Читать книгу: «Captain Desmond, V.C.», страница 22

The pain in her voice was more than he could bear.

"For God's sake spare me that!" he pleaded. "I am losing enough as it is."

And now his hands went out to her irresistibly, in the old impulsive fashion, that seemed an echo from a former life.

With superlative courage she turned and surrendered both her own. She wanted to prove herself, at all points, simply his friend; and he gave her no cause to repent of her courage, or to suspect the strong restraint he put upon himself during that brief contact, which, at a moment so charged with emotion, might well have proved fatal to them both.

"Thank you, Honor," he said quietly.

But for her, speech was impossible. She bowed her head, and left him standing alone, with the dregs of victory.

On reaching the blessed shelter of her own room she bolted the door; and for once in her life grief had its way with her unhindered.

She could not guess, while railing against Desmond's tenacity of purpose, that the same passionate self-reproach which had urged her to go all lengths for Evelyn, was urging him now to a supreme act of self-devotion to his wife's happiness.

CHAPTER XXXIII.
THE ONE BIG THING

 
"The sky that noticed all makes no disclosure;
And earth keeps up her terrible composure."
 

– Browning.

His wife herself was, in the meanwhile, journeying hopefully back to the Kresneys' bungalow, on the shoulders of four long-suffering jhampanis, who murmured a little among themselves, without rancour or vexation, concerning the perplexing ways of Memsahibs in general. For the native of India the supreme riddle of creation is the English "Mem."

They had but just cast aside their liveries and, squatting on their heels in a patch of shadow, had embarked on leisurely preparations for the evening hookah and the evening meal. The scent of curry was in their nostrils; the regular "flip-flap" of the deftly turned chupattie was in their ears; when a flying order had come from the house – "The Memsahib goes forth in haste!" With resigned mutterings and head-shakings they had responded to the call of duty, and the mate,³⁰ who was a philosopher, had a word of comfort for them as they went. "Worse might have befallen, brothers, seeing that it hath pleased God to make our Memsahib light as a bird. Had it been the Miss Sahib, now – " A unanimous murmur testified that the Miss Sahib would have been a far weightier affair!

And on this occasion they must have found their mistress even lighter than a bird; for instead of lying back among her cushions, she sat upright, in strained anticipation, pressing between her hands the miraculous envelope which was to buy back for her all that she had so lightly flung away.

Honor had spoken truth when she said that Desmond was the one big thing in Evelyn's life. Everything else about her was small as her person, and little more effectual. But this impetuous, large-hearted husband of hers – whose love she had been so proud to win, and had taken such small pains to keep – could by no means be chiselled into proportions with the rest of the picture. He took his stand, simply and naturally, on the heights; and if it was an effort to keep up with him, it was a real calamity to be left behind. Understand him she could not, and never would; but it sufficed that she saw him fearless, chivalrous, admired on all sides, and singularly good to look at. This last should perhaps have been set down first; for there is no denying that her remorse, her suffering, had been less overwhelming without that unexpected vision of his face.

But things were going to be all right soon. She would never hide anything from him again – never. And the resolve may be counted unto her for righteousness, even if there could be small hope of its fulfilment.

Such absorbing considerations crowded out all thought of Honor's generosity. It was just Honor. No one else would ever give you two hundred rupees, at a moment's notice, as if it were sixpence. But you might expect anything from Honor – that was how she was made. And the one important point was – Theo. Nothing else really mattered at all.

As Kresney's bungalow came in sight she found herself fervently hoping that he might have gone out; that she might have to encounter nothing more formidable than Miss Kresney, or, better still, the bearer.

But before the gate was reached, she caught sight of him in the verandah, taking his ease very completely in one of those ungainly chairs, with arms extending to long wooden leg-rests, which seem to belong to India and no other country in the world. He had exchanged his coat for a Japanese smoking jacket, whose collar and cuffs could ill afford to brave daylight; and his boots for slippers of Linda's making, whose conflicting colours might have set an oyster's teeth on edge! His own teeth were clenched upon a rank cigar; and he was reading a paper-bound novel that she would not have touched with a pair of tongs.

He had never appeared to worse advantage; and Evelyn, fresh from her husband's air of unobtrusive neatness and distinction, was conscious of a sudden recoil – a purely physical revulsion; to which was added the galling thought that she owed her recent suffering and humiliation to her intimacy with a man who could look like that!

