VIS MEDICATRIX.
“Georgie,” said Lady Haigh, some two or three days later, “I want to
ask you a question. Are you still engaged to Major North, or not?”
The shadow of a smile glimmered on Georgia’s lips.
“It seems a ridiculous thing to say, but really I haven’t the smallest
idea whether I am or not,” she answered.
“But what does Major North think about it?”
“I believe he is under the impression that we are still engaged. That
is what makes the matter doubtful, for I should certainly say that we
were not.”
“But how long is this state of things to go on?”--impatiently.
“I don’t know. Happily I have never had an engagement-ring, so that no
one can notice any difference.”
“My dear, this must be put a stop to!” said Lady Haigh, with
conviction. “Now that Major North is so much better, there is no need
for you to pretend that two doctor’s visits a-day are necessary. Once
a-day is quite enough for the present, and then you can drop it
altogether.”
“Oh, Lady Haigh! But he looks out for me so eagerly, and is so glad to
see me. And I like to see him too.”
“You mustn’t make yourself too cheap, my dear Georgie. Surely you
would not wish to cling to a man who has told you in so many words
that he is anxious to break off his engagement to you?”
“Oh, but I don’t think he meant it.”
“Then he has nothing to do but to say so. You had far better bring
about an explanation, and have it over. It is certainly Major North’s
turn to eat humble pie, and it will do him a world of good, and smooth
your path very much in the future. Take my advice, dear, and let him
see (or at any rate think) that you are prepared to abide by what he
said.”
It was with great reluctance that Georgia consented to follow her
friend’s counsel; but when she thought it over its wisdom commended
itself to her, and she decided to carry it out rigorously, with
results which seemed very hard to Dick. He only saw his doctor once
a-day, and then she persisted in ignoring sternly all his attempts to
extend the scope of the conversation beyond the business in hand. Then
she discontinued her visits altogether, and the only explanation his
bearer could offer was that the Doctor Miss Sahiba was very busy, and
he supposed that she took no more interest in the protector of the
poor now that he was so much better. It was the same when Stratford
and Fitz came to see him. They agreed that Miss Keeling was very busy,
and seemed rather surprised that he should ask after her. It even
appeared to him that there was a slight constraint in their tones when
they answered his questions. Dick pondered over the mystery without
any satisfactory result for two days, and then announced that he was
going to get up, and demanded his clothes. The bearer had anticipated
this step, and replied promptly that the entire wardrobe of the
protector of the poor was at the moment in the hands of a tailor in
the town, to whom he had intrusted it for needed repairs, and who
preferred to execute them on his own premises. Hari Das invited his
master’s reproofs for his own remissness in postponing the operation
for so long, but to his dismay discovered that Dick declined to be
drawn into a tirade on the vices of bearers in general, illustrated
from his experience of this particular specimen. He was too much in
earnest in his determination to have time to waste in useless
altercations, and, moreover, he knew his man.
“Ask the _chota sahib_ to come to me,” he said. “I will borrow a suit
of his clothes.”
The bearer looked blank.
“But the _chota sahib’s_ clothes will not fit my lord,” he objected.
“That doesn’t signify,” said Dick. “Fit or no fit, I am going to get
up,” and he only smiled in secret when the bearer returned after a
short absence with one of his own suits, and announced that the tailor
had brought it back unexpectedly soon. He found himself much weaker
than he had anticipated as he dressed, but he disregarded the bearer’s
doleful assurances that he would kill himself, and declined to return
to his couch, although he was glad to accept the support of the
servant’s arm as he crossed the hall and entered the passage leading
into the harem. Lady Haigh, writing her home letters busily at a
camp-table (for letter-writing had been dropped by common, though
unexpressed consent, during those past days, when it seemed unlikely
that either the letters or their writers would ever reach home),
looked up in astonishment when he came in, and made haste to arrange a
comfortable place for him with cushions upon the divan, remarking that
he had better lie still and rest for a little and not talk. But this
was not what Dick had come for.
“Lady Haigh, where is Georgie?” he asked, the moment after the bearer
had departed.
“Well, I think she is busy just now,” Lady Haigh replied, with
distinct coldness in her manner. As a matter of fact, at that moment
Georgia was sitting outside on the terrace with Sir Dugald, who had by
this time been promoted to a knowledge of the whereabouts of his
party, and was entertaining him with an account of her visit to
Bir-ul-Malikat and of the charms of Khadija.
“Every person that I have asked about her for the last three days has
told me exactly that!” said Dick, with a good deal of indignation in
his tone. “I should like to see her, if you please,” he went on, in
the voice of one determined to obtain his just rights.
