E-text prepared by Al Haines
Transcriber's note:
The name "Lena" appears several times in this book.
In the original book, the "e" in "Lena" was e-macron.
THE PATH TO HONOUR
by
SYDNEY C. GRIER
Author of
'The Power of the Keys,' 'A Young Man Married,'
Etc., Etc.
William Blackwood and Sons
Edinburgh and London
1909
* * * * * *
NOVELS by SYDNEY C. GRIER
Modern East Series.
The Advanced Guard
His Excellency's English Governess
Peace with Honour
The Warden of the Marches
Balkan Series.
An Uncrowned King
A Crowned Queen
The Kings of the East
The Prince of Captivity
Indian Historical Series.
In Furthest Ind
Like Another Helen
The Great Proconsul
Balkan Series. II.
The Heir
The Heritage
The Power of the Keys
A Young Man Married
Edited by Sydney C. Grier
The Letters of Warren Hastings to his Wife.
* * * * * *
CONTENTS.
CHAP.
I. "IF IT BE A SIN TO COVET HONOUR----"
II. HER SIDE OF THE CASE
III. THE OLD ORDER AND THE NEW
IV. "A-HUNTING WE WILL GO"
V. GERRARD FINDS FAVOUR
VI. THE CROWNING PROOF
VII. ON GUARD
VIII. THE SUPERFLUOUS CHARTERIS
IX. IN SLIPPERY PLACES
X. THE DOOR IS SHUT
XI. MURDER MOST FOUL
XII. THE ONE WHO WAS TAKEN
XIII. THE ONE WHO WAS LEFT
XIV. THE IDEAL AND THE REAL
XV. MUTTERINGS OF THE STORM
XVI. THE MILD CONCERNS OF ORDINARY LIFE
XVII. THE ISSUES OF AN AWFUL MOMENT
XVIII. THE CAMPAIGN OF VENGEANCE
XIX. AS OTHERS SEE US
XX. A DAY OF VICTORY
XXI. FAINT HEART AND FAIR LADY
XXII. THE TRIUMPH OF THE DEAD
XXIII. RUN TO EARTH
XXIV. HONOUR AND HONOURS
THE PATH TO HONOUR.
CHAPTER I.
"IF IT BE A SIN TO COVET HONOUR----"
The time was towards the close of the 'forties of the nineteenth
century, and the place the city of Ranjitgarh, capital of the great
native state of Granthistan, which was not yet a British possession,
but well on the way to becoming one. This ultimate destiny was
entirely undesired by the powers that were, who had just appointed
Colonel Edmund Antony--a fanatical upholder of native rights, according
to his enemies--as British Resident and protector of the infant prince
occupying the uneasy throne. The task of regenerating Granthi society
from the top, much against its will, and welding its discordant
elements into a peaceful, prosperous, and contented buffer state (the
thing was known, though not as yet the name) against encroaching
Ethiopia on the north, promised to be no easy one, but Colonel Antony
was undertaking it confidently, with the support of two or three of his
brothers and a picked band of assistants drawn from the army and Civil
Service. That moral suasion might be duly backed up by physical force,
ten thousand British and Indian troops, under the command of a
Peninsular veteran, General Sir Arthur Cinnamond, were garrisoning the
citadel of Ranjitgarh and holding the lines of Tej Singh in the
suburbs. The city thus overawed Colonel Antony was wont to call the
wickedest place in Asia, in blissful ignorance of the sins not only of
distant Gamara, but of towns much nearer home. Its streets were filled
with a swaggering disbanded soldiery that had faced the might of
England and the Company in four pitched battles during the last decade,
shameless women peered from its every lattice, and its defence of
religion took the form of frequent bloodthirsty "cow rows," but he saw
in its wickedness no insuperable bar to the success of his policy. In
twelve years or so the British would retire, leaving a reformed nation
to govern itself. Meanwhile, in order to emphasise the transient
nature of the occupation, a Mohammedan tomb served as the English
church, and a single house of moderate size was made to accommodate the
Resident and all his assistants, becoming the scene of as much hard
work and high endeavour as might have sufficed to redeem an empire.
