hopelessly in love with Elizabeth, with the knightly love which
would guard her not only against the whole world but against himself
and herself; for in those two years Elizabeth’s mind, ripening and
developing, perceived that she had married a man with every grace and
virtue joined to a tiresome and amiable commonplaceness. It frightened
her sometimes when she discovered how bored she grew by her husband’s
conversation, and she was still more frightened at the prospect which
sometimes occurred to her of being separated from Pelham, on whom she
had learned to depend as other women depend upon a brother or a father
or even a husband. But she was not unhappy, although she gradually
found her way out of the lover’s paradise into which she had embarked
with Darrell.
For Darrell himself she never lost the slightest respect. He was as
truthful and honorable and truly unselfish as Pelham himself was.
Nevertheless, at the end of two years came the beginning of a crisis.
A beautiful boy was born to Elizabeth, a child of fairness and of
delightful temper. “The jolliest little chap I ever saw,” swore Darrell
at the club, when the baby was less than a week old.
Elizabeth was a devoted mother, but Darrell was the most passionately
fond father imaginable. The child merely as a pet was worth to him more
than all the dogs and horses in existence, including the Irish setter.
In him there was a deep well–spring of fatherhood. He had thought
himself perfectly happy before the boy was born, but afterwards he
felt he had never known what true happiness was until then; and when
the child was a year old Darrell, proudly calling him “my soldier,”
used to put his own cap on the baby’s pretty head and his sword in its
little hand, and throw his military cloak around it and sit and gaze
in rapture at the child as it laughed and crowed, delighted with its
trappings.
At the end of a year, like a judgment from heaven, the child died,
after a day’s illness. In general it is the father who consoles the
heart–broken mother, but in this case it was Elizabeth who kept Darrell
sane in the midst of his terrible grief, who sat by him day and night,
who checked by her own tears his strange cries of grief, and who upheld
him when he passed through the deep waters. She herself was stricken in
heart as only mothers can be, and she had a presentiment that she would
never again have a child.
Pelham, who would cheerfully have borne all of Elizabeth’s sorrow at
the boy’s death, was amazed and even indignant that Darrell should not
have sustained her in this dreadful hour. Silently and with a sleepless
vigilance and constancy Pelham supported and comforted Elizabeth.
_Chapter Four_
There was no one else to sustain Elizabeth. Darrell needed comforting
even more than herself. She had formed no intimacies with any of
the ladies of the station. There were among them many kind and
tender–hearted women, but a barrier had grown up between them and the
stranger from America.
Gradually the truth was beginning to dawn upon Elizabeth, that she
depended more upon Pelham than upon Darrell; that is to say, she had
married the wrong man, and the full revelation of this terrible truth
came to her within two months of the time that she was left childless.
It was in the heat of summer, and Elizabeth was one of those two or
three of the officers’ wives, who braved the terrors of the hot season
away from the hills in order to be with their husbands.
One stifling August evening, about ten o’clock, as Elizabeth was
walking in the small grounds around their bungalow, the moon shining
upon the tops of the great cypress trees which skirted the grounds,
Pelham came down the steps of the veranda at the back of the house
and joined her. The night was hot, as only Indian nights can be, but
Elizabeth in her filmy white gown looked cool. She was as graceful
and charming as ever, for the touch of sorrow, the knowledge of
disappointment, and the necessity of keeping ceaseless watch and ward
upon her own heart had added a deeper interest to her beauty while
robbing her of some of her girlish fairness. Pelham, who was in mufti,
wore a suit of white linen, and the two white figures could be seen for
half a mile. They had not met since morning, a long time for them to be
apart, because Pelham, who had lived with Darrell after the manner of
a brother before his marriage, had continued it ever since. As he came
up, holding his straw hat in his hand, Elizabeth said to him:—
“Where have you been all day? We waited dinner for you until at last we
could wait no longer, as I wanted my poor Jack to go to the club. It
doesn’t do for him to stay in this house too much.”
[Illustration: “...SHE CAUGHT HIM BY THE ARM AND WHISPERED, ‘AND COULD
YOU LEAVE ME?’”]
“I have been hard at work all day,” replied Pelham, in a tired voice.
