THE ONE WHO WAS LEFT.
"My dear, I wish you would take that unfortunate young Gerrard in
hand." Mr James Antony, acting-Resident at Ranjitgarh owing to the
absence of his brother on sick-leave, wore a worried look as he entered
his wife's room.
"I will do what I can, love, but I am never quite sure how to approach
these young men. If only dear Theodora were here----" Mrs James was
alluding to her sister-in-law, Mrs Edmund Antony.
"Oh, if Ned and his wife were here, the trouble would be at an end,"
said James Antony, with his big laugh. "I can't begin an interview by
blowing a man up sky-high, and end it by falling on his neck, as Ned
does. I have done my best for Gerrard--more than Ned would have done,
too--in commending his conduct throughout this unfortunate affair, but
it don't seem to make him any happier."
"But you cannot think your brother would have taken the part of that
dreadful Sher Singh, love?"
"Ned would have seen the matter so wholly from Sher Singh's point of
view as to consider him justified in killing not only poor Charteris,
but Gerrard as well, for the offence of abducting his stepmother."
"Then when Edmund returns, will he insist on forcing the unfortunate
woman to go back?"
"No, my dear, he won't, for the very good reason that I have already
passed her safely across the Ghara. But he will have a rod in pickle
for poor Gerrard, who seems to me to have quite enough to bear
already--what with his wounds and the loss of all his belongings, to
say nothing of the death of his friend."
"You don't think, James, that he feels himself to blame for poor Mr
Charteris's death?"
"He's an unreasonable idiot if he does," testily. "As if he hadn't
done all that he could when he heard of it--insisting on mounting a
horse and going back to look for him! When he very naturally fainted
again, his people were uncommon wise in continuing the journey and
bringing him here, and it's no reason for him to pull a long face. A
broken arm and a complete suit of bruises ain't pleasant wear, but they
are mending, and the beggar has no business to mope as he does. If
he's still in love with old Cinnamond's daughter, his path is clear
now, but they tell me he has made no attempt to see her."
"Ah!" said Mrs James thoughtfully. "But he shall see her. Leave it to
me, love. Don't you think," with extreme innocence, "that it would be
cheering for the poor fellow if you invited him to sit in your
_dufter_[1] this evening? He would not be in spirits to join the
party, of course, but the music might soothe him, and his friends could
go in and talk to him from time to time."
"He will be a sad kill-joy, my dear. But consider the room at your
disposal for any nefarious projects of the kind."
"Nay, James, you must do your part. Pray convey my compliments to him,
and tell him I shall be sadly vexed if he refuses to come. He shall be
in complete retirement there, you may say, and can slip away when he
chooses."
"I will give him his orders. Pray, is Miss Cinnamond's name to be
mentioned?"
"I think not. I wish I could leave it to your discretion, love, but a
fine tact is not one of your shining virtues, is it?"
"No, ma'am." James Antony was not at all aggrieved. "To tell the
truth without fear or favour is enough for me."
"Then say nothing. Stay--could you contrive to intimate that Sir
Arthur and his lady will be among the company? That should serve to
prepare the young man's mind."
"I imagine I am capable of that, my dear."
And in truth, James Antony made the announcement with so much emphasis,
and in so meaning a tone, that Gerrard would have been dull indeed had
he missed its significance. Before it came he had been fighting
against the duty of accepting Mrs Antony's invitation, but now his
opposition collapsed suddenly. The rage for charades, which had
devastated English society for ten years or more, prevailed also in
India, and "Charades and Music" were promised in the corner of this
evening's card. The host spoke his mind quite frankly on the nature of
the entertainment, which he termed "a set of young fools dressing up
and acting silly questions for old fools to answer," and assured
Gerrard that he thought no worse of him for holding back. By way of
building a bridge for his retreat, however, he informed him that no
sight or sound of the charades could reach the _dufter_, and he wished
he himself could spend the evening there with him in peace and
quietness. On receiving the tardy acceptance he departed hastily, much
pleased with the results of his diplomacy--which would hardly have been
the case had he been able to read the young man's mind. One thing had
been plain to Gerrard from the first moment in which he realised fully
what Charteris's death would mean to him. It set an absolute barrier
between Honour and himself. He could no more take advantage of Bob's
removal from the field by an accident than if he had slain him with his
own hand. Having assured himself of this night and day, in waking and
dreaming and semi-delirious moments, it had become such an immutable
fact that he felt it was time to make Honour aware of it. He felt an
unaccountable pang on realising that she would immediately perceive its
reasonableness.
