Devil's Wind

by Patricia Wentworth

  “Helen, why?” he said with a groan, and when she had still no answer, except that dear, unbearable look, he let his arms fall, and stepped back a pace.

  Then Helen moved a little and leaned against a tree. Now that he had let her go, she felt as if she were going to faint, and she would rather have died than faint, or make any appeal to his pity. She was humiliated enough. She was in the very dust of death. She waited, and he sat down on a great stone and buried his face in his hands. After a very long time he lifted his head and saw her standing there.

  “I must—ask you—” he began, and then broke off.

  Helen tried to speak, but her lips were too stiff. After three efforts she wrenched them

  apart, but no words came. When she found that she could not speak, she bowed her head.

  Richard gave a sort of groan, and looked away from her.

  “It is all clear—down to a certain point,” he said, breathing hard—“down to—to the river—I must ask you—what happened to her?”

  Helen made another effort, and this time a dry hoarse sound came from her lips. She shuddered, and tried again.

  “Dead,” she said at last.

  He could not spare her.

  “How?”

  “She was—under the boat, you were turning to lift her in—when you—were hit. Then—a long time afterwards—I can’t remember—I saw her again. I called. I did call. She ran—towards the shore. There was a man—a sowar. I saw his sword go up.”

  “You saw—”

  “I was—holding you—you were half in the water—slipping. Just then you went down. The boat swung round—I thought you were drowning. You went down—under the water—I—told you.”

  “Yes. You told me that.”

  He looked at her again. “Helen, why didn’t you tell me everything? O God, why didn’t you? Do you know what I thought? What I have been thinking? That we were engaged—lovers—married almost. I thought that—”

  Again Helen was silent.

  It was the end. There was nothing more to say. She would have been very glad to die, but Death does not come when we would be glad of his coming.

  CHAPTER XXV

  HOW HELEN CAME TO CAWNPORE

  Love is a dream that’s over,

  We must part, Not as lover from lover,

  Heart to heart. We have no troth nor token,

  You and I, Love is a dream that’s broken,

  So Good-bye.

  After what seemed to her a long, long time, Helen took a deep breath, and said very faintly:

  “That is all, Dick. Please, let me go.”

  The words were like a child’s words, and the voice was the voice of a child that has been ill—weak and simple.

  A curious rush of emotion came over Richard Morton. He would have given the world to have taken her in his arms, not with the passion of a while ago, but as he would have taken a child—to comfort and console. Between them there were Adela, his self-respect and hers. If he were to go to her now, neither of them would ever forget it.

  He got up, looked hard at Helen’s white face, then turned and walked quickly away, until he was out of sight and hearing. Helen did not move at once, but after a little while she went slowly to the cave, and sat down there with her head in her hands. A man in trouble seeks the open, but a woman has the animal’s instinct to creep away into some closed-in place. She desires the dark and solitude, four walls about her, and a locked door. Helen had no door to lock, and her enclosing walls were walls of earth and stone, but she had no other place to go to, so she crouched in the cave, and let the thoughts that were in her have their way.

  At first she was too numb and bruised to heed them much, but presently there came to her an instinctive knowledge, a realisation. And what she began to know, and realise, was the strength of the marriage tie. There was a power in marriage, something apart from the law, or from religion, something apart from passion, love, or romance. Romance died, passion faded, love passed, yes, even love, but there remained the intimate memories, the unforgettable impress of one life upon the other, and that strange compelling power which she felt but could not define. In some deep eternal sense, that which had once been joined could never be set asunder any more for ever.

  And Helen’s instinct told her that she had sinned against this union and this power. Adela was dead, but she had been Richard Morton’s wife. Not all Helen’s love could bring her as near to him. The thought burned, and she held it close as if to burn away the shrinking of her heart. Helen looked back, and saw Adela as a bride, with the white veil over her curls, with the smiling lips that never faltered as they took the vows. And she heard Dick promising to have and to hold from this day forth, for better and for worse. He had loved Adela then, even if he loved Helen now. And Adela was his wife. Adela had borne his child.

