leaned against him with a comforting sense of security.
"I can't think how it is I'm so foolish," she told him. "You are good to me, Blake. I feel so safe when I am with you."
His heart smote him, yet he bent and kissed her. "You're not quite strong yet, dear," he said. "It takes a long time to get over all that you had to bear last year."
"Yes," she agreed with a sigh. "And do you know I thought I was so much stronger than I am? I actually thought that I shouldn't mind—much—when he came. And yet I did mind—horribly. I—I—told him about our engagement, Blake."
"Yes, dear," said Blake.
"Yes, I told him. And he laughed and offered his congratulations. I don't think he cared," said Muriel, again with that curious, inexplicable sensation of pain at her heart.
"Why should he?" said Blake.
She looked at him with momentary irresolution. "You know, Blake, I never told you. But I was—I was—engaged to him for about a fortnight that dreadful time at Simla."
To her relief she marked no change in Blake's courteously attentive face.
"You need not have told me that, dear," he said quietly.
"No, I know," she answered, pressing his arm. "It wouldn't make any difference to you. You are too great. And it was always a little bit against my will. But the breaking with him was terrible—terrible. He was so angry. I almost thought he would have killed me."
"My dear," Blake said, "you shouldn't dwell on these things. They are better forgotten."
"I know, I know," she answered. "But they are just the very hardest of all things to forget. You must help me, Blake. Will you?"
"I will help you," he answered steadily.
And the resolution with which he spoke was an unspeakable comfort to her. Once more there darted across her mind the wonder at her father's choice for her. How was it—how was it—that he had passed over this man and chosen Nick?
Blake's own explanation of the mystery seemed to her suddenly weak and inadequate. She simply could not bring herself to believe that in a supreme moment he could be found wanting. It was unthinkable that the giant frame and mighty sinews could belong to a personality that was lacking in a corresponding greatness.
So she clung to her illusion, finding comfort therein, wholly blind to those failings in her protector which to the woman who had loved him from her earliest girlhood were as obvious and well-nigh as precious as his virtues.