“I assure you that I have not got her locked up,” said Lady Haigh,
with some tartness. “I will tell her what you say, if you like, but I
must say that after all that has happened----”
“What is the object of tormenting me like this, Lady Haigh?” asked
Dick impatiently, raising himself on his elbow. “I know that Georgia
must be ill--I suppose she fell ill through overtiring herself in
nursing me--and you are all doing your best to keep it from me. I
insist on knowing what is the matter with her, and how she is getting
on. I have a right to know.”
“Indeed?” said Lady Haigh. “I was not aware of that. But you are
mistaken in supposing that Miss Keeling is ill. I am glad to say she
is quite well.”
“Then what is the matter? Why are you keeping her away from me like
this? What has come between us?”
“Really, Major North, you are a little inconsistent. Why you should
accuse me of trying to separate Miss Keeling and yourself, I don’t
know. I can only suppose that your illness has caused you to forget
the trifling fact that your engagement is broken off.”
Dick stared at her in astonishment and dismay.
“I don’t remember,” he murmured. “Some one said something about a
quarrel, but it was nothing after all. When did she do it? What had I
done?”
“Pray don’t try to put it upon Miss Keeling. You told her yourself
that things had better be over between you.”
“I must have been mad,” said Dick despairingly, “or am I dreaming
now?” He pinched his arm to assure himself that he was awake, then
looked round the room in a vain search for explanation, until his gaze
rested again on Lady Haigh, but he found no comfort in her face. “You
wouldn’t humbug me on such a subject, Lady Haigh!” he cried, as he met
her accusing glance. “You helped me once before; tell me what to do
now. She can’t think I really meant it!”
“So far as I know, you explained your views pretty clearly,” said Lady
Haigh, rejoicing to find Dick delivered into her hands in this
teachable spirit, and hoping devoutly that Georgia would remain
outside and out of hearing. “You mustn’t play fast and loose like
this, Major North. Why did you say what you didn’t mean?”
“I don’t know--I must have been angry. I have a beastly temper at
times, you know. I suppose Georgia had made me very mad about
something. Oh yes, I remember now, it was about her going to
Bir-ul-Malikat. She would insist that she had a right to go, and stay
too, whether I liked it or not, and she wouldn’t give in. But as for
breaking off our engagement----”
“But you are convinced that Miss Keeling ought to have given in?”
“Well, I think that when she saw what a point I made of it----”
“There was no question of your giving in because she also made a point
of it?”
“Oh no,” said Dick, innocently.
“Then I think it is a very good thing indeed that your engagement is
broken off.” Lady Haigh spoke with her usual decision of manner, but
Dick looked so absolutely astonished and appalled that she
condescended to an explanation. “I should like to talk to you a little
on this subject very seriously, Major North, for as a looker-on I can
perhaps see more clearly than you do where you have gone wrong. I
daresay you will regard me as a meddling old woman, but at any rate
you can’t say that I have turned critic because I have failed in
matrimony, for my married life has been as happy as even I could have
wished. Besides, it was in getting the medicine to cure Sir Dugald
that poor Georgie incurred your royal highness’s displeasure, so that
I feel bound to do all I can to put things right between you.”
“But if you think that it is better for her not to be engaged to me?”
The question was asked a little stiffly, for Dick did not altogether
appreciate the tone of his monitress’s remarks.
“That is a matter which depends solely on yourself. You possess many
estimable qualities, Major North, but you were born a few centuries
too late. Of course I don’t mean that you were to blame for the
fact--on the contrary, it is distinctly a misfortune, both to yourself
and others. You would have made an ideal husband in the days when it
was considered quite the proper thing for a gentleman to correct his
wife with a stick not thicker than his middle finger.”
“Really, Lady Haigh, this is beyond a joke!” Dick was angry now--there
was no mistaking the fact.
“Quite so; but I am not joking. I don’t mean that if you married
Georgia, you would keep her in order with a horsewhip--I don’t for a
moment believe she would let you, for one thing. But I think you would
certainly need some resource of the kind to fall back upon if your
ideal of domestic discipline was to be maintained. In your house,
according to your theory, there would be one law and one will, and
that law would be your law, and that will your will. That is a
beautiful ideal--for you--and it would no doubt produce, in course of
time, a saintly submissiveness of character in your wife. But any
woman who is to be subjected to such a course of training ought to be
warned beforehand, and agree to accept it with her eyes open. And that
Georgia would never do.”
“I don’t know why she shouldn’t. All women do.”
“Do they?” asked Lady Haigh, with as little sarcasm in her tone as the
subject admitted--and Dick was silent, recognising that he had, to use
his own phrase, given himself away. His counsellor went on, “I am
going to ask you a personal question, Major North. Why do you want to
marry Miss Keeling?”
“Because I love her, and I can’t do without her,” very gruffly.