“I got a letter at noon to–day, offering me a staff appointment. It
would be a very good thing, a great thing, and I have been studying it
over and looking things up concerning it all the afternoon and evening.
It would take me away from the regiment for a good many years, but
still—“
Elizabeth’s face was quite plain to him in the white moonlight. She was
already pale from the heat and from her months of suffering, but he saw
a total change of expression, a look of terror, come into her eyes. It
was unmistakable. Pelham himself had long known how things were with
him, and it was chiefly from despair that he had seriously considered
that day tearing himself from Elizabeth. He thought she would miss him
as a woman misses a friend and brother, but something in her sad and
lovely eyes suddenly revealed to him that it was not as a friend and
brother she would miss him, but as the being dearest to her on earth;
and Pelham, being then tempted of the devil, asked in a low voice:—
“Elizabeth, would it be painful to you if we parted?”
Elizabeth, staggered at the quick blow which had been dealt her,
made full revelation of all she felt; she caught him by the arm and
whispered: “And could you leave me? What would become of me? I think it
would half kill me. First my child was taken, and now you—“
She paused, recalled to herself by the sound of her own words. She
dropped Pelham’s arm as quickly as she had taken it and withdrew from
him a step. They looked away from each other, alarmed and ashamed that
they had drawn so near the brink of the gulf. But the winged word had
been spoken; it was now gone, never to be recalled. Neither one of them
could move or speak for a time. Pelham was a strong man and Elizabeth
was a strong woman, and they loved not as weaklings love; their hearts
were not to be conquered in an instant. They remained thus for what
seemed to them an interminable time. It was really not five minutes.
Then Pelham said quietly:—
“I shall remain with the regiment.”
And Elizabeth, without in the least knowing what she was saying,
replied, “Thank God!”
Then, involuntarily and unable to bear longer the stress of the
situation, they both turned back to the house. The scene had lasted
all told five minutes; it was in full sight of many eyes if any
had cared to look; but for both of them it had changed the face of
creation itself. It had not, however, changed their natures, which were
singularly delicate and high–minded; nor had it involved them in any
dishonor.
As they entered the bungalow together, they met Darrell, who had
noticed them walking through the shrubbery. Elizabeth went up to him,
and placing her hand on his shoulder, a familiarity she had never used
before in the presence of Pelham or any other human being, said: “I am
so glad you have come back; I was beginning to feel so lonely without
you. After this you must stay with me more than you have done, because
I am never really happy away from you.”
This was one of the most stupendous lies ever uttered by a woman’s
lips; but the recording angel had no occasion to shed a tear over it,
as he inscribed it on the records of high heaven. A look of pleasure
came into Darrell’s honest, sombre eyes. It was not often that love
like this survived the honeymoon, and Elizabeth must indeed be deeply
in love with him, if she used such language before Pelham. He put his
arm around her slender waist, and spoke to Pelham instead of her.
“You miserable dog,” he said, “why don’t you get a wife like mine?”
Pelham, with a smile upon his dark, expressive, and somewhat homely
face, answered quite naturally, “Because I can’t find a wife like
yours.”
From that day, in spite of the fact that Elizabeth was a true wife of
an honorable man, her whole life was irradiated by the joy of knowing
that she was loved by Pelham and even that she loved him in return. It
made them both careful in a thousand ways where heretofore they had
been without thought. It made Elizabeth the sweetest as well as the
most dutiful wife imaginable to Darrell. Her constant ministrations
to him, her untiring efforts to please him, did more than he thought
possible to soothe his grief over the dead child.
Elizabeth had always been kind and flattering to Darrell’s friends, not
only out of respect for him, but from the pleasure which every woman
takes in exercising the conscious power to please. But now she was
if anything more attractive to them than ever, and Darrell enjoyed a
delight most gratifying to his pride in finding himself the preferred
admirer of a charming wife who was admired by every man who knew her.
Elizabeth felt, without one word being spoken, that her conduct was
approved by Pelham. She sometimes suspected what Pelham never did, that
he, rather than she, deserved credit for the lofty purity of their
relations, and doubted whether after all Pelham were not stronger in
a sense of honor and rectitude even than herself, so great was his
mastery over her. For, after all, the greatest power which one human
being can exercise over another is the power of uplifting and making
better; and such Elizabeth felt was Pelham’s influence over her, just
as Pelham felt that Elizabeth was his guardian angel.
