by Maud Diver
CHAPTER XXVII.
"Elfin and human, airy and true; * * * * * * Your flowers and thorns you bring with you." --R.L.S.
But the stumbling-block reasserted itself, and prevailed.
The articles on Tibet were solid affairs, for a solid journal; twelveof them, to be paid for on acceptance; and since Lenox needed the moneyto clear off debts incurred when furnishing and pay for their trip toKashmir, he decided to get them written as soon as might be, before thestealthy increase of heat made mental effort a burden. Thus, while theBattery absorbed his mornings, Tibet made unlawful inroads upon hisafternoons and evenings; and the narrow margin of leisure thus left tohim did not by any means satisfy Quita's healthy appetite forcompanionship. More than once she attempted remonstrance, pitched inthe wrong key, only to be routed by the unanswerable argument that thework must be done, and that there was no other time in which to do it.Finally, in a mood between pride and resignation, she shrugged hershoulders and turned elsewhere for companionship; for interests to fillthe long hours which Eldred's devotion to work left empty on her hands.
And here, in a virtue pushed to the confines of vice, in the man'sblind unintentional neglect of the woman for whom he would wring thelast blood-drop out of his heart, you have the nucleus of more thanhalf the pitiful domestic tragedies of India. It is the crucialmoment, the genesis of a hundred unsuspected possibilities, this firstdivergence of the man and woman, along separate paths of interest.Love may be strong enough to stand the strain, but it will be lovedebarred from that intimate fusion of heart and brain which aloneconstitutes true marriage. The other kind is at best a permanent'friendship recognised by the police':--a tacit confession of failurewhich this high-hearted, if contrarious couple were by no means mindedto arrive at, now or ever. But there is no warning sign-post at theturn of the road; and already their feet were nearing it, withoutknowledge that its easy gradient slips into the Valley of Dry Bones.
Quita, however, was in a better case than many wives so circumstanced;in that her art was no mere distraction for spare hours, but a livingreality; though, unhappily, a capricious one. And now when she wouldhave returned to it in earnest after months of philandering with brushand pencil, it stood aloof, unmanageable as Eldred himself! She wastoo genuinely an artist to attempt the completion of an imaginativepicture against the stream; and for fresh work, fresh mental stimuluswas needed. This was not readily to be found in the everydayhappenings--the riding, tennis, and gatherings at the ClubGardens--that made up the cold-weather life at Dera Ishmael; and shehad little taste for small social or domestic amenities, in themselves.The call of the wild was in her blood. One might as well hope todomesticate a sea-gull as a woman of this type. She managed herhousehold on broad lines, ignoring minor details, and Zyarulla, to hissecret relief, found himself still the lynx-eyed custodian of theSahib's _Izzat_[1] in houses and compound, still the controller of hispetty cash. Quita received his monthly account--plus a minutepercentage on each item--in perfect good faith. His visions ofpossible dismissal evaporated. He heartily commended his master'schoice of a wife; and, in moments of expansion over the evening hookah,confided to the Khansamah--a friend and ally in the matter ofaccounts--his conviction that Mem Sahibs who made pictures were of adifferent _jat_ to those who played tennis, harried their ayahs, androde rough-shod over the sensibilities of honest bearers like himself![Transcriber's note: The "a" in "_jat_" is an a-macron, Unicode U+0101.]
And, in truth, the Bohemian and cosmopolitan elements in Quita made herairily contemptuous of trifles, of the petty point of view, the 'local'attitude of mind often found in isolated Indian stations, moreespecially among the women. And setting aside Honor and Frank, thehalf-dozen officers' wives belonging to the Infantry Regiments were forthe most part colourless average types of femininity such as Quita wassomething too ready to despise.
