Читать книгу: «Captain Desmond, V.C.», страница 10

"What is the meaning of this, Evelyn?" he demanded, bringing his hand down on the desk beside her; and one glance at the half sheet lying beneath it was enough. That particular bill had grown painfully familiar during the last few months. It was from Lahore, and its total was no less than three hundred rupees. Her husband's waiting silence was more disconcerting than speech.

"It's mine," she murmured breathlessly; and snatched at the offending scrap of paper, tearing it in two.

"The bill is mine now," Desmond rebuked her with studied equanimity. "You can't cancel it by destroying it. No doubt you've got another copy. Will you let me have it and any others you happen to have by you?"

"Where's the use of that?.. You can't pay off anything now."

"I can and will pay off every penny. But I must know exactly how you stand."

For all his coldness, the assurance fell on her heart like rain on thirsty soil. Where the money was to come from she could not guess. But she knew enough of the man to feel sure that his words would be fulfilled to the letter.

One consideration only withheld her from reply. How much did she dare confess to him even now? Not Miss Kresney's transaction; nor the need of new dresses for Lahore. But the rest!.. What an unspeakable comfort it would be to fling all the rest on to his shoulders, that seemed broad and strong enough to carry her burdens and his own.

Her hesitancy pricked him to impatience.

"Well, Evelyn, I am waiting for your answer. Are there other bills besides that one? – Yes or No. I want the truth. Don't stop to embroider it."

At that the blood flew to her cheeks. She sprang up and faced him, tremulous, but defiant.

"If you say things like that to me, I won't tell you anything at all … ever." And turning sharply away, to hide her tears, she went over to the mantelpiece and leaned upon it, keeping her back towards him.

Desmond followed her.

"I am sorry if I hurt you," he said, a touch of bitterness in his tone. "But the fact that I can speak so without doing you a gross injustice hurts me more than you are ever likely to understand."

"You make it all seem much worse – than it really is," she answered without looking round. "I haven't done anything dreadful, after all. Heaps of people get into debt. You weren't so angry with Mr Denvil; and – and – if you hadn't been in such a hurry to help him, you'd have found it easier to help me now."

"No need to fling that in my teeth, or drag the Boy into the discussion. The cases are not parallel, and you have only yourself to thank that my money went to him instead of you. In my anxiety to avoid anything of this sort, I have questioned you several times, and each time you have told me a lie. The whole pile of bills are nothing to me in comparison with that. I suppose I ought to have known that you could hardly dress as you do on the little I can spare. But I was fool enough to trust you implicitly." He paused, and added with greater gentleness: "What's more, I shall trust you again, unless you make that quite impossible. But I warn you – Ladybird, that if ever you do kill my trust in you, you will kill – everything else along with it."

"Theo!"

There was sharp pain in the cry, and she swung round, flinging out her hands with a pathetic gesture of entreaty. He did not take them as she half hoped he would; but stood looking at her in a thoughtful silence. Then, "If you care as much as that," he said slowly, "it lies with you not to fling away the thing you care for. Will you please let me see those bills."

"They are on the bureau. You can take them."

She turned again to the mantelpiece, for her lips were not quite steady.

"You were going to tell me about them, perhaps?"

"N – no. I wasn't."

He sighed; and taking up the papers, looked through them absently, too deeply troubled to grasp their contents.

"Are these all?" he asked quietly.

"Nearly all."

"Have you any idea of the total?"

"About six hundred rupees."

A short silence followed, during which she again heard the rustle of paper behind her, and longed for a sight of his face.

"I am afraid this knocks the Lahore week on the head," he said at length. "I am bound to run down for the Polo Tournament, of course; but I can come straight back, and we must do without the rest of it this year."

The incredible words roused Evelyn to open mutiny. Once more she faced him, her head flung backward, a ring of resolve in her voice.

"No, Theo, … I won't do without the rest of it. You don't care, I daresay! So long as you can win the Punjab Cup, nothing else matters. But Christmas week is my only bit of real pleasure in all the cold weather, and I will go down for it, … whatever you say."

Theo Desmond was completely taken aback; and when surprise gave place to speech, his tone suggested the iron hand under the velvet glove.

"My dear little woman, you are talking nonsense. If I find it impossible to manage Lahore, you will remain here. There can be no question about that."