The Darrells and Pelham spent all together four years at Embira. Every
year Elizabeth thought she would be able to return to America to
see her father, if for only a few weeks, but every year the Darrell
exchequer showed the impossibility of this. Their narrow means did not
permit them to travel, or even to entertain except in the simplest
manner, and Elizabeth only remained well dressed from the fact that
she knew how to make her own gowns better than most Regent Street
dressmakers. They often joked and laughed about their old relative Lady
Pelham’s fortune, which was to come first to Darrell, and, failing a
son and heir, to Pelham. Darrell dolefully related how Lady Pelham’s
mother had lived to be ninety–six, and her father to be ninety–seven,
and not one of her uncles or aunts had died under ninety years of
age, while the lady herself was not more than fifty years of age and
reckoned the most robust woman in England. They built castles in
the air, of what they would do when they got the Pelham fortune, and
Darrell tried to induce Pelham to agree to a division of the spoils
in advance. It was a great joke; but one day, nearly nine years after
Elizabeth’s marriage, death came to the three lives which stood between
Darrell and Lady Pelham’s money, and Darrell came into the life estate
of a fortune of forty thousand pounds.
_Chapter Five_
After nine years in India one is glad to get back to England,
particularly as Darrell, in spite of the large stock of health and
spirits which he took from England with him, had found as most men
do in India that he had a liver. Elizabeth had remained perfectly
well during all the nine years of her life under the hard blue Indian
skies. She was now in her thirtieth year, and Darrell was nearly forty.
Their attachment had assumed the fixed and settled form which nine
years of constant association and respect must inevitably produce in
every marriage. There were no jars or disagreements between them, and
except for the absence of children Darrell reckoned his domestic life
absolutely perfect.
Pelham, who like Darrell was now a major with a lieutenant–colonelcy
in sight, knew that the time had come, if he was ever to see anything
of the world beyond India, England, and his flying trip to the United
States, for him to start upon his travels. In one way he was no longer
necessary to Elizabeth, as she was now a trained and experienced
woman,—the least likely, he thought, of any woman in the world, to make
a false step of any kind. Elizabeth herself, although she had never
ceased to depend on Pelham, had developed under his tutelage, so that
she was in many ways able to stand without him; and, not being a woman
to keep a man at her side without cause, she encouraged Pelham in his
desire to travel.
The three returned to England together. After being established in the
fine London house which was a part of their inheritance, Elizabeth’s
first thought was for her father. It was in the spring–time that the
Darrells arrived in Europe, and a delightful plan was arranged by which
Elizabeth was to send for General Brandon, and he with the Darrells
and Pelham were to begin in August a three months’ journey on the
Continent. Elizabeth, whose mind was now well formed and furnished,
looked forward with eagerness to seeing the brilliant capitals of
Continental Europe,—those spots of romantic beauty and poetic sights,
of which she had first read and dreamed in the old country house in
Virginia and afterwards under the solemn deodars and in the shady
bungalows of the Punjaub.
Darrell’s health improved wonderfully from the day he arrived in
England, and it was thought that this Continental tour would restore
him to the physical perfection which he originally possessed. They
found London delightful, as London is apt to be with youth, good looks,
beauty, and forty thousand pounds. Pelham had his own lodgings near
them, but Darrell’s house was home to him. He saw almost as much of
Elizabeth as in the years when they lived in cantonments together, but
both Elizabeth and Darrell were fonder of society than Pelham. After
they had breakfasted, Darrell and Elizabeth went together shopping, a
novel and delightful experience to both of them; and they generally
carried Pelham along with them, much to his disgust. They always
referred things to him and never took his advice.
Darrell loved to adorn Elizabeth’s beauty, and one of the things which
gave him the most pleasure was the making of a fine diamond and pearl
necklace for his wife’s white throat. He had inherited a diamond
necklace along with the Pelham properties. To these he added other
stones and some fine pearls. Elizabeth insisted that the pretty pearl
brooch which had been her wedding gift from Darrell should be included
in the necklace, and they spent hours together at the jeweller’s
planning the making of the necklace. Pelham stood by listening
good–naturedly, and never suggesting any reduction in expense where
Elizabeth’s wishes were concerned.