But the woman element had never played a large part in her life; and itwas to the men she turned instinctively for mental companionship; forthe larger outlook, the saner grasp of things big and small. She drewthem by a natural magnetism; and held them by a talent for comradeshipwhich never degenerated into familiarity or freedom. The four Batterysubalterns, headed by Richardson, surrendered at discretion. And therewere others also; notably George Rivers, Desmond's subaltern, apromising Lothario with a profile, a tenor voice, and an unimpeachabletaste in ties and waistcoats. But Quita gave the preference toEldred's brother officers; and to their open delight made them free ofthe house. One or more of them dined with her at least three nightsa-week; and her instantaneous gravitation to Max Richardson had alreadyresulted in an informal friendship equally delightful for both.
Lenox accepted these developments without comment, yet not withoutinward regret. For he craved the restfulness of quiet evenings alonewith his wife, after a hard day's work: and indeed saw more than enoughof his subalterns--always excepting Dick--on the parade-ground and inthe orderly room every morning. Very soon he took to excusing himselfearly, on these convivial evenings, with the result that before longthe old habit of working at night had him in its clutches once again,the charm of it heightened by months of abstinence. For a while heheld out against it; but the quiet within and without, the certainty offreedom from interruption, the lucidity of thought that brains of acertain order seem only able to arrive at in the small hours, werepowerful advocates for surrender; and little by little habit conquered.He smoked more and slept less; and the quality of his work improved ingreat strides.
But Quita objected strongly to this barefaced revival of 'bachelorhabits' within six months of marriage; and more than once--waking inthe small hours to find herself alone--she had slipped on herdressing-gown and boldly invaded his study; a disarming vision enough,her face flushed with sleep, looking absurdly young in a halo oftumbled hair, her eyes alight with tenderness and enjoyment of her owndaring. On each occasion she was reproved without severity;established herself in the deck-lounge of old days; fell asleeppromptly, and was carried protesting back to bed; but not until she hadseen the lamp put out and the detestable litter of papers tidied up forthe night.
In this fashion the first half of March slipped uneventfully by, eachday bringing with it that imperceptible advance of heat which strikesan undernote of dread through the rose-scented languor of a PunjabMarch. For in the vast Northern Plains of India, it is autumn, notspring, that bears the winged word of resurrection. But Quita wasstill at that enviable stage in love's progress when times and seasonsand places shrink to mere pin-points beside the one supreme fact. AFrontier hot weather in Eldred's company held no terrors for her.Possibly two months' leave would be available later on, when they wouldspend the honeymoon--of which they had been twice defrauded--inKashmir; and, in the meantime, so long as one roof covered them, allwas well; in spite of her secret wish that Tibet and the Pamirs couldbe expunged from the map of Asia by means of a private deluge!
But if Quita were inclined to quarrel with her husband's industry, MaxRichardson was not. He was enjoying, for the first time in his life,the mere pleasantness of a woman's intimate companionship;--in Quita'scase a companionship full of incident, of delicate reticences,alternating with unexpected revelations of thought and feeling; andthrough it all a frank interest in everything that concerned himself,which is perhaps the subtlest form of coquetry. Not that Quita meantit as such. In her entire devotion to her husband, she simply did notconsider her effect upon other men; to whom, in consequence, she showedher true self almost with the freedom and spontaneity of a child.Richardson's own simplicity of character, and the ease with which oneslips into a pleasant path, helped matters forward; and before long,they had fallen quite naturally into the habit of riding or drivingtogether when Lenox happened to be very much engaged. Quita saw noreason to conceal her pleasure in these outings. Lenox thanked hisfriend once or twice, bluntly enough, yet with evident sincerity; andRichardson accepted his own good fortune with an unquestioningappreciation very characteristic of the
man.