But Evelyn persisted with the courage of despair.

"Then you mustn't find it impossible, … that's all! There has been nothing but giving up ever since we came from Murree. I'm sick of it; and I won't give up Christmas week, too. It's quite hard enough for me as it is, being stranded in the most hopeless part of India because of you, without your grudging my few little pleasures as well." And sinking into a chair, she hid her face in her hands.

The victory is more often to the unscrupulous than to the strong. His wife's injustice cut Desmond to the quick. Impulsive renunciation sprang to his lips; and was only checked by the remembrance that he had given Honor his word.

"Evelyn – Evelyn," he pleaded with sudden vehemence, "for Heaven's sake have a little consideration for facts – if you have none for me. I grudge you nothing – I have never done so – and you know it. But – if you really find Frontier life intolerable, I can only give you free leave to go home, directly I scrape together the money for your passage."

"Go home – ?" she echoed in blank bewilderment. "What do you mean?"

"What I say."

"But – wouldn't you come too?"

"No. I have no leave due now; and if I had, I couldn't afford to take it."

"You want me to go?" she flashed out in a tremor of apprehension. "I'm only a hindrance to you here. That's the real truth, I suppose?"

"I never said that, and I have given you no grounds for thinking it."

"But do you, Theo —do you?"

Her eyes searched his face for confirmation of her suspicion, and found none.

"What I want or don't want is beside the mark," he said. "I naturally wish to see you happy; and as that evidently can't be managed here, I am willing to let you go and be happy elsewhere."

Her eyes fell and her answer came almost in a whisper.

"But I couldn't be happy anywhere else – without you."

"Is that the truth?"

"Yes."

"You'd prefer to stay here – with me?"

"Yes."

He laid his hand for an instant on her bent head.

"Stay then, Ladybird, by all means. Only, for pity's sake, spare me any more of the sort of things you said just now."

"And you won't stop me from going to Lahore, Theo? – Promise."

A swift change of expression crossed his face.

"I can't promise that. I'll do my best not to disappoint you, but I must get all these cleared off before I think of anything else."

"How can you manage to clear them off – now?"

"Why trouble your head about side issues? They will all be paid before Christmas; that ought to be enough for you."

"But it's not enough. Tell me what you are going to do – tell me. I won't be pushed on one side like a child."

Desmond frowned.

"Well – if you insist on having it, I am going to sell Diamond."

She started and caught at his arm. For all his matter-of-fact coolness, she knew what those half-dozen words meant to her husband.

"No, – no Theo. Not Diamond! He's the best of them all."

"Exactly. He'll sell quicker and fetch a longer price than any of the others; that's why – he must go."

"But the tournament? Captain Olliver's mad about winning the Cup this year."

"I know that. So am I. I shall manage about a third pony, no fear. Time enough to think of that later. I must go and make out those advertisements."

He set his teeth upon the word and turned to leave her, but her voice arrested him half-way to the door.

"Theo!"

"Well?"

"Are you sure there's nothing else that can be done? It – it isn't fair for you to lose the pony you love best, just because of a few dressmakers' bills."

At that his pent-up bitterness slipped from leash.

"Upon my soul, Evelyn, you're right. But there's no other way out of the difficulty, so let's have no more words about it: they don't make things easier to bear."

CHAPTER XIV.
I SIMPLY INSIST

 
"The fountains of my hidden life,
Are, through thy friendship, fair."
 

– Emerson.

Not many days later Desmond's advertisements appeared simultaneously in the only two newspapers of Upper India; and he set his face like a flint in anticipation of the universal remonstrance in store for him, when the desperate step he had taken became known to the regiment.

He was captain of the finest polo team on the frontier; the one great tournament of the year – open to every Punjab regiment, horse and foot – would begin in less than a fortnight; and he, who had never parted with a polo pony in his life, was advertising the pick of his stable for sale. A proceeding so unprecedented, so perplexing to all who knew him, could not, in the nature of things, be passed over in silence. Desmond knew – none better – that victory or defeat may hang on the turn of a hair; that, skilled player though he was, the introduction of a borrowed pony, almost at the last moment, into a team trained for months to play in perfect accord was unwise, to say the least of it; knew also that he would be called upon to justify his own unwisdom at so critical a juncture, when all hearts were set on winning the coveted Punjab Cup.