On an inner courtyard of the Residency there looked out a number of
small rooms, each of which was shared by two young men, who had much
ado to bestow themselves and their possessions in the limited space and
the section of verandah that appertained to it. One room was much like
another, with its camp-beds and table, and its miscellaneous assortment
of camel-trunks and tin cases piled up at the back or serving as seats;
and each verandah was graced by two long chairs, usually to be found in
sociable proximity, with a view to the better enjoyment of the
occupants' brief periods of leisure. On one particular verandah,
however, the chairs were placed as far apart as space would permit, and
turned away from each other, so that Lieutenant Robert Charteris and
Lieutenant Henry Gerrard, of the Bengal Fusiliers and the Company's
Engineers respectively, might each delude himself into the thought that
he was alone in his glory. This arrangement was of the newest, but it
was already causing keen delight in the circles which had known the two
young men as inseparable friends. Born no farther apart than the
Rectory and Hall of a country village, they had learnt together under
Gerrard's father, the Rector, entered Addiscombe together, and passed
out at the same time, Gerrard with an array of medals which secured him
one of the coveted commissions in the Engineers, and Charteris,
undistinguished save by proficiency in games and universal popularity,
slipping contentedly into the Infantry. Appointed to the same station,
they had seen a certain amount of active service in company, and
continuing to gain the good opinion of those in high places, Gerrard as
a promising scientific soldier and Charteris as a born leader of men,
had both enjoyed the distinction of being selected by Colonel Antony as
his assistants at Ranjitgarh. But here discord stepped between them in
the fair form of Miss Honour Cinnamond, the youngest daughter of the
General commanding the Division, and after edifying the station for
some time by their ardent rivalry, Charteris and Gerrard were no longer
on speaking terms. The station regarded it as an excellent joke, but
to Colonel Antony, who took life seriously, it was a scandal and a sin,
to be ended at once and peremptorily. Knowing his man, he had on this
particular day announced his ultimatum to Gerrard.
"When is this foolishness going to end?" he asked impatiently, after
the two young men had passed each other in his presence without a sign
of recognition--"this breach between you and Charteris, I mean?"
"I don't know, sir. Perhaps when we get to our districts----"
"I would advise you not to reckon upon that. I am thinking strongly of
sending Charteris back to his regiment."
"But the disgrace, sir!" Gerrard was thunder-struck. "You said
yourself that he was so well fitted for this work. It suits him too,
and no mistake."
Colonel Antony frowned at the slang. "Is it possible that you perceive
any good in him?" he asked coldly.
"Why, sir,"--Gerrard was too much perturbed in mind to attempt to
answer the question,--"he could never go back contentedly to ordinary
subaltern's work after this. He will do something desperate--perhaps
even get transferred to the Bombay side, and volunteer for Khemistan."
He spoke with bated breath, for to the Antony brothers and all their
circle the neighbouring province of Khemistan was a region of outer
darkness, ruled by two fallen angels bearing the names of General Sir
Henry Lennox and Major St George Keeling. It was a point of honour to
assist their labours by harrying them with a constant dropping fire of
minutes and remonstrances, with an occasional round-shot in the shape
of interference on the part of the Supreme Government, deftly
engineered from Ranjitgarh. And the pity of it was that the men thus
thwarted with the purest possible motives were carrying on a similar
work, and in the same spirit, as their opponents, but--and here came
the line of cleavage--on different methods. Colonel Antony's grave
dark face was immovable.
"It is for you to save him if you choose, Gerrard. What! do you think
that I will allow the work here--the regeneration of the Granthi
state--to be endangered by petty, miserable squabbles between my
assistants? I have seen too much of support withheld at critical
moments because one man had a grudge against another. Here we are all
brothers. If Charteris intends to keep up this enmity, he must go."
"But if he is to blame, sir, so am I," confessed Gerrard reluctantly.
"I am glad to hear you say so. There can be no difficulty, then, in
your admitting as much to him. I own I had thought that since you were
more likely to be soon in a position to marry, he was probably the
trespasser on your ground. The young lady favours him, then?"
"No, sir, neither of us." Gerrard spoke bitterly, but Colonel Antony
brought his fist down upon the table with a resounding thud.
"What! you stand on the same footing, neither has cause for jealousy of
the other, and yet this miserable alienation continues? You are indeed
to blame, Gerrard. Go and ask your comrade's pardon, appeal to the
memories of your youth and his, engage with him to bear this common
disappointment as gentlemen, as Christians! No man living has more
cause to be grateful for the blessing of a good wife than I, but I
trust I should have been granted sufficient resolution to live solitary
for ever had I perceived that my happiness was likely to mean a
brother's misery, and imperil the hopes of a nation. You are not
called even to make such a renunciation, since the matter is taken out
of your hands--merely to acquiesce in a decision not your own."