His thoughts were running definitely upon this pleasant state ofthings, as he drove Quita Lenox homeward through the main street of thenative city, on a glowing evening, some two weeks after Honor's visitto the studio. Behind them clattered a small guard of native police,without whom it would not be advisable to explore a frontier city; andon either hand stretched a narrowing vista of open shop fronts noisywith vituperative buyers and sellers; brilliant with piled vessels ofbrass and copper, with the rainbow tints of dyed silks and muslins,piles of parched corn and spices, oranges, bananas, and pomegranates;their upper storeys breaking out into quaintly carved windows andbalconies, strange splashes of colour, or rough childish pictures,innocent of proportion. And, better than these, in Quita's esteem, wasthe wide street itself, packed with the noisy, leisurely life of anIndian city:--goats and cattle; women and children; open bullock-cartsthat seemed to have all eternity to travel in; princely-looking Afghantraders in long coats and peaked turbans; Waziris, with keen, Jewishfaces framed in greasy locks that fell upon their shoulders; the _sais_from his tail-board shouting ineffectual commands to make way for theSahib; long-legged fowls, leaping and fluttering up under the pony'snose; pariahs, lazily insolent, almost allowing the wheel to grazethigh-bone or paw, before they condescended to loaf away to a freshresting-place; and over all an arch of blue, so deep and passionate asto be almost vocal; and pervading all, the indefinable, unforgettablesmell of the East:--a smell compounded of musk, spices, open drains,and humanity.
When at last they emerged into the open, and quickened their pace,Quita drew a breath of satisfaction, and smiled up at her companion,who allowed his eyes to linger in hers a moment longer than theoccasion required.
Their outing had been an unusually long one; for whenever she couldfind her way into the city Quita was insatiable. Again and againRichardson had sat waiting in the sun, while she made thumb-nailsketches of street corners, bargained with curio-sellers for theAlexander coins and relics which abound at Dera Ishmael, or extractedinformation from shy, smiling women, whose faces happened to take herfancy in passing.
"You have been a miracle of patience!" she assured him, as they nearedcantonments. "And I daresay you hated it half the time, and scorned myglobe-trotter behaviour! I've noticed how quickly most Anglo-Indiansget bored if one asks questions, or shows the smallest interest in thecountry and the people."
"Probably they don't enjoy airing their own ignorance," he suggested,with lazy amusement in his eyes. "_I'm_ not bored with you, though.Shouldn't be, even if you were to pelt me with questions till midnight."
She laughed lightly.
"Don't dare me to put you to the test! It might make us enemies forlife. And it's really capital that we get on so well. Just think howawkward for Eldred if I had taken one of my strong unreasoning dislikesto you!"
"Still more awkward for me! I never thought you carried hidden weaponsof that sort about with you."
"Wait till you know me better. I am a hopeless creature of extremes!You can't think how I hated my dear Honor Desmond last year,--thoughI'd cut off a hand for her now; nor how I still hate . . . some one Ihave never seen;--some one who wrote to Eldred--about me--years ago."
She broke off, remembering that in his eyes she had only been marriednine months; though if she had been looking at him instead ofcontemplating the hands that lay clasped in her lap, she must havenoticed his start, the sudden tension of his face and figure. Lenoxhad never told her, then. He might have guessed as much. And whyshould she ever know, after all? His native honesty prompted him tomake a clean breast of it, and ask her forgiveness. But somethingstronger,--a new imperative desire to stand well with her at anyprice,--held him silent. Presently, she glanced up at him curiously;but his straight-featured profile and steady hands upon the reinsrevealed nothing beyond a momentary abstraction of thought.
"I forgot, when I spoke just now," she said in a changed voice--a voiceof closer intimacy--"that you don't know how long we have really beenmarried,--do you?"
"Yes, I do know," he answered, still intent upon the pony. Everymoment made him more exquisitely uncomfortable. But he could not lieto her.
"Did my husband tell you?" she flashed out almost angrily.
"No, indeed. He's not that sort. I--found out by chance."
"How strange! Another man did the same. One can never keep a secretin this world. Well--it was the letter I spoke of that did all theharm; that broke up everything between us for five years. Can youwonder that I've never forgiven the writer, and never shall? Notbecause he wrote unfairly of me, but because of all that Eldredsuffered then, and afterwards."
"Did you never make allowance for the fact that he could not have knownhow things were between you,--that he meant no harm?"