His first visitor in his retirement that evening was not Honour, but
Mrs Jardine, who believed honestly that she had a special gift for
cheering the sick. Gerrard had always been her favourite of Honour's
two persistent suitors, and though she could not well in so many words
congratulate him on being left without a rival, there were a good many
heartening things that she could and did say. After deprecating any
possible embarrassment on his part by assuring him that she came not
because she liked him, but because when one had a gift it was a duty to
use it, and it was a privilege to turn a gay and too probably heartless
occasion of this kind into a means of doing good, she passed to her
main object with a suddenness which would have seemed to some a little
abrupt.
"And you have not caught one glimpse of a certain young lady yet?"
Nods and becks and a mysterious archness of expression pointed the
question. "My dear Mr Gerrard, she is handsomer than ever--in her own
style, of course; you may take an old woman's word for it."
"But where shall I find the old woman?" inquired Gerrard, in a
desperate attempt to do what was expected of him.
Highly pleased, Mrs Jardine gave him a tap with her fan. "Oh, you
quiet young men are just as naughty as the rest--with your compliments,
indeed! But if I were to repeat to you what a little bird told me, you
would never, never betray me?" Earnest assurances on Gerrard's part.
"Well, then, I hear that Miss Cinnamond is not very happy at home!"
"I am sorry to hear it," said Gerrard mechanically.
Mrs Jardine looked a little nonplussed. "Of course it is very sad,"
she admitted. "But surely it has its brighter side? The fact is, the
General and dear Lady Cinnamond are _everything_ to each other. There
is really no place for the poor girl. I confess she has made her
mother wear caps like other people--makes them for her herself, I
believe--instead of that extraordinary Popish veil--so like a nun's, I
call it--though even she has not been able to get her to do anything to
her hair." Like most of her contemporaries, Mrs Jardine regarded it as
almost indecent to display grey or white hair, and herself wore a
"front" which could hardly be considered an attempt at deception, so
transparently artificial was it.
"You were saying something about caps?" hazarded Gerrard, as Mrs
Jardine remained silent, apparently sunk in contemplation of the
persistent defects of Lady Cinnamond's appearance.
"Oh yes, of course. Dear me, what was it? Oh, I remember. Well, you
see, though it is very good and loving of her to do it"--Gerrard had to
cast his mind back to discover what "it" was--"and must be a great
saving of expense, with the Calcutta shops so frightfully dear, and
boxes from home quite out of the question--though on the General's pay
and allowances, of course---- Still, as I was saying, no parents with
any proper feeling would wish a girl to remain single just for that
reason, would they? And she has had so many offers--which is only
natural in a society like this, with Sir Arthur's position and title
and everything. It must be a great blow to him, I am sure, this honour
conferred on Colonel Antony." Gerrard looked, as he felt, bewildered,
not seeing the connection, since Colonel Antony had no marriageable
daughter. "Oh, you haven't heard that the dear Colonel has got his
K.C.B.? They are all talking about it to-night--it was in the mail
that came in this afternoon."
"I have not had time to open any newspapers," said Gerrard wearily. "I
am glad to hear it, if the Antonys are pleased."
"Of course a mere worldly distinction of that sort could never make any
real difference to dear Colonel Antony--Sir Edmund, I should say." Mrs
Jardine's tone was severe. "But as a token of his Sovereign's
approbation, it must raise his position among the people here."