“But why didn’t you fall in love with that beautiful Miss Hervey, whom
we met at Mrs Egerton’s before we came out here?”
“Because she is not my sort--an empty-headed doll!”
“Exactly; but if you want a woman without any mind or reason of her
own, she would just suit you. She would adore you, and defer to all
your wishes when they didn’t clash with any particular fancies of her
own, for six months at least, and you would adore her for the same
length of time--until you each found the other out. After that, you
would know that you had married a fool, and she a tyrant. Georgia is
not a fool. She loves you, but she sees your faults, and she has a
certain amount of self-respect. If you wanted her to do anything that
seemed to her unreasonable, she would talk it over with you, and she
might end by refusing to do it, but she would never cry or sulk until
you gave it up in despair. It is a great thing to recognise fully that
you are both human beings, after all. Georgie doesn’t imagine that the
possession of the Victoria Cross necessarily implies that of all the
domestic virtues, any more than she believes herself to be perfect
because she possesses a London medical degree. She would consider that
she had exactly as much right to be the sole arbiter of the house as
you had, and that is none at all.”
Dick murmured a feeble protest against this way of looking at things,
to which Lady Haigh refused to listen.
“The fact is, you would wish to marry a clever woman, only she must be
willing to let herself be treated like a fool. You can’t reconcile two
extremes in that way. Georgia has lived her own life, and that a very
full and useful one, and you cannot expect her to become a puppet all
at once, simply out of love for you. She is used to acting on her own
initiative. Well, I will tell you what I learned from her maid, for
she won’t talk about it herself. Do you know that when she was at
Bir-ul-Malikat, that wicked old woman Khadija tried to get her to lead
you and your men into a trap, on the pretence that by calling to you
and beckoning you she would warn you of an ambuscade. An ordinary
woman would have yielded to the impulse of the moment--I should have
myself--and destroyed you, with the purest desire for your safety; but
Georgie had the strength of mind to reason the matter out, all in an
instant. She refused to call to you, and you were saved. And it is a
woman like that whom you expect to fall down and worship your
slightest whim!” with intense scorn.
“Not guilty, Lady Haigh. I abjure, I recant--anything! But why didn’t
you tell me this before? What an ungrateful brute she must think me!”
“I didn’t begin by telling you of it, because I wanted to make you see
reason, instead of working upon your feelings. I’m sure I hope I may
have done both.”
“I will give you my solemn promise, if that will satisfy you, that
Georgia shall ride roughshod over my most cherished convictions as
often as she likes. She is a heroine. I feel ashamed to lift my eyes
to her. Oh, Lady Haigh, tell me what to do. How can I begin to make
things right?”
“Put yourself in her place. Would you like it if she expected you to
give up your military career for her sake?”
“She would never ask or expect such a thing. She knows that I could
not do it, even to please her.”
“Then return the compliment. She is willing to give up for your sake
any hope of distinguishing herself further in her profession by means
of original research, but she will not relinquish the practice of it.
Allow her the freedom you claim for yourself--in fact you must allow
it, if you mean to marry Georgia Keeling. She will be yours heart and
soul, but a certain portion of her time and interest she will always
give to her work.”
“But come now, Lady Haigh, doesn’t that strike you as slightly rough
on a man?”
“It strikes me as merely just,” snapped Lady Haigh. “No portion of
your time and interest will ever be given to your work, of course?”
“Oh, but that’s different, you know,” said Dick, uncomfortably. “Do
you really think that this sort of thing is meant for women?”
“My dear Major North, I am not holding a brief for Women’s Rights. I
am merely trying to bring you into line with facts. If you want
arguments, no doubt Georgia will argue with you by the hour.”
“I wish she was here to do it!” sighed Dick. “Would it be rude to
remind you, Lady Haigh, that I haven’t seen her for three whole days?”
“I suppose that means that you want me to fetch her for you. Well, I
will just say this. Once you lamented to me that you had no tact. Now
I believe that, until she finds him out, a bad man with tact will make
a woman happier than a good man without it.” Lady Haigh paused
triumphantly, as though to say, “Contradict that atrocious sentiment
if you can!” but Dick made no attempt to do so, and she went on. “I’m
afraid you would find it difficult to cultivate tact now, but if you
will only try to consider things that affect Georgia from her point of
view as well as your own, you will have made a good beginning.”
She stepped out through the lattice, and presently Georgia entered,
stethoscope in hand.
“Well, and how do we find ourselves to-day?” she asked cheerfully,
hoping that Dick would not notice the trembling in her voice.
“How can you expect a patient to get better when his doctor does not
come near him for days?”
“You have always expressed such a dislike to lady doctors, that it
struck us you might prefer to be without one.”
“Ah, how did you come to be my doctor, by the bye?”