And justification was out of the question, – there lay the sting.

Loyalty to Evelyn sealed his lips; and even the loss of his best-loved pony was less hard to bear than the possibility of being misjudged by his brother officers, whose faith in him had come to be an integral part of his life.

In his present cooler frame of mind he saw that his action had been over-hasty; but with men of vehement temperament, to think is to feel, to feel is to act, – reflection comes last, if it ever comes at all. The first heat of vexation, the discovery of his wife's untrustworthiness and the sacrifice it entailed, had blinded him to all minor considerations.

But these were details that could not be put into words. The thing was done. To put a brave face on it, and to shield Evelyn from the result of her own misdoing – there lay his simple duty in a nutshell. The risk must be accepted, and the Punjab Cup carried off in its despite. This man owed more than he knew to the "beholden face of victory"; to his life-long determination that, no matter what happened, he must conquer.

In the meanwhile immediate issues demanded his full attention.

Harry Denvil, as might be expected, sounded the first note of protest.

He invaded the sacred precincts of his senior's study with audacious lack of ceremony.

"Forgive me, Desmond: but there was no one in the verandah, and I couldn't wait. Of course you know what's in the wind. The Colonel came on that advertisement of yours in 'The Pioneer' just before tiffin, and you should have heard him swear! He showed it to Major Wyndham, and asked: 'Was it a practical joke?' But the Major seemed quite cut up; said he knew nothing about it, and you would probably have good reasons to give. The rest didn't take it so quietly; but of course I understood at once. For God's sake, old chap, cancel that confounded advertisement, and take back your eight hundred. I can borrow it again from the shroff, just for the present. Anything's better than letting you in for the loss of Diamond at a time like this."

He broke off more from lack of breath than lack of matter; and Desmond, who had risen to cope with the intruder, put both hands upon the Boy's shoulders, a great kindliness softening his eyes.

"My dear Harry, don't distress yourself," he said. "I appreciate your generosity a good deal more than I care to say. But you are not in any way to blame for the loss of Diamond."

"But, Desmond – I don't understand – "

"There are more things in heaven and earth…!" Desmond quoted, smiling. "It's like your impertinence to understand everything at four-and-twenty."

"Oh, shut up!" the other retorted, laughing in spite of himself. "Can't you see I'm in earnest? You don't mean to tell me – ?"

"No, Harry, I don't mean to tell you anything about it. I'm not responsible to you for my actions. Stay and have a pipe with me to cool you down a bit. Not another word about my affairs, or I take you by the shoulders and put you outside the door."

Thus much for Denvil. But the rest could not be treated in this summary fashion.

Wyndham put in an appearance at polo that afternoon. He played fitfully; and at other times rode out to the ground, which lay a mile or so beyond the station. To-day it chanced – or possibly Paul so contrived it – that he and Desmond rode home together, a little behind the others.

A low sun stretched out all the hills; distorted the shadows of the riders; and flung a golden pollen of radiance over the barren land.

The habit of silence was strong between these two men; and for a while it lasted unbroken. Desmond was riding his favourite pony, a spirited chestnut Arab, swift as a swallow, sensitive as a child, bearing on his forehead the white star to which he owed his name. The snaffle hung loose upon his neck, and Desmond's hand rested upon the silken shoulder as if in a mute caress. He knew what was coming, and awaited Paul's pleasure with stoical resignation.

Wyndham considered the strong, straight lines of his friend's profile thoughtfully; then he spoke:

"You gave us all rather a shock this morning, Theo."

"I'm sorry for that. I was afraid there'd be some bother about it. But needs must – when the devil drives."

"The devil that drives you is your own incurable pride," Paul answered with unusual warmth. "You know, without forcing me to put it in words, that every rupee I possess is at your service. You might have given me a chance before going such lengths as this."

Desmond shook his head. The man's fastidious soul revolted from the idea of using Paul's money to pay his wife's bills.

"Not in these circumstances," he said. "It wasn't pride that held me back; but a natural sense of the justice and – fitness of things. You must take that on trust, Paul."

"Why, of course, my dear chap. But how about the fitness of parting with that pony just before the tournament? As captain of the team, do you think you are acting quite fairly by the Regiment?"

The shot told. Among soldiers of the best sort the Regiment is apt to be a fetish, and to Desmond the lightest imputation of disregard for its welfare was intolerable.