"I'm afraid I made _no_ allowances; though I'm quite aware that,speaking justly, one can't blame him. Probably Eldred never did. ButI told you my dislikes were unreasonable; and it makes me hate him tothink that he was quite happy away there in England all those fiveyears, while Eldred was half-killing himself with work and misery."
"Yes, I understand that. But it's all over now; and the harm'srepaired."
"I hope so, in a measure; though it's my belief that harm done cannever really be repaired; only patched up."
"That's a very terrible doctrine, Mrs Lenox."
"I'm afraid facts go to prove the truth of it."
Although she spoke quietly, a touch of hardness had invaded her voice;and Richardson had no answer to give her. His cheerful, easy-goingnature had rarely been so deeply stirred. A new and delightfulexperience seemed to be taking an unlooked-for turn, and his lameattempts at self-defence in the third person struck him as bordering onthe grotesque. He set his teeth and flicked the pony viciously; thenhauled at his mouth because he broke into a canter. Yet he was atender-hearted man.
"Poor little beast! Don't treat him like that," she rebuked him,between jest and earnest, "What's wrong? The city seems to havedisagreed with you."
Again he did not answer: and for a time they drove on without speaking,each, if the truth be told, thinking of the other. Then she startledhim with one of her direct, inconsequent questions.
"Mr Richardson, how old are you?"
He laughed.
"Just thirty. Why?"
"I was only wondering. You're the sort of man who ought to marry.Have you never thought of it yet?"
"No. Too little money. Besides, I'm a lazy beggar, and I shirk theresponsibility."
"That means you've never been in love!"
"I suppose not. Nothing more serious than a passing inclination. Meregrowing pains!" He smiled at the remembrance of a certain romanticepisode in his early twenties. "What's your notion? Have I beenoverdosing you with my company that you are so keen to marry me off?"
"Don't talk nonsense. I was simply thinking of you. You've the rightstuff in you for a husband. But personally, I prefer you unattached.I should probably quarrel with your wife; and she would break up ourfriendship; which would be a thousand pities."
"Mrs Lenox--d'you mean that? Do you really value it one little bit?"
His repressed eagerness puzzled her, and she lifted her eyebrows. "Butyes, _mon ami_! Would I go about with you so much if I didn't? I havefailings enough, Heaven knows, but insincerity is not one of them. Bythe way, am I to put you on my other side to-night? Wouldn't youprefer Mrs Norton, or Mrs Lacy Smith for a change? I couldn't get theDesmonds; and Eldred hates my poor little party in consequence."
"So shall I, if you banish me from your end of the table."
"Well, that settles it. Two conspicuously large men in open mutinywould be more than the rest of us could stand!"
They swerved in between the gate-posts, and drew rein as she spoke.The sound of their wheels had brought Lenox into the verandah.
"It's high time you were back again, you two," he said, with a touch ofdecision, as he lifted his wife from the cart. "I was wondering whathad come to you. See you again
at eight, Dick."
And Richardson, having quite recovered from his bad quarter of an hour,drove off humming the refrain of a song Quita had sung to him a fewevenings back. After all, so long as she liked him, and valued hisfriendship, she was welcome to hate the supposed unknown, whoseidentity she must never be allowed to guess.
Meanwhile Lenox and his wife went on into the house, Quita disarmingreproof by instant apology. "It was delightful; but I'm sorry we wereaway too long, dear."
He smiled contentedly down upon her. "Well--there are limits! Whereon earth did you go?"
"All through the city again, and I unearthed endless treasures. You'dhave loved it."
"Of course I should. Great fool that I was not to chuck the writingand take you myself!"
"Oh, if you only would, a little oftener!"
Something in her tone smote him; and putting both hands on hershoulders, he bent towards her, pain and passion in his eyes.
"Darling, tell me, have I been neglecting you lately?"
Her low laughter reassured him. "Neglecting me? Dear stupid! D'yousuppose I'd sit down under it if you did? Now I'm going to change fordinner; and do please make yourself agreeable to Mrs Norton thisevening."