“I knew you would have preferred the surgeon who came with you,” said
Georgia, with resignation in her tones. “I will tell you how it was.
He is very young and very new, and knows nothing about fever in
practice, which makes him all the more sure about it in theory. He has
half-a-dozen infallible remedies, and he was rejoicing at the prospect
of being able to test them all on you, when I stepped in and claimed
you as my patient. And now I suppose you will tell me that you would
prefer to be killed by him rather than be cured by me?”
No suitable repartee occurring to Dick at the moment, he took a mean
advantage of his position as an invalid, and lay back on his cushions
with a slight groan, which melted Georgia’s heart at once.
“You have a headache, and I have been teasing you!” she said,
remorsefully, changing her position and coming behind him. “Keep your
head like that, my poor boy,” and she began to pass her fingers slowly
across his forehead with such a soothing effect that Dick only kept
himself by a violent effort from falling asleep. Pulling her hands
down, he looked at them critically.
“Have you been taking lessons in witchcraft from Khadija?” he asked.
“Do you think it’s fair to practice magic arts on me? What chance has
a man when you begin to mesmerise him with those cool, firm fingers of
yours? What nice soft hands you have, Georgie!” emphasising the remark
by lifting the said hands to his lips.
“One has to keep one’s hands nice for surgical work,” said Georgia,
apologetically, and expecting an outburst. But Dick only gave a rather
ostentatious sigh, and went on meditatively.
“Your magic is thoroughly successful, at any rate. Lady Haigh will
testify to the change in my demeanour since you came in. Well,
Georgie, you have won. Let’s make it up. I surrender at discretion.”
“I begin to think that you are delirious again,” said Georgia, in a
puzzled voice, bending forward to look at him.
“I think not. I am merely anxious not to do things by halves. Come,
impose your conditions on me while I am in this softened state. As an
honourable man, I shall feel bound to carry them out when I return to
my right mind. I will only ask you, as you are strong, to be merciful.
There, could submission go further than that?”
“You are certainly not fit to be sitting up. I shall call your bearer,
and request him to see you back to bed. You may not be delirious, but
you are undoubtedly queer in the head.”
“Thank you. You will not call the respectable Hari Das at present--at
any rate until I have had a longer talk with you.”
“That sounds more like your usual self,” said Georgia.
“The self which is to vanish from henceforth. Oh, Georgie, I know I’m
talking like a lunatic, but it’s because I should make a fool of
myself if I didn’t. When I think of what Lady Haigh has just been
telling me, of the way in which you saved all our lives the other day,
I feel as though I could simply die of shame. How could you--how could
you--do it?”
“Pure selfishness,” returned Georgia, with elaborate composure. “I
couldn’t do without you, you see.”
“I’m not worth it, Georgie. I couldn’t even behave decently to you an
hour after it happened. And I daren’t make any promises for the
future, remembering all those I have broken already. But I do ask you
to believe that I didn’t know what I was saying when--when I talked
about breaking off our engagement the morning you came back. I
couldn’t have believed that even when I was off my head I could be
such an idiot; but, unfortunately, you heard me say it. Take me on
again, dearest. You’ll have a lot to put up with, but----”
“My dear boy, I have never given you up--of my own free will, at any
rate.”
“That doesn’t make it any better for me. After you had done a thing
that not one woman in a million--or one man either--could have
done----”
“Oh yes, they could, if the idea had struck them. It was just that--a
sudden inspiration. But you are getting excited, Dick, and I will not
have it. As your medical attendant, I forbid you to think about
Bir-ul-Malikat any more. I shall break off our re-engagement at once
if you don’t talk about something else.”
“Yes, there it is. You have such an awful pull over me, Georgie. I
can’t do without you, but you could get on very well without me.
Confess now--couldn’t you?”
“By going back to England and joining the Forward Club, and impressing
on the world that the grapes were sour?” asked Georgia. “No, I should
have to keep to my old plan, and settle down to missionary work in
Khemistan; then I should get a glimpse of you sometimes.”
“I don’t know whether you call that a pure motive? Yes, I think I see
myself riding past a Zenana hospital every day, and about once a-week
catching a distant view of you teaching a lot of native girls to roll
up bandages.”
“And I can imagine myself rushing to the verandah to look after you
when you had passed,” said Georgia. “It would be a modern version of
Roland and his lady.”
“It would be far worse than never seeing one another at all.”
“Oh no, Dick--not worse, much better than that.”
“It would be much worse to me. I should have to look out for an
appointment somewhere at the other end of the Empire.”
“Dick, how unkind of you to say such a thing!” There were tears very
near to falling in Georgia’s eyes, but with an extraordinary access of
tact Dick pretended not to notice them, and looked up at her with a
friendly smile.