"Is that how the other fellows look at it?" he asked, a troubled note in his voice.

"Well, if they do, one can hardly blame them. They naturally want to know what you mean to do about the tournament after you have let your best pony go? I take it for granted that you have some sort of plan in your head."

"Yes. I am counting on you to lend me Esmeralda. It's only the 6th now; and if I train her for all I'm worth between this and the 20th, I can get her up to the scratch."

Paul's answering smile was oddly compact of tenderness and humour.

"So that's your notion? You'll deign to make use of me so far? Upon my soul, Theo, you deserve that I should refuse, since you won't give me the satisfaction of doing what would be far more to the purpose."

Desmond looked his friend steadily in the eyes.

"You'll not refuse, though," he said quietly, and Paul shook his head. By way of thanks, Theo laid his hand impulsively upon Wyndham's arm.

"I'm sure you understand, dear old man, that it's not easy or pleasant for me to part with Diamond, or to shut you out and refuse your help; but I can't endure that the rest of them should think me slack or careless of their interests."

"They know you far too well to think anything of the sort. By the way, what arrangements are you making for Lahore?"

"None at all. Honor will go, I daresay; and I shall run down for the polo. But fifteen days' leave is out of the question."

Paul turned sharply in his saddle.

"Now, look here, Theo – you're going too far. I make no offer this time. I simply insist!"

Desmond hesitated. The thought of Evelyn was knocking at his heart.

"You know I hate accepting that sort of thing," he objected, "even from you."

Wyndham laughed.

"That's your peculiar form of selfishness, my dear chap. You want to keep the monopoly of giving in your own hands. Very wholesome for you to have the tables turned. Besides," urged the diplomatist, boldly laying down his trump card, "it would be a great disappointment to your wife not to go down with us all and see the matches."

"Yes. That's just the difficulty."

"I'm delighted to hear it! The Lahore week shall be my Christmas present to her and you; and there's an end of that dilemma."

"Thank you, Paul," Desmond said simply. "I'll tell her to-night. Come over to dinner," he added as they parted. "The Ollivers will be there; and I may stand in need of protection."

The sound of music greeted him from the hall, and he found Honor playing alone in the dusk.

"Please go on," he said, as she rose to greet him. "It's what I want more than anything at this moment."

The girl flushed softly, and turned back to the instrument. Any one who had heard her playing before Desmond came in, could scarcely have failed to note the subtle change in its quality. She made of her music a voice of sympathy, evolved from the heart of the great German masters; whose satisfying strength and simplicity – so far removed from the restless questioning of our later day – were surely the outcome of a large faith in God; of the certainty that effort, aspiration, and endurance, despite their seeming futility, can never fail to be very much worth while.

In this fashion Honor reassured her friend to his complete comprehension; and while he sat listening and watching her in the half light, he fell to wondering how it came about that this girl, with her generous warmth of heart, her twofold beauty of the spirit and the flesh, should still be finding her central interest in the lives of others rather than in her own. Was the inevitable awakening over and done with? Or was it yet to come? He inclined to the latter view, and the thought of Paul sprang to his mind. Here, surely, was the one woman worthy of his friend. But then, Paul held strong views about marriage, and it was almost impossible to picture the good fellow in love.

Nevertheless, the good fellow was, at that time, more profoundly, more irrevocably in love than Desmond himself had ever been, notwithstanding the fact of his marriage. His theories had proved mere dust in the balance when weighed against his strong, simple-hearted love for Honor Meredith. Yet the passing of nine months found him no nearer to open recantation. If a man has learnt nothing else by the time he is thirty-eight, he has usually gained possession of his soul, and at no stage of his life had Paul shown the least talent for taking a situation by storm. In the attainment of Honor's friendship, this most modest of men felt himself blest beyond desert; and watch as he might for the least indication of a deeper feeling, he had hitherto watched in vain. It never occurred to him that his peculiarly reticent form of wooing – if wooing it could be called – was hardly calculated to enlighten her as to the state of his heart. He merely reined in his great longing and awaited possible developments; accepting, in all thankfulness, the certain good that was his, and determined not to risk the loss of it without some hope of greater gain.

But of all these things Desmond guessed nothing as he sat, in the dusk of that December evening, speculating on the fate of the girl whose friendship he frankly regarded as one of the goodliest gifts of life.