  Helen forced the flame nearer.

  The baby, the little forgotten baby which she had never seen. She had no part there. She was neither wife nor mother. She had only her love, and her love had hurt Dick more than Adela’s indifference.

  She pressed her hands upon her eyes, but the inner vision remained, the vision of Adela, whom she had loved, whom Dick had loved. Dick had forgotten, and she had tried to forget. Now the vision showed her only Adela—Adela with a smile, leaning against Helen, trusting her, kissing her—Adela with a frown—Adela in tears. Last of all, it was Adela with that frenzied terror on her face and the river swirling about her. Helen sat shuddering, and her cup of punishment filled drop by drop as the slow hours went by.

  It was getting dark when Richard’s step made her start. He came slowly up to the cave, and she had a feeling that he was waiting for the dusk, so that neither he nor she need see the other’s face. When he was beside her he paused for a moment, and then spoke in his usual quiet voice:

  “I have been thinking things out.” She trembled a little, but he went on: “I believe I know more or less where we are. We cannot stay here. Now that we know that there is a British force at Cawnpore we must move in that direction. As there is nothing to be gained by delay, I propose that we start in the morning, three hours before it gets light. There are risks, of course, but we incur greater risks by staying here. Once the rains slacken there will be more people about. I didn’t tell you, but as a matter of fact I was seen to-day. The surprising thing is that it hasn’t happened before. Of course the man may have taken me for a native—or he may not. He took to his heels at once, which is a bad sign. It’s another argument for moving. Will you be ready?”

  He paused for a moment, and as Helen bent her head without speaking, he added:

  “Will you eat something, and then try to sleep? I will wake you when it is time to start. If the sky keeps clear, I think that we should take advantage of the starlight.”

  Helen got up then, and brought a cold pigeon out of the hole in the rock which served them for a larder. They ate a strange silent meal together, and the light failed more and more, until it was quite gone.

  Afterwards Helen lay down in her accustomed place, and to her surprise she fell asleep almost at once, and slept deeply until Richard Morton touched her, and she woke in the darkness, and remembered all that had passed.

  They came out of the cave into a still air, and a night full of the diffused radiance of stars. There was no moon, but the sky was a clear, dark sapphire colour, and it blazed with constellations, and was powdered with the fine dust of infinitely distant suns.

  Richard Morton and Helen Wilmot left the ravine without looking back, and walked fifteen miles before the dawn halted them at the edge of a wide desolate tract, that sparkled with alkaline crystals under the rising sun.

  Neither upon that day nor upon the next, did they meet with any one. Folk kept close to their villages in those days. When armies were in the field, it was best and safest to stay at home. Also there was ploughing to be done, and the poor man’s c
rop of pulse to be sown.

  On the second morning Richard Morton drew a breath of relief, for he had recognised his surroundings. He altered his course a little, and pressed on, making a longer march than they had done yet, and halting in a mango grove until the third morning dawned. As soon as it was light he walked into the village upon whose outskirts the grove lay, and demanded the headman, who came salaaming, recognised Morton Sahib with joyful tears, and announced that he was the slave of the Huzoor.

  “Evil times, very evil times, Sahib,” he moaned. “Here in my village we are poor men. To the Sirkar we are loyal. The Sahib knows it. The Sahib will speak for us, and say that we are loyal, and that we have had no dealings with the Nana budmash. The Sahib is my father and my mother.”

  Captain Morton nodded, and was graciously pleased to accept a draught of milk. He learned that there was a British force under General Havelock at Mungulwar, some seven miles distant, which accounted for his host’s access of loyal zeal. Captain Morton signified that his zeal would be best proved by the provision of transport for himself and his companion.