For the Deputy Commissioner's wife was honouring her husband with aflying visit, before going north to spend the season in Simla.
"The devil take Mrs Norton. Odious woman!"
"No,--it's _you_ that will have to take her!" she answered, laughing."And it's not my fault that you won't have your beautiful Honor on theother side to keep the balance true."
Quita enjoyed her little dinner, and saw to it that others didlikewise. She was a natural-born hostess. Talk never flagged in herneighbourhood, and her own lack of self-consciousness set the stiffestand shyest at their ease. Besides, she always enjoyed talking toNorton, whose cynicism and critical attitude she disarmed by the simplemeans of ignoring them. She liked the man's plain, hard-featured face,ploughed with deep lines of thought and effort, and only redeemed fromugliness by his remarkable eyes.
"Stoking up!" he remarked grimly, sipping his soup with a keenappreciation of its quality. "Punkahs and hell-fire again in no time.One hardly has time to cool down before the winter slips away. MrsNorton's off to Simla in ten days; and I suppose you'll be bolting alsoby the end of next month?"
She laughed, and shook her head. "If you're counting on getting myhusband to chum with you this hot weather, I'm afraid you'll bedisappointed."
He eyed her quizzically for a moment.
"Of course--I forgot. You're a new broom! If I meet you in Marchthree or four years hence, I shall hear another story."
"And enjoy the triumph of your own cynicism! Very well, I accept yourchallenge. I shall write to you three years from now, just to tell youhow the land lies."
"Do. And if you forget, I shall hear of you from some one else. Weknow all one another's little doings in this corner of the world. Ifeel curious about you, and prophesy that Simla and amateur theatricalswill carry the day; though for Lenox's sake I hope all the triumph willbe on your side. But it's no light matter, I can tell you, to win yourspurs as a Frontier officer's wife of the right quality."
"Like Mrs Desmond, for instance?"
"Quite so. Like Mrs Desmond."
"I notice all the cynicism goes out of your voice when you speak ofher. Yet you can make insulting prophecies about _me_, at my own tabletoo! Am I so immeasurably inferior?"
"That remains to be seen! You have still to be tested in the furnace,and no imaginary furnace either. Man or woman, staying power's thegreat requisite for India, Mrs Lenox. To pull through for half a dozenhot weathers is all very well,--mere getting one's hand in. But by thetime a man has completed his twentieth he begins to know somethingabout the weakness of the flesh. I seem to you, with your youth andhigh courage, a cynical, disagreeable fellow enough. But perhaps whenyou are middle-aged and disillusioned, and all the good blood in yourveins has been dried up by fever, you'll forgive my straight speakingto-night; though by then I shall be a forgotten old fogey, eating myheart out in England, or I shall have dropped in harness, which wouldbe the kinder fate of the two."
"Indeed I have forgiven you already," she answered in a softened tone;and involuntarily her eyes sought the handsome heavy-featured womanbeside her husband, whose Paris dinner-dress was cut lower than needbe, and whose elaborate 'fringe' rather too obviously grew off her head.
"Thank you. It's more than I deserve; and I'm sorry I must repay youby giving you your first taste of the pleasant little surprises thatare a main feature of Frontier life. I have to go off across theBorder early next week, to fix the position of a post we are going tobuild for our Mahsud levies, and to collect a fine from some rascalswho have been raiding Tank."
"Where's that?"
"An unlucky village near the Gomal Pass,--the great trade route intothe hills. It gets burnt to the ground periodically by the Waziris,probably much to its advantage; but one can't overlook the insult toBritish authority. So I'm obliged to visit them in state and talk tothem like a father, after collecting their fine; and I'm afraid I musttake your husband and Richardson along with me, besides a handful ofcavalry and infantry by way of protection and prestige."
Quita's face fell. "For how long?" she asked, collecting her lastcrumbs of pastry with a peculiar deliberation.
"We might be ten days coming and going. Not more."