“Yes, I know I’m a brute. I warn you not to have me, Georgie. I have
had a good fright just now, and I’m properly subdued for the moment,
but I am bound to break out again. It isn’t safe, is it?”
“I don’t care whether it is safe or not,” and she stooped and kissed
him.
“Does that mean that there is to be no more doctoring?”
“Not at all. Did you think you were going to catch me off my guard in
a moment of weakness? It means that you agree to my doing what medical
work I can, and that I won’t let it come between you and me.”
“That first part is what one might call a cool assumption, but I told
you to make your own conditions, and as I said before, I am prepared
to accept them abjectly. Do you know, Georgie, that when I was at
Rahmat-Ullah it was hinted to me that I might be made assistant
political agent when they establish the agency at Iskandarbagh? How
would you like that?”
“Dick, it’s too good to be true! It is like a dream. To have you, and
my work, and to be able to reach not only Khemistan but my dear
Ethiopian women!”
“How do you propose to employ yourself, then?”
“In doctoring the women and children, and teaching where I am
allowed.”
“And leaving your house to take care of itself?”
“Yes, of course, and my husband too. It would set such a good example
to the Ethiopian women, wouldn’t it?”
“Oh, well, if I am only to be regarded in the light of an
object-lesson----”
“You will accept the position with resignation, and be thankful. Oh,
Dick, don’t let us tease one another any more! Can’t you understand
that I am glad and proud to have the chance of helping you a little in
your work? It was my father’s work too, you know.”
“Yes, I know. You might come a little closer, Georgie. You don’t seem
to understand yet that I make my doctor pay for the privilege of
attending me.”
“Come, Mr Stratford, you mustn’t tire Sir Dugald. I am sure he has
done quite enough work this morning.”
Stratford looked at Lady Haigh rather guiltily, almost as though he
felt that he ought to tell her something, but could not make up his
mind to do it.
“I didn’t want him to go on so long, Lady Haigh, but he insisted on
looking through the journal. Of course he wanted to be posted up in
everything before we start to-morrow, in view of reaching Rahmat-Ullah
so soon. I’m afraid you will find that--that he has been doing a
little too much.”
Lady Haigh went into the room with a scolding on her lips, but it died
away when her eyes fell upon Sir Dugald, sitting at the table with his
head leaning on his hand. As she entered, he pushed aside wearily the
papers before him and turned to her.
“It’s no use, Elma; I am done for--a worn-out, useless wreck. I always
hoped to die in harness, but now I am laid on the shelf. It is all
right until I get to business, but I cannot grasp things. My brain
refuses to work.”
This confirmation of fears which had already occurred to herself and
Georgia struck a chill to Lady Haigh’s heart, but she dared not hold
out any hope of improvement by way of comfort. She came forward
silently, and standing at her husband’s side, laid her hand rather
timidly on his shoulder.
“It’s all up, Elma,” he said again. “The very _ad valorem_ duties in
the treaty--over which I spent so much time before I was ill--stump me
now. We lose everything--position, occupation, influence, even
reputation.”
“You have nothing left but your poor old wife,” she said, stifling a
sob.
“I don’t count you,” he said, with something of his old manner; “you
are part of myself. We have gone through everything together, Elma.”
Lady Haigh murmured something about going home to Scotland and ending
their days together, but she left the sentence unfinished. How she
managed to get out of the room without absolutely breaking down she
did not know, but Georgia found her a short time later dissolved in
tears.
“He never spoke to me like that before,” she sobbed. “We have never
been a sentimental couple--not even when we were first married. He
couldn’t bear that sort of thing; and though I might have liked a
little--just a little--more _expression_, don’t you know? I was not
going to worry him. We were good comrades always, and I think I can
say that I never stood in his way when he was ordered to do anything.
He would come to me in the morning and say, ‘Elma, I am ordered to
such and such a place,’ a thousand miles off, perhaps--and I would
say, ‘Very well, dear; what time must I be ready? or will it do if we
start to-morrow?’ He never said anything, but I knew he liked it, and
he was as proud as I was that I could shift quarters as quickly as any
soldier of them all. And we have always been together, as he says, and
now he must give up work at last!”
“But you have your place in Scotland, Lady Haigh, and Sir Dugald will
find plenty to do there, and be very happy. It would not surprise me
if he recovered entirely when he had no official work to worry him.”
“But that very official work has been the mainspring of his life. He
will be lost without it. And how will things go on without him? To
escape so many dangers and recover from that poisoning just for this!
No, Georgie, don’t try to show me the bright side of it yet. Let me
have my cry out now, and, God helping me, I’ll say no more about it,
and he shan’t know. I won’t fail him after all just when he needs me
most.”