"Nothing could ever raise Colonel Antony higher in the minds of the
people who really know him," said Gerrard.
"All the more reason that he should have this honour to recommend him
to those who do not," retorted Mrs Jardine triumphantly. "That is
exactly what I was saying---- Dear me! what was I saying? Oh, I
remember; we were discussing Lady Cinnamond's assumption of
superiority--just a little out of place in the case of a foreigner--you
agree with me? Well, what I was going to say was, why should Miss
Cinnamond, who is not happy at home, refuse so many eligible suitors,
if it was not that her heart is already engaged? There! I mustn't
bore you any longer. Why, you are looking quite excited! Have I given
you just one little tiny crumb of comfort? Don't thank me; doing
kindnesses is my only pleasure."
The lavender _moiré antique_ squeezed through the doorway with much
crackling of unseen starched flounces, but Gerrard had no time to
analyse the effect upon himself of the news he had received. Sir
Arthur Cinnamond was his next visitor, confirming the news of Colonel
Antony's knighthood, and then came Captain Cowper to tell his chief
that the acting-Resident was asking for him, and lingering to thank
Gerrard, in the name of the whole Ranjitgarh force, for setting on foot
such a capital little war as that with Agpur was bound to prove. The
officer sent to bring Sher Singh to book could get no satisfaction from
him, and was being kept fuming on the Agpur frontier in a most improper
way, so that a punitive expedition was a practical certainty, and if
Sir Arthur did not take the field in person, his son-in-law meant to
get himself attached to some one who did, even if he had to go back to
regimental employment.
"Marian is looking for you to take your part in this next syllable,
Charles," said a voice in the doorway, and Gerrard looked up with a
start to meet Honour's clear eyes. Mrs Jardine's confidences had
inspired him with a wild hope that he might find in them something he
had not seen there before, but they met his with their usual bright
frankness. He ought to have rejoiced, having regard to the compact he
had made with himself and with Charteris's memory, but such is the
inconsistency of human nature, that he did not.
"Horrid bore!" drawled Captain Cowper. "Who would ever have thought of
their hunting me out here? But I shall leave my sister-in-law to amuse
you, Gerrard, so you'll be the gainer."
There was no embarrassment in Honour's manner as she took the vacated
seat. "I have been so very sorry to hear of your trouble," she said
gently, only waiting for Captain Cowper to depart.
She understood, then! Was there any other girl in the world who would
have understood--that not the removal of a rival, but the loss of a
friend, was the dominant thought in Gerrard's mind? He murmured his
thanks with difficulty.
"Would it hurt you to tell me about it?" she asked, and the flood-gates
were opened. All the rankling memories which Gerrard could no more
have confided to James Antony than that worthy man could have
comprehended them if he had, all the unavailing self-reproach--"If I
had only done this!" "If I had not said that!"--all the
self-depreciation which the persistent dwelling on Charteris's
qualities produced naturally in the man who differed so much from him,
were poured into Honour's ear.
"And the very last evening I was fool enough to take offence because he
saw quicker than I did what was the right thing to be done! Do you
think he turned rusty? Not a bit of it. He took it like a
brick--actually apologised for offering me advice! There was never any
one like him."
"No, I suppose not," said Honour softly. There were tears in her eyes,
but she did not ask herself whether Charteris's virtues or Gerrard's
account of them had brought them there. She took it for granted that
it was the former, and spoke accordingly.
"And the worst of it is, we don't realise what our friends are until we
lose them," she murmured.