As she turned in at the gate, he sprang up and ran down the steps. Her return astounded him. He was prepared for anything at that moment, except the thing that happened – a common human experience.

"Back again, Mrs Desmond!" he cried cheerfully. "This is a most unexpected pleasure. Rukho jhampan."³¹

But Evelyn countermanded the order so promptly that Kresney's eyebrows went up. She handed him her note, clutching the wooden pole nervously with the other hand.

"I had to come out again – on business," she said, with that ready mingling of the false and true which had been her undoing. "And I thought I could leave this for Miss Kresney as I passed. Will you please give it to her. I am sorry she is not in."

He took the envelope, and watched her while she spoke with narrowed eyes.

"You are in trouble?" The intimate note in his voice jarred for the first time. "Something has upset you since you left? You are quite knocked up with all this. You ought to have been in Murree two weeks ago."

And, presumably by accident, his hand came down upon her own. She drew it away with an involuntary shudder; and Kresney's sallow face darkened.

"You have no business to say that," she rebuked him with desperate courage; "I prefer to be with my husband till he is well enough to go too. You won't forget my note, will you? Good-night."

"Good-night, Mrs Desmond," he answered formally, without proffering his hand.

As he stood watching her depart, all that was worst in him rose to the surface and centred in his close-set eyes. "By God, you shall be sorry for that!" he muttered.

But in mounting the steps his curiosity was awakened by the bulkiness of Linda's letter. He turned it over once or twice; pressed it between his fingers and detected the crackle of new bank-notes.

"So that's it, is it? Well, I can forgive her. No doubt she had a jolly hot quarter of an hour; and I hope that fellow is enjoying himself now —like hell!" Then, without a glimmer of hesitation, he opened his sister's letter.

And, out in the road, Evelyn's jhampanis were experiencing fresh proof of the indubitable madness of Memsahibs.

No sooner were their faces set cheerfully homeward, than they were brought up short by an order to turn and carry her in the opposite direction. No destination was specified; and the road indicated led out towards the hills. Hookahs and chupatties tugging at their heart-strings, roused them to mild rebellion. The mate, as established spokesman, murmured of khana³² and the lateness of the hour; adding that the road behind them led away from the Sahibs' bungalows to the boundary of the station.

But Evelyn, whose Hindustani was still a negligible quantity, made no attempt to follow the man's remarks. She reiterated her wish, adding irritably, "Make no foolish talk. It is an order!"

Those magic words, Hukm hai, are the insignia of authority through the length and breadth of India; and consoling one another with the reflection that if the Memsahib had small understanding, the Sahib was great, they jogged obediently along the lonely road toward the hills.

Evelyn's order had been given on the impulse of a moment. The idea of confronting her husband again in less than ten minutes had overpowered her suddenly and completely. She had only one thought – to gain-time; to screw up her courage for the ordeal; and to realise a little what she intended to say. It is only the strong who dare to trust that the right words will be given them.

Her interview with Kresney had unnerved her; and a lurking doubt quenched the spark of hope at her heart. Would Theo accept her tardy obedience without asking unanswerable questions. Or would he simply put her aside, with his inexorable quietness, that was far more terrible than any spoken word?

In all the pain and bewilderment of their short interview, nothing had so smitten her as his recoil – first and last – from the touch of her hands. The bare possibility that he might treat her so again made return seem out of the question. And her unhappiness struck deeper than the fear of the moment. For the first time she realised her own instability of feeling and purpose; and with the realisation came a new paralysing fear of the future – of herself.

For the first time it dawned upon her that she was unworthy of the love and faith that had been given her in such generous measure; – which was proof conclusive, though she did not guess it, that Honor Meredith had not laboured in vain. To know oneself unworthy is to have achieved the first step upward. A year ago she would have been incapable of such knowledge; and now that it had come to her she was afraid.

Sudden cessation of movement roused her; and the mate, turning his head, spoke with respectful urgency.

"Protector of the Poor, it is not well to go farther. Behold the swift going of the sun. Before your servants can reach the bungalow there will be no more light, and it is against orders – The Sahib will make angry talk."

Evelyn did not follow the whole of this appeal; but the man's anxiety was evident. She caught the words "Sahib" and "angry" with an inward shudder; she had endured enough of the Sahib's anger for one day, and her own common-sense told her that she had behaved foolishly.