“Dick,” said Georgia that evening when they met before dinner, “who is
the bravest woman you know?”
“You,” he replied, promptly.
“Don’t be absurd; I wasn’t fishing for compliments. I should be
satisfied if I were half as brave as Lady Haigh. I think that she and
Sir Dugald are just worthy of one another.”
“I suppose there’s a concealed snub somewhere in that remark intended
for me, but I can’t quite locate it yet. I have a good mind to ask
Stratford to find it out for me--I always want to apply to him for an
explanation when your reproofs are couched in too learned
language--but he isn’t down yet.”
“Here he comes,” said Georgia, as Stratford entered somewhat hurriedly
and cast a hasty glance round the room; “but if you ever venture to
ask him to interpret me, Dick, why, beware!”
“I should never think of doing it in cold blood. It might be too much
for his brain. What’s the matter, Stratford?” he asked, raising his
voice. “You’re not late.”
“The Chief not down yet?” asked Stratford, looking round again and
making sure that Sir Dugald and Lady Haigh were the only members of
the party who were missing. It was the first time that the two
invalids had been allowed to join the rest at dinner, and the servants
were obviously unhappy at the delay.
“No,” said Fitz; “the poor old chap is so thin after his illness that
Lady Haigh is making Chanda Lal pad his dress-clothes a bit to keep
him from looking quite so like a scarecrow.”
“I wish you would have the goodness to confine your jokes to other
people, Anstruther, and not go sharpening your wit on the Chief,” said
Stratford, irritably. “Look here, all of you--there was something I
particularly wanted to say when I got you all together, and this is just
the chance. I beg and entreat you all not to allude after to-day--even
in private letters or in talking to friends--to the way in which I
managed to get the treaty signed.”
“Why, Stratford, there was nothing to be ashamed of!” cried Dick. “It
was one of the finest things I ever heard of.”
“You don’t see what I am driving at. At present the Chief has got it
into his head that the sudden change in the King’s attitude was
entirely due to the discovery by independent means of Fath-ud-Din’s
treachery, and the consequent promotion of Jahan Beg. He thinks that
I happened on the spot exactly at the right moment and got the treaty
signed without a bit of trouble, and I want him to go on thinking so.”
“But do you mean to say you don’t want him to know that it was all
through you that the old fraud was unmasked, and that you went to the
Palace for the sake of rescuing Miss Keeling, and at the risk of your
life? What on earth is your reason?”
“I should have thought you would have seen it at once. I want the
Chief to get the full credit for this piece of work.”
“But this is nonsense!” cried Dick. “Why should the Chief get the
credit for what you did? He is the last man in the world to wish to
wear borrowed plumes.”
“Of course he is, and that’s the reason that I want no one beyond our
immediate selves to know that they are borrowed. Lady Haigh honestly
believes that he did all the work, and that I merely reaped the fruit,
so that she won’t let out. Sir Dugald has never been properly
appreciated at home, and it is hard on him to lose the reputation he
deserves for the way he has managed this affair, which he will do if
it once gets known that it was not he who got the treaty signed after
all. He is an old man, and he will do no more work after this. His
illness has left marks on him. You have noticed it, Miss Keeling, I am
sure?”
“There is some loss of brain power,” said Georgia, hesitatingly,
“which may be only temporary. But I fear his official career is over.”
“You see that, then? Let him get his peerage and the credit of having
made the treaty. After all, he did by far the greater part of the
work.”
“Only you came romping in at the finish,” said Fitz. “But what about
your own prospects, Mr Stratford?”
“They can look after themselves. I may mention that the Chief let out
this morning that he intended to mention us all very honourably in his
report, so that we shall none of us lose in the long-run.”
“It is splendid of you to leave Sir Dugald the credit in this way, Mr
Stratford,” said Georgia; “and we shall all think far more highly of
you than if you had claimed the honour for yourself.”
“But what about your archives--your official journal?” asked Dick, who
was still unconvinced.
“I wrote that entry myself. Hush, here comes the Chief!”
And the conspiracy of silence was an accomplished fact, although Dick
continued to argue the matter vainly with both Stratford and Georgia
all the evening, as often as he could get either of them alone. They
succeeded at last in reducing him to a condition of grumbling
acquiescence, and during the journey of the next few days all the
conspirators did their best to accustom themselves to the new view of
what had happened, until they were almost ready to accept it as the
true one. Strangely enough, however, they had left out of account an
important element which ought to have entered into their calculations,
and it was through this oversight that their deep-laid schemes failed
eventually of success. The blow came suddenly on the last day of the
march, when the officers at Fort Rahmat-Ullah, riding out to welcome
the returning travellers, had met them on the frontier. The Mission
was being escorted back to the Fort in triumph, and Sir Dugald, able
now to mount his horse, was talking to the Commandant as they rode
side by side.