When at last she rose from the piano, he rose also.

"Thank you," he said with quiet emphasis. "How well you understand!"

"Don't let yourself be troubled by anything the Ollivers may say or think," she answered softly. "You are doing your simple duty, Theo, and I am sure Major Wyndham, even without knowing all the facts, will understand quite as well – as I do."

With that she left him, because the fulness of her understanding put a check upon further speech.

That night, when the little party had broken up without open warfare, and Desmond stood alone with his wife before the drawing-room fire, he told her of Wyndham's generosity.

"You'll get your week at Lahore, Ladybird," he said. "And you owe it to Paul. He wishes us to accept the trip as his Christmas present."

"Oh, Theo…!" A quick flush revealed her delight at the news, and she made a small movement towards him; but nothing came of it. Six months ago she would have nestled close to him, certain of the tender endearments which had grown strangely infrequent of late. Now an indefinable shyness checked the spontaneous caress, the eager words upon her lips. But her husband, who was looking thoughtfully into the fire, seemed serenely unaware of the fact.

"You're happy about it, aren't you?" he asked at length.

"Yes – of course – very happy."

"That's all right; and I'm glad I wasn't driven to disappoint you. Now get to bed; and sleep soundly on your rare bit of good luck. I have still a lot of work to get through."

She accepted his kindly dismissal with an altogether new docility; and on arriving in her own room gave conclusive proof of her happiness by flinging herself on the bed in a paroxysm of stifled sobbing.

"Oh, if only I had told him sooner!" she lamented through her tears. "Now I don't believe he'll ever really forgive me, or love me properly again."

And, in a measure, she was right. Trust her he might, as in duty bound; but to be as he had been before eating the bitter fruit of knowledge was, for the present at all events, out of his power.

Since their momentous talk nearly a week ago, Evelyn had felt herself imperceptibly held at arms' length, and the vagueness of the sensation increased her discomfort tenfold. No word of reproach had passed his lips, nor any further mention of Diamond or the bills; nothing so quickly breeds constraint between two people as conscious avoidance of a subject that is seldom absent from the minds of both. Yet Theo was scrupulously kind, forbearing, good-tempered – everything, in short, save the tender, lover-like husband he had been to her during the first eighteen months of marriage. And she had only herself to blame, – there lay the sharpest pang of all. Life holds no anodyne for the sorrows we bring upon ourselves.

As the days wore on she watched Theo's face anxiously, at post time, for any sign of an answer to that hateful advertisement; and before the week's end she knew that the punishment that should have been hers had fallen on her husband's shoulders.

Coming into breakfast one morning, she found him studying an open letter with a deep furrow between his brows. At sight of her he started and slipped it into his pocket.

The meal was a silent one. Evelyn found the pattern of her plate curiously engrossing. Desmond, after a few hurried mouthfuls, excused himself and went out. Then Evelyn looked up; and the tears that hung on her lashes overflowed.

"He – he's gone to the stables, Honor," she said brokenly. "He got an answer this morning; – I'm sure he did. But he – he won't tell me anything now. Where's the use of being married to him if he's always going on like this? I wish – I wish he could sell —me to that man, instead of Diamond. He wouldn't mind it half as much – "

And with this tragic announcement – which, for at least five minutes, she implicitly believed – her head went down upon her hands.

Honor soothed her very tenderly, realising that she sorrowed with the despair of a child who sees the world's end in every broken toy.

"Hush – hush!" she remonstrated. "You mustn't think anything so foolish, so unjust. Theo is very magnanimous, Evelyn. He will see you are sorry, and then it will all go smoothly again."

"But there's the – the other thing," murmured the pretty sinner with a doleful shake of her head. "He won't forgive me that; and he doesn't seem to see that I'm sorry. I wanted to tell him this morning, when I saw that letter. But he somehow makes me afraid to say a word about it."

"Better not try yet awhile, dear. When a man is in trouble, there is nothing he thanks one for so heartily as for letting him alone till it is well over."

Evelyn looked up again with a misty smile.

"I can't think why you know so much about men, Honor. How do you find out those sort of things?"

"I suppose it's because I've always cared very much for men," – she made the statement quite unblushingly. "Loving people is the only sure way of understanding them in the long-run."