When August came, however, Darrell was not so well, but he was eager
for the Continental tour, upon which Elizabeth had set her heart.
Elizabeth, however, would not hear of his going, and as Pelham’s leave
was limited he would be forced to go without the Darrells. The doctors
had not absolutely said that Darrell should not go, but considered it
best that he remain in England; it was Elizabeth’s over–solicitude for
Darrell which really induced her to give up a plan so dear not only
to her, but, as she well knew, to Pelham also. It cost her far more
to deny Pelham than to deny herself, and this he well understood; for
by that time they read each other like an open book, although no word
of love had been spoken between them after that sudden out–break of
their hearts on that night now eight years past when, standing in the
solemn gloom of the cypress trees in the sultry Indian night, they had
uttered unforgetable words. Pelham never felt prouder of Elizabeth and
her forgetfulness of self than on the day she told him of her decision
about the Continental tour, in her pretty London drawing–room, in which
she fitted beautifully. It was so, as Pelham thought, that she fitted
every place in which he had seen her.
“You know how delightful it would be for us to go,”—she always spoke
of “us,” Darrell and herself being in fact never separated,—“but the
doctor says it wouldn’t be the best thing for Jack; he would be sure to
overdo it, and that is what I don’t intend to let him do.”
“Elizabeth,” said Pelham, after a pause, “I think you are all in all
the best wife I ever knew.”
“Why shouldn’t I be a good wife—haven’t I the best husband in the
world? Jack often reminds me of my father, who has just such an open,
frank, simple nature as Jack’s,—one of those natures which nobody fears
and yet of which everybody is a little afraid.”
“That is true,” replied Pelham. “Jack as a little fellow was the
straightest lad I ever knew. If your boy had lived, I think he would
have been as straight a little fellow as Jack.”
Elizabeth’s eyes filled. She had not yet learned to bear unmoved any
mention of the child, who was quite forgotten by all except Darrell,
Pelham, and herself. Just then Darrell entered from riding. He was
neither as handsome nor as young–looking as he had been ten years
before; and Pelham, who never had been handsome or particularly
good–looking, was now quite gray and looked as if he had been baked
in an oven, but he had the clearest, kindest eye and the firmest
thin–lipped, sensible mouth, which redeemed his face from positive
ugliness. Elizabeth was no longer a girl, but with the same striking
and touching beauty of her girlhood.
“So,” said Darrell, after kissing Elizabeth’s hand, “you are leaving
us next week. By gad, I wish I were going with you, but Elizabeth
won’t hear of it. Now if I had married an English wife instead of an
American, she would have let me do as I please.”
“And make yourself ill,” replied Elizabeth. “But if you will take care
of yourself and do all I tell you, perhaps in the autumn I may take you
to the Continent.”
“But Pelham won’t be with us.”
“You’re very complimentary,” replied Elizabeth, with a cheering air of
coquetry. “Ten years ago you could get along with only me. Now you must
have Pelham and I don’t know how many other men to keep you from being
bored to death.” Such speeches are common when husband and wife are
sure of each other.
It was the next evening at dinner time that around the table Darrell
began to tell of an expedition into West Africa which he had
heard talked of at the club. It would be partly private and partly
governmental, and would require more than a year’s absence from
England. Pelham’s grave eyes lighted up as the story went on. He
had an indestructible love of bold adventure, and he had no more
been able to indulge his fondness and taste than he had been able to
indulge his fondness for intelligent travel. Elizabeth, with prophetic
intuition, saw that the idea had taken hold of Pelham’s imagination.
She felt assured that if she were to make the same appeal that she had
done unconsciously in the garden that night at Embira, Pelham would
not resist it, and would remain in England with her; but she was of
too generous a nature to wish to hold him back from what would be
an advantage as well as a strong man’s delight to him. She was not
surprised, therefore, when Pelham turned up next day, to hear that he
had been to the War Office and had been looking into the West African
expedition.