"No, indeed we don't. One sees one's own unworthiness now, when it is
too late--when the remembrance of what he was makes a barrier for
ever----"
"A barrier--yes, of course; but a bond, too." This was a state of mind
which Honour could thoroughly understand and appreciate. A life-long
romantic friendship, absolutely precluded from becoming anything more,
was just what appealed to her. It suggested what may be termed the
Rolandseck ideal--the hero retiring from the world to an eligible
hermitage, affording an extensive view of a desirably situated nunnery,
where the heroine was similarly secluded--which, with its peculiar
blending of religion and sentimentality, animated so many of her
favourite books. "We can never forget that we have both known him, can
we? You will tell me more about him, and we will keep his memory alive
when all the world has forgotten him."
Whether the relief of unburdening his mind had served to clear her
hearer's vision, or merely that the thought of the real Bob Charteris,
most unsentimental of men, obtruded itself in all its incongruity with
Honour's scheme for commemorating him, certain it is that instead of
being grateful to her for falling in so exactly with his wishes,
Gerrard was conscious of a distinct impatience. Was there no flesh and
blood about the girl--no feeling, but merely sentiment? All unknown to
himself, Gerrard had not been intending to suffer alone, and it was a
blow to discover that what had meant to him a real and terrible
renunciation was to her a mere matter of course, rather pleasurable
than otherwise. He groaned as the truth forced itself upon him, and
Honour looked up in alarm.
"I have done you harm--tired you," she said anxiously. "We must have
another talk when you are better. I see my mother looking for me."
"Honour, it is time for us to go, dear," said Lady Cinnamond, coming
in, and looking "like other people," as Mrs Jardine had said, in a huge
halo of net and ribbon and flowers and blonde. Honour might make her
mother's caps, but they had to be submitted for Sir Arthur's
approbation, and as he was strongly of the opinion that there was
nothing like roses for setting off a pretty face, the style was apt to
incline to the decorated rather than the classical. Lady Cinnamond
spoke kindly to Gerrard, and expressed the hope that he would look in
now and then, glancing the while from him to Honour as though anxious
to find something in their faces that might guide her what to say, but
in vain. In sheer bewilderment she appealed to her daughter when they
were alone.
"Tell me, Onora, did the poor fellow plead with you again to marry him?"
Honour turned quickly. "Oh no, mamma--how could he? Neither of us
could ever think of it now."
"That was what made you cry, then?"
"Mamma! why should it? He was telling me about poor Mr Charteris, and
I realised how little I had known him. I can say it to you, mamma--it
is a privilege to feel that such a man has cared for one."
"Then if he had lived you would have married him, my poor little one?"
cried her mother in dismay.
"How can I tell, mamma? One finds out these things too late. It is
always so, isn't it?"
"And the poor young man who is not dead?" there was a hint of
exasperation in Lady Cinnamond's voice.
"He doesn't dream of that sort of thing now. We shall always be
friends, but never anything more."
"My dearest little foolish one, there are moments when I would gladly
take you by the shoulders and shake you!" cried Lady Cinnamond in
vehement Spanish. Catching her daughter's astonished eye, she calmed
herself forcibly and spoke in English. "If you had seen that poor
young man's face as you left the room, as I did, Honour, you would know
what nonsense you are talking. Refuse him if you must, but don't keep
him in torture."
"Dear mamma, you don't understand. Things are different now----"
"From what they were when I was a girl? I agree! And I prefer them as
they used to be. There were your father and I, and his friends and my
family trying to prevent our marriage. There were other men in the
world, doubtless, but for me they simply did not exist. And we
married, and people considered us very romantic. But to be romantic
now, it seems, you must persist in remaining unmarried for the sake of
a very worthy young man for whom you cared not a straw when he was
alive!"
"I can't explain it, mamma. But one has one's feelings----"
"Quite so. And the poor Mr Gerrard has his also. But those you do not
consider."
Gerrard's ill-used feelings were still unhealed a week later, when Sir
Edmund Antony, learning of the imminent danger of war with Agpur,
descended from the hills like a whirlwind to take command of the
situation, and incidentally to upset as many as possible of his
brother's arrangements. Having learnt all that Gerrard could tell him
of the circumstances, he took occasion, while his secretary was at work
on the fresh orders he had hastily drafted to Nisbet, the political
officer in charge of the negociations with Sher Singh, to speak on more
personal matters.