"And--would there be fighting?"
"Probably not. It's a peaceful deputation. But peace armed to theteeth is the only kind the Waziri understands; and he can't alwayscontrol his rifle when he finds the eternally aggressive white mantaking liberties with his sacred hills! We shan't be sorry for a whiffof cool air any of us; and you won't be the only injured wife. ColonelMontague, of the Sikhs, comes with us; and I'm going to rob Mrs Desmondof her _preux chevalier_ also. I only want half a squadron, but Ishall make special request for Desmond. He's a capital man to havehandy in case of accidents. As for Lenox, he'll be delighted, ifthat's any consolation to you."
"Well, naturally," she faced him now, eyes and lips under control."Besides, ten days is nothing. One has to make a beginning; and itmight have been ever so much worse."
"That's the plucky way to look at it," he said in evident approval, andQuita rather abruptly changed the subject.
The evening that followed was a remarkably cheerful affair, imbued withthat spirit of friendly informality which makes the little dinners ofIndia live long in the memory. O'Flannagan had brought his banjo.Rivers and Richardson both sang creditably; and Quita herself was inone of her 'inspired' moods. Only Mrs Norton, having deposited hergrey satin magnificence upon the sofa, protested mutely against whatshe considered a tendency to 'rowdyism' in her hostess;flirted--intellectually--with any one who had the hardihood to sit nearher; and on the stroke of ten rose with a suppressed yawn and atransparently insincere little speech about an enjoyable evening.
"Begad, but her works want oiling badly!" O'Flannagan confided toQuita, as the last shimmering morsel of her train slid out of sight."She's one o' your immaculate Englishwomen who give me the blues. Comeon, Mrs Lenox. Thank Heaven for the dash of ould Ireland in you; andlet's begin to enjoy ourselves!"
From that moment the evening took a new lease of life. Two batterysubalterns came over from mess, and it was close on midnight whenLenox, returning from his final duties in the verandah, found Quitastanding by the mantelpiece, her cheeks flushed, her eyes radiatingenjoyment.
"Thank the Lord that's over!" he ejaculated fervently, flinging himselfinto a deep arm-chair; and she turned on him promptly, with a visibleruffling of her feathers.
"Eldred, you're positively inhuman. When you talk like that you makeme want to hit you!"
She stood above him, threatening him with one slim hand; but Lenox,reaching up lazily, grasped her arms below the elbow, and gently butirresistibly forced her on to her knees.
"Hit out, lass, if you've a mind to," he said good-hu
mouredly. "Iswear I won't retaliate!"
She struggled for freedom; but he held her in a vice.
"You great schoolboy,--let me go!" she commanded, between laughter andvexation. "I don't care if you do hate dinner parties. I must havethem sometimes. I love to see people enjoying themselves as they alldid tonight, except that odious Mrs Norton, who doesn't count. You'renot pliable enough. That's what's the matter with you. But if I liveto a hundred and twenty you'd never make a hermit out of _me_!"
"And if you gave a party every night of your life you'd never make asociety man out of me. I should simply apply for a trans-frontierbillet, where wives are not admitted. But look here, little woman, didNorton tell you about next week?"
"Of course he did. You'll be gone in three or four days. It'shateful. Do let me have my arms back, darling."
And he surrendered this time.
"Are you sleepy?" she asked, her eyes, full of laughter, resting in his.
"Lord, no. I'm going to sit up and put in two hours work at leastbefore turning in."
"Indeed you'll do no such thing. You're going to sit up and talk tome. I didn't like to bother Mr Norton; but I've a hundred questions toask you about it all."
"_Hazur ke kushi_! [2] Ask away. Only let me get at my pipe, and I'mat your service."
He filled and lighted it with leisurely satisfaction; and Quita,settling herself on the carpet beside him, her face looking into his,her bright head laid against his knee, kept him talking of Borderpolitics and Border warfare till all thought of putting in two hours'work was out of the question.
[1] Prestige.
[2] As your Honour's pleases.