Pelham spent a fortnight making inquiries, and then one night, as he
and Darrell, with Elizabeth sitting by them, sat over their cigars on
the balcony of the morning–room, he told the story of what he had heard
of the expedition. The command of the expedition had practically been
offered him, and it was a tremendous opportunity and one not likely to
occur again to a man of his age, for his fortieth birthday was upon
him. It would mean much to him in the way of his profession, upon which
he was entirely dependent,—that is, unless Darrell should die without
an heir. Its opportunities in every way were such, and the offer made
him so flattering, that it was out of the question that he should
decline them unless there were some specific reason. Darrell told him
so.
There were steps from the balcony leading down into a little lawn with
a bench at the farther end. Elizabeth quietly rose and, walking down
the steps, passed to the farther end of the gravelled path and back
again. It was a June night, warm for London, but cool compared with
that other sultry night when the question had first been raised of
Pelham’s departure from her for a long time. After a while Pelham rose
and said to Darrell, “I will go and ask Elizabeth what she thinks of
it.”
“Do,” said Darrell. “I bet you five to one she will tell you, just as I
have done, that it is the greatest chance you ever had in your life.”
Pelham followed Elizabeth down the gravelled path to the little iron
bench under an odorous hedge of rose trees, where she sat. There was
no moon, but the starlight made a softened radiance around them. He
sat down by her and said in his usual quiet voice and laconic manner,
“Elizabeth, what do you think of my accepting the West African offer?”
“I think you ought to accept it,” replied Elizabeth, in a soft voice.
Not another word was spoken for five minutes, and then they rose and
walked back to the balcony, where Darrell’s cigar still glowed. Each
understood the other perfectly. That day fortnight Pelham started for
West Africa, giving up his Continental tour. The London season was in
full swing, and Darrell, who was naturally fond of society, liked to
go out; nor was this prohibited, in moderation, by the medical men.
Elizabeth, too, liked society; and besides, now that Pelham was gone,
she felt the need of contact with other minds and natures.
_Chapter Six_
Elizabeth was under no uneasiness concerning Pelham. The West African
expedition was one of great responsibility, but of trifling danger, and
Elizabeth had the highest respect for Pelham’s ability to take care
of himself. The thought had been in her mind, as it was in Pelham’s,
that she was far better prepared to do without him then than in those
earlier days when she had been a stranger in a strange land. Such
indeed was the case, but ten years of close companionship and reliance
on Pelham’s judgment and kindness for almost every act of her life
had bred in Elizabeth a dependence which she did not fully realize
until he was gone. It was as if the sun had dropped out of the heavens
when he was away. In Darrell she had the companionship of a husband
who adored her, but who except for his love could not give her the
least assistance in any other way; while with Pelham it was, besides
the intimacy of a great, unspoken love, the ever present aid of sound
sense, good judgment, and a cultivated mind.
Elizabeth, with her youth and beauty and her natural taste for gayety
and admiration, could not but find the London season charming; and as
for Darrell, it seemed the very wine of life to him to be once more in
England. They were invited everywhere, and had pleasure in returning
the hospitality offered them. As regarded their income the Darrells, it
is true, had a large one, as the late Lady Pelham was supposed to have
left about forty thousand pounds; but it was hampered in many ways,
as the late Lady Pelham was one of those persons who try to transact
business after they are dead and buried.
Darrell knew nothing of business, and seemed incapable of learning.
He spent money liberally for himself and more liberally still for
Elizabeth. She had only to express a wish for it to be gratified.
Darrell desired to cover her with jewels, but Elizabeth with better
taste preferred to wear only one ornament, the handsome diamond and
pearl necklace which seemed so peculiarly hers. Of the new gems in it,
she and Darrell and Pelham had spent hours examining and deciding; and
the idea of inserting in it her wedding gift of a pearl brooch, was
Elizabeth’s entirely and she was proud of it. Darrell, who grew more in
love with his wife each day, was charmed at this bit of sentiment, on
which they had united in defeating the jeweller.
On the night before the Goodwood races, there was a great ball at
Marlborough House, to which Elizabeth and Darrell were commanded. Never
had Elizabeth looked handsomer. A black evening gown showed off the
perfections, the exquisite beauty, of her white shoulders and slender
arms. The necklace around her milky white throat looked like moonlight
and starlight combined.
“You will make a sensation to–night, my girl,” said Darrell, kissing
her.
“If you like my looks, that is the main point,” replied Elizabeth. She
habitually made him these pretty speeches, which was gratifying to
Darrell, as the husband of a beauty.