  Helen, awaiting him in the mango grove, saw him return, accompanied by four men, bearing the most ancient and ramshackle of palanquins. She then for the first time realised that her feet were almost raw, and that she could not have walked another mile. They went forward in the dusk, Richard riding, and the palkee bearers grunting as they shuffled along. Helen had rested and been fed. Just before starting she had drunk a deep, delicious draught of milk, and she felt strangely drowsy and indifferent. Their dream was near the waking, this dream in which she and Dick had lived, and moved, and had their being, for the last month. Now they were coming back to daylight, actualities, and convention, but she was too tired in mind and body to care what happened. The last moment in which she felt anything was when she waited for Dick in the mango grove, and wondered whether he would ever come back. Now she only desired to lie still and rest. At last, when she was nearly asleep, she was startled by Richard’s voice. He had raised up the right-hand curtain of the palanquin and was walking beside her, with his horse’s reins across his arm.

  “Helen, I want to speak to you,” he was saying, and she roused herself to listen.

  “Yes,” she said.

  “We can’t be any distance from the camp now. I expect to be challenged every moment. There is something I want to say.”

  “Yes,” said Helen, again.

  He paused, made a perceptible effort, and spoke.

  “I want to tell you what to say.”

  “Yes.”

  “Every one will ask questions, of course. They will want to know every detail, and some of the details—well, they are unnecessary.”

  Helen had a perfectly detached vision of herself telling a row of men in uniform about that moment under the dhak tree when she and Richard kissed, and he remembered. The vision stirred her sense of humour. Was this what Richard meant by an unnecessary detail?

  “Yes,” she said. “What shall I say?”

  Richard was frowning in the dark. He hated this task more than he had ever hated anything in his whole life. It seemed to degrade him—and her. He hurried over the words.

  “Say that I was wounded—badly wounded on the head, and wandered away in a delirious state. You followed me. I was very ill. You nursed me, and as soon as we heard of the relief having come up, we made our way here across country. It will be better not to say that I lost my memory for a time.”

  The last sentence was the most difficult, and the most essential part of what he had nerved himself to say. He had imagination, and could divine what might have been whispered, not now, but later on. Even as it was

  “Yes,” repeated Helen. She wondered how many more times she would say it. It seemed quite impossible to say anything else.

  There was a pause. Then Richard said:

  “I shall join Havelock’s force as a volunteer, if they will have me. They will send you in to Cawnpore at once, and then down to Allahabad, if they’ve got their communications open. One can’t make any plans, but you will be quite safe now. If all goes well you could get a passage home in the autumn.”

  This was the waking indeed.

  The dawn light was very chill and grey as it struck upon Helen’s heart. Something colder and more dreadful than tragedy touched her, and pointed to the future. She looked where the finger pointed, and saw a monotonous life, in which she earned enough to keep her body alive, whilst her heart starved slowly without love, without Dick.

  “Yes,” she said once more. Then her tongue was loosened. “I thought—if I could teach,” she faltered. “I am very fond of children. That would be the best. I must do something. Perhaps at Allahabad I might find something to do.”

  Richard bent his head as if to look at her, but it was too dark to see anything inside the palanquin. He seemed about to speak, but instead he turned quickly away, and mounted. Ten minutes later a challenge came sharply out of the dark: “Who goes there?” and at the sound of the English voice Helen, to her own unbounded surprise, burst suddenly into tears. The best comfort that she took with her into Cawnpore next day was a bruised hand. Captain Morton had bruised it when he said good-bye.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  HOW THE WIND FELL

  Dream-shod I wandered forth,

  Where all ways meet, But, oh, the ways of the world,

  They bruise my feet. The dream wherewith I was shod

  Forsakes my need, Barefoot I wander now,

  And my feet bleed.

  Helen Wilmot was sent down to Allahabad on the first opportunity that offered and there she spent the winter months. In mid-September Delhi fell, and on the 25th, Outram and Havelock entered Lucknow, but that cold weather was one of incessant campaigning.