"I am sorry to see this continued depression of spirits on your part,
Gerrard. The sin of despondency is one to which I myself am so
conspicuously prone that I dare lose no opportunity of warning others
against it."
"Forgive me, sir. Our conversation has led me to recall things so
vividly----"
"True. But you feel, as you have assured me, that our friend Charteris
fell in a good cause?"
"There could be no better, sir. But if only I could have died instead
of him!"
Sir Edmund frowned. "These things are not in our hands. If
Charteris's work was done, no efforts of yours or mine could have saved
him. If your work is not done, all the powers of hell could not
prevail to bring about your death."
"But his work was not complete, sir. There was so much in him that no
one realised--he had had no opportunity to display it. You and I, and
one other person, have some faint idea of what he really was, but no
one else can possibly know--the world can never know."
Colonel Antony pushed back his papers. "And what then?" he asked
sharply. "How dare you say that his work was not complete because the
world knew nothing of it? The world! The world does not make a man
great, any more than it is the world's recognition that makes his work
valuable. The value of the work lies in the spirit in which it is
done. I tell you"--he spoke as though to himself, with a far-away look
in his eyes--"I have seen something of work and the world's recognition
of it. You know the interest that I take in the history of our people
in India, how my wife and I are always poking and prying among old
manuscripts and records wherever we go. I have found there the
histories of scores of forgotten heroes--men whose names, in any other
service or any other country, would have been inscribed upon the
nation's roll of honour. They marched half across India--hostile
country, every foot of the way--at the head of a few hundred men, and
faced and fought the might of empires at the end. They captured cities
single-handed, and ruled them afterwards, and they pacified whole
provinces, in spite of famine and plague and fever. Oh, they got their
recognition--the thanks of the Directors, sometimes even of Parliament,
swords of honour and trash of that kind. But who remembers even their
names now? You will find their graves sometimes, neglected and
defaced, in deserted cantonments, or the remains of their great
bungalows grown over with jungle, and perhaps a legend or two will be
hanging about among the natives--silly superstitious things, of no
value in recalling the man as he was. They did their work, and good
work--completed work, as you would say--and they had their recognition,
but they are no more remembered now than Charteris will be next year,
except by you and one or two more. Ah, Gerrard, we are all very
anxious to see our names carved on the stones that men may remember us,
but we have to learn that it is enough if God deigns even to build our
bodies into the wall. If Charteris did well what he was permitted to
do, he could have done no more if he had lived a hundred years."
The rapt gaze faltered, and the soldier-mystic became the keen
administrator once more.
"How much longer are you to be on the sick-list, Gerrard? I am going
to send you to Darwan."
"I shall not be able to use this arm for some time, sir. Otherwise the
doctor said he would let me off in another week. But you were not
suggesting that I should take up Charteris's work?"
"That is exactly what I do suggest. I have no other man to send, and
no other place at this moment that is crying out for you. I should not
send you to Agpur again, and you would hardly wish to go, I imagine.
What is your objection to Darwan?"
"Simply that it was his work, sir. We were so different in every
way--I had rather try almost anything else----"
"Do you wish to decline the post?"
"If you send me to Darwan, sir, I shall go."
"I am not going to order you to Darwan. There is another post, by the
bye, that you can have if you choose, with less responsibility and an
easier life. Old Sadiq Ali of Habshiabad has been plaguing me for an
officer to help him to train his army and pull the state together
generally. He is a stiff-necked old ruffian, but it is a soft berth
compared with Darwan. You are at liberty to choose that if you please,
but if you are the man I take you for you will select Darwan and carry
on the work that Charteris began. I leave it in your hands."
"I will take Darwan, sir. I don't expect to succeed, but I will do my
best."
[1] Office, study.