“Your staff seem to have come uncommonly well out of this business,”
remarked the Commandant. “Of course we expected great things from
North, and we were not a bit astonished when he turned up with the
treaty, after a three days’ solitary ride; but that Foreign Office
fellow of yours--Stratford his name is, isn’t it?--appears to have
developed in a wholly unexpected direction.”
“My staff have all behaved extremely well, and I shall have great
pleasure in representing the fact in the proper quarter.”
“Oh, come, Haigh, it’s more than that--or do you include absolute
heroism in the bond of your requirements? It is not every civilian
that would take his life in his hand in the way your man did, and have
the nerve to carry through a palace revolution and secure the object
of the Mission all at once. I can tell you that when we heard the
story from Hicks, there wasn’t one of us but was simply yearning to
have had Stratford’s chance, and to have made as good use of it as he
did.”
“I wish I had scragged Hicks!” muttered Stratford, behind, to Dick;
but Sir Dugald’s face betrayed no astonishment.
“Then I suppose our friend Hicks is beforehand with us now in the
matter of news, as he was a short time ago in reaching Kubbet-ul-Haj?”
“You bet he is--as he would say himself. The story of your Mission is
all over the world by this time, and Hicks and the proprietor of the
‘Crier’ are raking in the shekels like so much dust. Upon my word, it
is rather rough on you. But for that illness of yours, you would have
carried the whole thing through yourself, and now you have lost the
biggest advertisement you were ever within an ace of getting.
Stratford is the popular hero from end to end of the Empire, and no
one else will have a look-in beside him.”
“You would not wish me to rob Mr Stratford of the honour which is due
to him?” inquired Sir Dugald, raising his eyebrows. “If I know him at
all, he will owe Hicks just as much thanks for his advertisement as I
should in his place, and that is--nothing. He is so touchy on the
subject of his visit to the Palace that I have scarcely yet been able
to mention it to him myself. Still, it is a little disappointing to
find that we have been forestalled in the announcement of our great
_coup_. You agree with me, Mr Stratford?” and Sir Dugald turned
partially round in his saddle, and cast a side-glance at the guilty
Stratford, who looked extremely unlike a popular hero at the moment.
He muttered something unintelligible in reply to his leader’s
question, and Sir Dugald smiled and changed the subject as he rode on
with the Commandant.
In the bustle and confusion of arriving at the Fort, Stratford heard
no more of his attempted deception until late that evening, when he
and Fitz, who had been dining with the officers at mess, walked over
to the verandah in front of the Haighs’ old quarters to say
good-night. Sir Dugald had employed the interval in catechising Lady
Haigh and Georgia, as well as in collecting stray pieces of
information from Dick and Kustendjian, so that he was now well
acquainted with the history of all that had passed on the eventful day
when the treaty had been signed.
“Sit down, Stratford, and don’t be in such a hurry,” he said, as they
came up the steps, divining Stratford’s evident intention of seeking
safety in flight to his own quarters as soon as the requisite
farewells had been exchanged. “We may not have the chance of being
together again without any strangers present. Do you know that you
have been plotting all this time to play me a very shabby trick--to
make a fool of me, in fact, in the eyes of everybody?”
“Pray don’t think that I agree with your description of our aims, Sir
Dugald, when I say that I can only wish they had succeeded.”
“And left me at the mercy of our friend Hicks? Don’t you see that as
soon as he gave his version of your proceedings, I should be suspected
either of concealing the facts or of being ignorant of them? I have no
particular fancy for either alternative.”
“Unfortunately, we had all left Hicks out of our calculations.”
“Most fortunately, if you will allow me to correct you, Hicks declines
to be ignored in such an unceremonious fashion. I suppose you imply
that if he had occurred to your memory you would have tried to square
him? You ought to know by this time that there is no one on earth so
incorruptible as the newspaper man who has a big sensation in charge.
The wealth of India would not move him, if the condition of receiving
it was the suppression of his ‘copy.’ And what a fine story he could
have made out of your eager attempts (instigated, without a doubt, by
myself) to bribe him not to publish the true facts of the case! The
issue would have been simple ruin for both of us. Not that that is the
worst of it. Since when, Mr Stratford, have you imagined me capable of
trading upon another man’s reputation?”
“Honestly, Sir Dugald, our only idea was to preserve for you the
credit which we know you deserve, but which Hicks and the world are
determined to award to the wrong man.”
“My dear Stratford, I have no doubt as to the entire excellence of
your intentions, although I can’t congratulate you on the steps you
took to carry them out. I cannot be too thankful that your Quixotic
scheme has failed. Leaving out of sight all the other considerations,
I have still a little pride left, and I can’t stand being indebted,
even to my friends, for a reputation which doesn’t belong to me. I
have had my day, and I am quite ready to walk off and leave the stage
to the younger men.”