"Is it?.. You are clever, Honor. But it doesn't seem to help me much with Theo."

Such prompt, personal application of her philosophy of the heart was a little disconcerting. The girl could not well reply that in love there are a thousand shades, and very few are worthy of the name.

"It will help you in time," she said reassuringly. "It is one of the few things that cannot fail. And to-day, at least, you have learnt that when things are going hardly with Theo, it is kindest and wisest to leave him alone."

Evelyn understood this last, and registered a valiant resolve to that effect.

But the day's events gave her small chance of acting on her new-found knowledge. Desmond himself took the initiative: and save for a bare half-hour at tiffin, she saw him no more until the evening.

Perhaps only the man who has trained and loved a polo pony can estimate the pain and rebellion of spirit that he was combating, doggedly and in silence; or condone the passing bitterness he felt towards his uncomprehending wife.

He spent more time than usual in the stables, where Diamond nuzzled into his breast-pocket for slices of apple and sugar; and Diamond's sais lifted up his voice and wept, on receipt of an order to start for Pindi with his charge on the following day.

"There is no Sahib like my Sahib in all Hind," he protested, his turban within an inch of Desmond's riding-boot. "The Sahib is my father and my mother! How should we serve a stranger, Hazúr, – the pony and I?"

"Nevertheless, it is an order," Desmond answered not unkindly, "that thou shouldst remain with the pony, sending word from time to time that all goeth well with him. Rise up. It is enough."

Returning to the house, he hardened his heart, and accepted the unwelcome offer from Pindi.

"What a confounded fool I am!" he muttered, as he stamped and sealed the envelope. "I'd sooner shoot the little chap than part with him in this way."

But the letter was posted, nevertheless.

He excused himself from polo, and rode over to Wyndham's bungalow, where he found Paul established in the verandah with his invariable companions – a pipe, and a volume of poetry or philosophy.

"Come along, and beat me at rackets, old man," he said without dismounting. "I'm 'off' polo to-day. We can go for a canter afterwards."

Wyndham needed no further explanation. A glance at Theo's face was enough. They spent four hours together; talked of all things in heaven and earth, except the one sore subject; and parted with a smile of amused understanding.

"Quite like old times!" Paul remarked, and Desmond nodded. For it was a habit, dating from early days, that whenever the pin-pricks of life chafed Theo's impatient spirit, he would seek out his friend, spend an hour or two in his company, and tell him precisely nothing.

Thanks to Paul's good offices, dinner was a pleasanter meal than the earlier ones had been. But Evelyn looked white and woe-begone; and Honor wisely carried her off to bed, leaving Desmond to his pipe and his own discouraging thoughts.

These proved so engrossing that he failed to hear a step in the verandah, and started when two hands came quietly down upon his shoulders.

No need to ask whose they were. Desmond put up his own and caught them in a strong grip.

"Old times again, is it?" he asked, with a short satisfied laugh. "Brought your pipe along?"

"Yes."

"Good business. There's your chair, – it always seems yours to me still. Have a 'peg'?"

Paul shook his head, and drew his chair up to the fire with deliberate satisfaction.

"Light up, then; and we'll make a night of it as we used to do in the days before we learned wisdom, and paid for it in hard cash."

"Talking of hard cash – what price d'you get?" the other asked abruptly.

"Seven-fifty."

"Will that cover everything?"

"Yes."

"Theo, – why, in Heaven's name, won't you cancel this wretched business, and take the money from me instead?"

"Too late now. And, in any case, it's out of the question, for reasons that you would be the first to appreciate – if you knew them."

"But look here – suppose I do know – "

Desmond lifted a peremptory hand.

"Whatever you think you know, for God's sake don't put it into words. I'm bound to go through with this, Paul, in the only way that seems right to me. Don't make it harder than it is already. Besides," he added, with a brisk change of tone, "this is modern history! We're pledged to old times to-night."

Evelyn's fantastic French clock struck three, in silver tones, before the two men parted.

"It's an ill wind that blows no good, after all!" Desmond remarked, as he stood in a wide splash of moonlight on the verandah steps. "I feel ten years younger since the morning. Come again soon, dear old man; it's always good to see you."

And Paul Wyndham, riding homeward under the myriad lamps of heaven, thanked God, in his simple devout fashion, for the courage and constancy of his friend's heart.