"But if I am to blame, sir, so must Charteris be," protested Gerrard,
feeling, as the Resident's associates not infrequently did, that
Colonel Antony's standard was too high for this wicked world.
"That is quite possible. He believes that you have injured him?"
"I suppose so, sir."
"And he is conscious that he has injured you?"
"I can't say, sir. How should I know?"
"Then your duty is clear. Whether his conscience is awakened or not is
uncertain, but you feel that you have, though unwittingly, done him an
injury. Go and repair it, leaving him to find out his part in the
matter for himself."
It was this conversation that Gerrard was uncomfortably turning over in
his mind on the verandah. The natural man in him rebelled, very
naturally, against humbling himself to Charteris, who was at least as
much to blame as he was, and had made his resentment offensively
evident. But it was Charteris who would suffer if a reconciliation was
not effected in some way. The argument was conclusive, as Colonel
Antony had foreseen it would be. Gerrard looked round the corner of
his chair, and rather sheepishly said, "Bob!"
There was no answer from Charteris, but his legs, the only part of him
that was visible, seemed to take on an air of indignant protest.
Gerrard tried again. "Bob, look here! I want to tell you something."
This time Charteris sat up, exhibiting an angry countenance and a rough
head. "Don't want to hear it," he growled. "Hang it! can't a man be
left in peace in his own quarters?"
"No, but--I say, Bob," repeated Gerrard, feverishly anxious to
anticipate the impending move, "the Colonel has been speaking to
me--pitched it uncommon strong, he did. Do wait and hear what I have
to say! Why should we go on making asses of ourselves over a girl who
hasn't a civil word for either of us?"
"What?" cried Charteris, pausing on the edge of the verandah. "She's
given you a _pucka jawab_[1] too?"
"Last night," said Gerrard laconically. Charteris came a step nearer.
"Will you kindly tell me," he said, addressing creation generally,
"exactly what that girl wants? Hal, I could have sworn it was you when
she refused me."
"And until she refused me, I could have sworn it was you. Pretty clear
she don't want either of us, ain't it? In fact, I may as well tell
you, as she doesn't seem to have done it, that she said she had no
intention of marrying at all."
"Fudge!" cried Charteris, quite in the vein of the immortal Mr
Burchell. "Then she's here on false pretences. What does a spin. come
out for but to get a husband? No, you mark my words, my boy; she's
waiting for a bachelor Governor-General!"
Gerrard opened his lips to protest, but not feeling called upon to
repeat the whole of his conversation with Miss Cinnamond, closed them
again. "Anyhow," he said at last, rather awkwardly, "as we're in the
same boat, don't you think we might come to an agreement of some sort,
and do people out of a little of the fun they're having over us? 'Our
Mr James' told the Colonel to-day that we wanted our heads knocking
together."
"James Antony is a coarse brute, and I should uncommonly like to see
him try it!" said Charteris, with concentrated fury. Then he came and
stood over Gerrard, and looked at him curiously. "Were you going to
suggest that we should come to an agreement to give up all thoughts of
her?" he asked with extreme calmness.
"No, not for a moment."
"I'm glad to hear that, because I shouldn't think of doing it. I mean
to go on asking her, over and over again, until she accepts me."
"And so do I," cried Gerrard, starting up, stung out of his usual
quietness of manner. They glared at each other angrily for a moment,
then Charteris laughed rather unsteadily.
"Basis for an agreement is rather wanting, ain't it? I regard you as a
person of ordinary sanity, so I don't imagine you were going to propose
either that I should nobly resign her in your favour, or you in mine.
Then what on earth is there left to do?"
"We have to think of her as well as ourselves," said Gerrard, trying to
steady his voice. "She may not marry at all, as she said"--Charteris
snorted--"or she may marry some one else, neither of us. And I am sure
we should both rather see her married to some one else, and happy, than
marry her ourselves and know that she wasn't happy."
The construction of the sentence was involved, but its meaning was
clear. Charteris flung up his head contemptuously. "You're wrong
there," he said. "Speak for yourself. I want to see her married to
me, and I'd undertake to make her happy. I shall be an uncommon good
husband, I can tell you. What are you laughing at, pray?"
"I'm not laughing--at least, not exactly," gasped Gerrard, restraining
himself with difficulty. "Forgive me, old fellow. It was the picture
of you saying to the future Mrs Charteris, 'Be happy, or I'll know the
reason why,' that overcame me."