Even outlying bungalows were no longer in sight. A boundary pillar gleamed ghostlike a few hundred yards ahead. The last rim of the sun had already slipped behind the hills. Their harsh peaks black against a sky of faint amber, had a threatening look; and darkness was racing up out of the east. The mate was right. It would be upon them almost before they could reach the bungalow; and to be out after sunset was strictly against the rules of the station.

Sudden terror clutched her; a nameless dread of the country – of the natives – which she had never been able to shake off; a paralysing sense that she was alone in their midst – alone on the verge of night.

Fear unsteadied her voice as she answered the man. "Turn, turn at once, and go quickly, – run; the Sahib will give jacksheesh– run!"

But before they could obey, a white figure sprang up from behind a cluster of rocks. Quick as thought followed a flash, a report, a heart-piercing scream; and the men, with a cry of "Ghazi! Ghazi!" unceremoniously set down their mistress and fled.

The fanatic fled also, certain of a passport into Paradise; and as Evelyn Desmond fell back among her cushions, a shadow, that had not been there before, crept slowly across the shoulder of her muslin dress. The oncoming darkness mattered nothing to her now; and she herself, a mere atom of life, blown out like a candle, mattered less than nothing to the desert and the imperturbable hills.

But justice does not invariably tarry. The arm of the Lord is not shortened, though in these days of omniscience man has a larger faith in his own; and the Ghazi, heading post-haste through the dusk plunged unwittingly into a group of villagers and cattle returning home.

A short scuffle ensued, shouts and the tramping of feet – sounds which brought the flying jhampanis back in a twinkling, surcharged with voluble valour and explanations. Resistance was useless. Moreover, to the fanatic, death is the one great gift. With stoical indifference the man found himself overpowered and disarmed. Zealous villagers, unrolling turbans and kummerbunds, made fast his arms, bound him securely about the waist and neck, and in this ignominious fashion led him back to where Evelyn Desmond lay untroubled and alone.

The jhampanis shouldered their burden once more; and fell to discussing, in lively detail, the hanging and subsequent burning that awaited the Taker of Life, who walked unconcernedly in their midst.

CHAPTER XXXIV.
C'ÉTAIT MA VIE

 
"C'était toute petite, ma vie:
Mais c'était ma vie."
 

– Anatole France.

"Honor, come out! I want you."

Desmond's voice, followed by a peremptory rap on the door, startled the girl back to a realisation of the flight of time. The sun had set, and a grey light filled the room. Without a passing thought of the tears upon her face, she lowered the bolt and confronted Evelyn's husband.

"Ladybird isn't back yet," he said quickly. "It'll be dark in ten minutes. I must know where she went to, and go after her myself."

Honor bit her lip. To tell him at such a moment would be madness; yet he was in an ill mood to oppose.

"Can't you send the orderly?" she asked, with something less than her wonted assurance.

"No. I am going myself. This is no time to fuss over trifles. Something may have gone wrong – "

"Hush, – listen! What's that?"

The shuffling and grunting of jhampanis, and the thud of the lowered dandy, were distinctly audible in the stillness.

"There she is!" Desmond said eagerly; and a moment later the blood in his veins was chilled by a long-drawn wail from the verandah. "Hai – hai —mere Memsahib murgya!"³³

Before the cry had spent itself he was through the "chick," down the verandah steps at a bound, and bending over his unconscious wife. Her head had dropped down to one shoulder, and on the other ominous stains showed darkly in the half light.

"Great God —murder!" Desmond muttered between his teeth. "What devil's work is this?" he added, turning upon the cowering jhampanis.

"Ghazi, Sahib; Ghazi," they told him in eager chorus, with a childish mingling of excitement and terror; and would fain have enlarged upon their own valour in pursuing the Taker of Life, but that Desmond's curt "chupraho"³⁴ checked them in mid-career.

"Stay where you are, Honor," he added to the girl, who had followed him, and now stood at the head of the steps. "I am bringing her in."

"Is she – alive?"

"God knows. Look sharp and get some brandy."

He took up one limp hand and laid his fingers on her wrist. A faint flutter of life rewarded him.

"Thank Heaven!" he murmured; and lifted her tenderly in his arms. But at the foot of the steps he paused.

"Nassur Ali – the Doctor Sahib. Ride like the wind!" Then turning again to the jhampanis, big with harrowing detail, added: "The devil who did this thing, hath he escaped?"