  Lucknow was relieved a second time by Colin Campbell, but he was unable to hold the position, and fell back upon Cawnpore, bringing with him the remnant of the heroic garrison.

  It was not until the end of March that the campaigns in Oude came to an end with the final fall of Lucknow. The great wind was failing, slackening, dying. Only here and there it eddied back upon its course, and blew the leaves about. They rustled from the trees, and were crushed into silence beneath the feet of many marching men. Slower, colder, fainter came the breath of the conflict. Then it ceased upon the still air, and there was a great calm. Men fell to counting up the missing and the lost. In the roll of the regiments, how many regiments gone! In the ranks, what gaps! At mess how many missed and seen no more, how many remembered but called no more familiarly by name! In the homes of the English, what desolation of mother, husband, wife, who often did not know what grave, if any, held their dead!

  And up and down the villages of Oude—vacant places everywhere—sons, fathers, and husbands, who were wept and prayed for by the dark, patient women, who neither knew nor cared who ruled them, but cared sorely, with grieving loving hearts, because they must miss their men-folk.

  The wind had left much desolation behind it.

  Captain Morton remained with Havelock’s force. Occasionally Helen had a short note from him. He wrote once that he had been wounded in the arm, but that it was nothing. It was from the newspapers that she learned that he had been recommended for the V. C.

  Once he inquired whether she wished to go to England, and when she replied that she was teaching the children of a Mrs. Montgomery, and did not wish to make any change for the present, he offered no comment. About a month later, however, Helen received a letter from Floss Monteith, who wrote from Mian Mir:

  “Dick says you don’t want to go home, and that you are teaching that horrid Montgomery woman’s children. If you don’t come and join me as soon as ever you can, I will never speak to you again—never! Don’t tell me you can possibly like those children, or want to stay with them, snub-nosed creatures with freckles and pigtails—dreadful. And I can offer you Jack with his beautiful Roman
nose (it really is, Helen) and Megsie Lizzie. Did I tell you that I was keeping her? There are very few relations, and none of them absolutely yearn to have the darling, so I told John it was the most delightfully easy way of acquiring a daughter that I had ever heard of, and after he had said ‘Now, Floss!’ about seven hundred times, he gave in, and we are going to adopt her properly. So there, Miss Helen, there’s a bait for you. I know you don’t want to see me, I do wish all this muddling sort of fighting would stop. I’m so deadly sick of it all.”

  Helen wrote a grateful acceptance, but it was not until the end of April that she was able to join Mrs. Monteith, and proceed with her and the children to Simla.

  Megsie Lizzie was very much pleased to see her.

  “My papa and my mamma went to Heaven,” she informed Helen. “I went to Simla. I like Simla, and I love Mamsie. I am to live with Mamsie now, and be her little girl. When I am quite grown up, I shall marry Jack, because I do hate sums. Jack does sums as easy as easy. When I marry him, he shall do them all, and my children sha’n’t learn any ’rithmetic, except only the boys, because they have to, and they can take after Jack, so as it won’t be any trouble to them.”

  One day in July, Helen was sitting with the children in a room that looked across a wide valley to a brown and stony hill that was sometimes just brown and covered with stones, and sometimes put on a blue garment of mystery.

  The children were supposed to be doing lessons, and Megsie Lizzie’s air of detached good temper contrasted strongly with the cross but determined attention with which Jack was attacking a column of figures.

  “Megsie Lizzie, you are really not attending at all,” said Helen for the twentieth time.

  “No,” said Megsie Lizzie with an indulgent smile.

  Mrs. Monteith, sitting in a corner with some needlework, giggled audibly, and Helen looked preternaturally grave.

  “But why don’t you attend, Meg?” she asked, and Megsie Lizzie nodded wisely.

  “Because I’ve got something much, much more int’resting to think about. Much, much more int’resting, Helen, darling. I am thinking about my dear Captain Dick. Don’t you think he is much, much more interesting than sums? Don’t you ever think about him, Helen, darling?”