“Ah, Sir Dugald,” said Stratford, earnestly, “none of the younger men
can hope to do what you have done.”
“Stuff!” said Sir Dugald, but he could not help allowing a gleam of
pleasure to be seen. “You have all done your duty under very trying
circumstances, and I am proud of you, gentlemen.”
“And we of you, Sir Dugald,” said Dick, finding his tongue suddenly.
“You are bringing home peace with honour, as you said once at
Kubbet-ul-Haj,” said Stratford.
“The Chief gets the peace, and Stratford the honour,” observed Fitz,
_sotto voce_, to Georgia. “Do you call that a fair division or not,
Miss Keeling?”
EPILOGUE.
(Being part of a letter addressed by Mr Fitzgerald Anstruther, about a
year after the return of the English Mission from Kubbet-ul-Haj, to
Mrs North, M.D., British Residency, Iskandarbagh.)
“... I have just come back from my visit to Sir Dugald and Lady Haigh
at Inverconglish. The Chief is all right again, and looks quite
bucolic in knickerbockers and a deerstalker--a regular ‘tyrant of his
little fields,’ indeed. I had promised myself the pleasure of seeing
him in a kilt, but he says that his tenants are a serious-minded
people, unaccustomed to laughter, and he is afraid the sight of him so
arrayed might do them severe physical injury. He is a great power in
the neighbourhood, and the people bring their disputes to him to
settle instead of going to law, so that he is quite busy and happy,
though he has not got his peerage. Lady Haigh, who directs the affairs
(particularly the love affairs) of the locality generally, told me
something about Stratford that will amuse you and North. He is
destined, so they say, to get a high appointment before long, and
meanwhile he has devoted his leave to falling in love with a girl just
out of the schoolroom, who is desperately frightened by his
attentions, and won’t have a word to say to him. Lady Haigh says she
is rather like a lady whom Stratford knew long ago, and who died. She
is a hero-worshipper, and has adored him from a distance since Hicks
first made him known to the British public, but she doesn’t want him
to come any closer. However, if old Stratford makes up his mind to
stick to a thing, I fancy he is pretty sure to get it. By the bye, I
met Hicks the other day. He was just off to Thracia again, drawn by
the rumour of these new disturbances. He quite considers himself as
one of us, and says that when we of the old Kubbet-ul-Haj gang meet
next to celebrate the signing of the treaty, he will be there, if he
has to come from the other side of the world in order to be
present....”
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES.
Sydney C. Grier was the pseudonym of Hilda Caroline Gregg.
This book is part of the author’s “Modern East” series. The full
series, in order, being:
The Flag of the Adventurer
Two Strong Men
The Advanced-Guard
His Excellency’s English Governess
Peace With Honour
The Warden of the Marches
Alterations to the text:
Note: the following alterations have been checked and validated against
an 1897 edition of the story serialized in _The Argosy_ volumes 63 and
64.
A few punctuation corrections--mostly involving the pairing of
quotation marks and missing periods.
[Title Page]
Add a brief note indicating this novel’s position in the series. See
above. Also add illustrator’s credit. See below.
[Images]
Add twelve illustrations of Alfred Pearse featured in the
above-mentioned 1897 edition, but not included in the 1902 L. C. Page
& Co. edition. Illustrations were placed nearest the scene they
represent, of course. Some captions have been updated to reflect
revisions in the text.
[Chapter IV]
Change “gave up his horse to a _Eurasian’s_ clerk’s wife” to
_Eurasian_.
[Chapter VI]
“The official, _well pleased_, stayed” to _well-pleased_.
[Chapter XI]
“awaiting your orders at Fort _Rahmut_-Ullah” to _Rahmat_.
[Chapter XII]
“the rugs in the _Dunbar_-hall taken up” to _Durbar_.
“if you _realise_ that it was anxiety for you that” to _realised_.
[Chapter XIV]
“between _Ishmail_ Bakhsh and some one outside” to _Ismail_.
[Chapter XVII]
“partook presently of coffee and _sweatmeats_” to _sweetmeats_.
[Chapter XVIII]
“his right hand _thurst_ into his girdle” to _thrust_.
“the rest of the troop _appear_ to have been stupefied” to _appeared_.
[Chapter XXI]
“rely upon an Englishwoman to _kelp_ you” to _help_.
“of her going to Bir-ul-_Mulikat_ at” to _Malikat_.
[Chapter XXIV]
“...husband too. [_missing text_] such a good example to...” repair
lacuna with _It would set_.
“wanted to say when I got you _altogether_” to _all together_.
[End of Text]