Charteris looked deeply offended, but after a moment joined in the
laugh. "Of course I know I can't put it pretty, as you could," he
admitted grudgingly. "But I mean to marry her, and make her happy too."
"And so do I," said Gerrard again. "But it's quite clear she can't
marry both of us, and mayn't marry either of us, ain't it? Well, what
I say is, let us carry the affair through decently, so that the best
man may win, if either of us wins at all. That appeals to you, doesn't
it?"
"Not a bit," said Charteris promptly. "You are the best man."
"Oh, don't be an ass. What do medals for mathematics matter here? You
are bigger than I am, and heaps better to look at. In fact, my dear
Bob, I might even say of you that you were the least little bit showy."
Gerrard was falling back insensibly into the old chaffing tone, but a
look on his friend's face warned him that the time was not yet quite
ripe for this, and he went on hastily. "At any rate, each of us has
advantages on his side, we'll say. Then let us fight fair. You
weren't thinking of proposing again every time you see her? In that
case, it would soon be _darwaza band_[2] when you called, I'm afraid.
Let us agree not to make any move, either of us, for a year--or six
months, if you insist upon it," as he read protest in Charteris's eye,
"and then draw lots which shall speak first. If she accepts that one,
the matter is settled--it's the fortune of war; if not, then the other
has his turn. If she refuses both, then ditto ditto at the end of
another six months."
Charteris, leaning against a pillar of the verandah, looked down at him
and laughed. "If I didn't know you for a cunning old weasel, I should
put you down as jolly green, Hal. Suppose she should meanwhile
intimate, in the most unimaginably proper and delicate way, a
preference for either of us?"
"For the present one or the absent one?" asked Gerrard drily. "Well,
in either case, I think the present one ought to let the absent one
know, before taking any action. But don't look so blue. You forget
that we shall both be in our districts, at a safe distance from
Ranjitgarh, for six months at least."
"And in the meantime she may marry some one else."
"Then we shan't have lost our friendship as well as her."
Charteris clapped him on the shoulder with a laugh. "I believe you, my
boy! You don't know what a bore it has been this last fortnight,
remembering what was between us whenever I wanted to tell you anything.
Done with you, then, subject to necessary modifications to be agreed
upon from time to time by mutual consent, and to the approval of the
lady."
"But you wouldn't tell her?" cried Gerrard, aghast.
"Wouldn't I, just? Why, how is she to keep our joint memory green
against the assaults of eligible subcommissioners and fat Commissariat
colonels, unless she has this to remember us by? Hang suffering in
silence! Let her know what fine fellows she has got waiting on her
nod."
"Well, you can tell her," unwillingly.
"Not I. Be carried away into proposing again, and lose my turn? no,
thank you. We will tell her together, my young friend, and keep a
jolly keen eye on each other the whole time. And we'll do it at the
ball. Come, this is something like life!"
"But she may not choose to grant us an opportunity."
Charteris winked in the most vulgar manner. "What'll you take on it?
Do you think she don't know she has set you and me by the ears? If
not, old Mother Jardine will soon enlighten her. And then--oh, my
revered Hal, can you doubt what her first move will be? To reconcile
us, my boy, as if we were two dirty little snivelling urchins in her
village school at home! Will she make us shake hands? Oh, ain't it
glorious!"
He dropped into his chair, helpless with laughter, while Gerrard
surveyed him with distaste. It was some consolation to feel that Bob
could not possibly be properly in love, if he could thus contemplate
the likelihood of the object of his affections making herself
ridiculous. But as if he had read his friend's thoughts, Charteris sat
up suddenly, and spoke with perfect gravity.
"Mind you, Hal, all this don't signify that I forgive you in the least
for coming between her and me. I'm willing to call a truce because
falling out is horrid inconvenient, and looks silly. But your
intrusive existence has turned love's young dream into a farce, and
this suggestion of yours can only make things worse. I never bargained
for being a sort of Siamese twin, but that's how it comes out. The
unfortunate girl will never be able to think of one of us without the
other. If she is dwelling affectionately on your modest merit, what
you call, I believe, my swaggering dare-devilry will force itself into
her mind, and if any of my encounters with tigers or dacoits should
reach her ears, they will only recall your powers of discussing
theology or reeling off poetry by the yard. Make no mistake. You
intrude, sir; and I resent it."
"And words can't express the depth of my resentment that you should
have poked your nose into my affairs," returned Gerrard heartily.
[1] Definite refusal.
[2] Not at home, lit. the door is shut.