"Nahin, nahin,³⁵ Sahib. Would your Honour's servants permit? The jackal spawn is even now in the hands of the police. May his soul burn in hell – "

"It is enough – go!" Desmond commanded in the peremptory vernacular; and mounted the steps with his burden.

Honor stood awaiting him in the drawing-room, white as her dress, tears glistening on her cheeks and lashes, yet very composed withal.

At sight of his face she started; it was grey-white and set like a rock. Only the eyes were alive – and ruthless, as she had never yet seen them, and prayed that she never might see them again.

"They've got the man," he said between his teeth. "I wish to God I could shoot him with my own hand."

Then he went forward to the sofa, and laid his wife upon it. His quick eye detected at once the nature of the wound. "Lung," he muttered mechanically. "No hope."

With the same unnatural calmness, he drew the long pins out of her hat – the poor, pretty hat which had so delighted her six hours ago; and as she moved, with a small sound of pain, he applied the spirit to her lips.

"What is it?" she murmured. "Don't touch me."

The faint note of distaste struck on her husband's heart; for he did not understand its meaning.

"Ladybird – look!" he entreated gently. "It is Theo." She opened her eyes, and gazed blankly up at him, where he leaned above her.

Then, as recognition dawned, he saw the shadow of fear darken them, and instantly dropped on one knee enclosing her with his arm.

"Ladybird, forgive me! You must never be frightened of me – never!"

The intensity of his low tone roused her half-awakened brain.

"But you were so angry, I was – afraid to come home."

"My God!" the man groaned under his breath. But before he could grasp the full horror of it all, she shrank closer to him, clutching at his arm, her eyes wide with terror.

"There's blood on me – look! It was – that man. Is it bad? Am I going – to die?"

"Not if human power can save you, my dear little woman. Mackay will soon be here."

But pain and fear clouded her senses, and she scarcely heard his words.

"Theo – I can't see you properly. Are you there?"

"Yes, yes. I am here."

The necessity for speech tortured him. But her one coherent longing was for the sound of his voice.

"Don't let me die, please – not yet. I won't make you angry any more, I promise. And – it frightens me so. Keep tight hold of me; don't let me slip – away."

Desmond had a sensation as if a hand had gripped his throat, choking him, so that he could neither speak nor breathe. But with a supreme effort he mastered it; and leaning closer to her, spoke slowly, steadily, that she might lose no word of the small comfort he had power to give.

"I am holding you, my darling; and I will hold you to the very end. Only try – try to be brave, and remember that – whatever happens, you are safe – in God's hands."

A pitiful sob broke from her.

"But I don't understand about God! I only want – you. I want your hands – always. Where is the other one? Put it – underneath me – and hold me – ever so close."

He obeyed her, in silence, to the letter. She winced a little at the movement; then her head nestled into its resting-place on the wounded shoulder, with a sigh that had in it no shadow of pain; and bending down he kissed her, long and fervently.

"Theo – darling," she breathed ecstatically, when her lips were free for speech, "now I know it isn't true – what you said about not – caring any more. And I am – ever so happy. God can't let me – die – now."

And on the word, a rush of blood from the damaged lung brought on the inevitable choking cough, that shattered the last remnant of her strength. Her fingers closed convulsively upon his; and at the utmost height of happiness – as it were, on the crest of a wave – her spirit slipped from its moorings; – and he was alone.

Still he knelt on, without movement, without thought, almost it seemed without breathing, like a man turned to stone; holding her, as he had promised, to the very end, and – beyond.

Honor, standing afar off, dazed and heart-broken, one hand clasping the back of a chair for support, heard at last the rattle of approaching hoofs, and nerved herself for the ordeal of speech. But when Mackay entered with Paul Wyndham, Desmond made no sign. The little doctor's keen eye took in the situation at a glance; and at the unlooked-for relief of Paul's presence, Honor's strained composure deserted her. She swayed a little, stretched out a hand blindly towards him, and would have fallen, but that he quietly put his arm round her, and with a strange mixture of feelings saw her head drop on to his shoulder. But it was only for a moment. Contact with the roughness of his coat roused her on the verge of unconsciousness. She drew herself up, a faint colour mantling in her cheeks, and tried to smile.

"Come away," Paul whispered, leading her to the door. "We can give him no help – or comfort – yet."