“Quos Deus vult perdere, dementat prius!”--_Latin Proverb._
The Post Office at Port Victoria is in the same block of buildings as
the Government Office, though on a lower floor, and the busy staircase
is thronged by officials as well as people coming for their mail
or posting letters. There is no delivery in Port Victoria, for two
excellent reasons--local communication is carried on solely through
the telephone, or notes by bearer, and on mail days the recipients of
letters besiege the office for their mail, long before the sorting is
over. Most of the residents have a box, and prefer to call for their
letters to having them delivered, so the postman’s duties are a farce,
and by the time he goes his rounds he has no letters to carry.
Bristow Nugent rode into town early that mail day, but he had business
at the A.S.C. yard, and at the garrison office, and by the time he
reached the Post Office it was one o’clock, and his letters had been
waiting for him in the box for two hours. At the foot of the rough
staircase were a group of men he knew--Arthur White, Archie Lysle the
regimental chaplain, the harbour master, Hamilton Gurney, and young
Rennie--and before he had spoken a word to them their concerned faces
had told him that something was wrong. Although knowing that his
private affairs could not have reached them before himself, his heart
contracted with the sick throb of fear peculiar to men stationed in
distant corners of the earth, and feeling themselves helplessly out of
reach of their nearest and dearest, and the good-looking animal face
under the white helmet suddenly blanched.
“What’s up?” he said characteristically.
“It’s Lewin----” the Attorney-General answered as briefly and to the
point as he was asked. “They cabled from Capetown last night, and the
details are in to-day.”
“Lewin!--Ally!--what about him?”
“He’s dead!”
Nugent caught at the wooden banister as if White had struck him, and
turned sharply from one to the other with the words he could not utter
on his lips. They answered his questions amongst themselves without his
asking them.
“He made a mess of things over the East African business, and--and
cleared out of it.” Young Rennie spoke first, but shied off the
explanation like a frightened horse. There was some darker meaning
here than the natural fate which overtakes any man. Nugent’s face grew
sharper with anxiety.
“Poor young fool!” said White. “He was the wrong man in the wrong
place. Fell in with his own regiment too, and made a night of it--got
drunk most likely, and talked.”
“Talked Government secrets too--_Gregory’s_ secrets! There will be a
devil of a row to hush up now. Gregory may have to go himself.”
“Serve him right!” put in the little Chaplain with unexpected savagery.
“What did he want sending a harmless fool like Ally into such a tight
place? It was Halton’s job.”
“Lewin went away like a sick beast, poor devil, somewhere into the
interior.” It was Arthur White who seemed to know by instinct the
raging questions Nugent could not frame, and answered them with more
coherence than the rest. “That was how it was they never found him for
so long, and the news was delayed. It only came down to Capetown a few
days since, and the mail picked up Hanney’s letter at Beira.”
“How did he die?” Brissy had found his voice at last. The curt words
surprised himself that they should be in his ordinary tone. He had
fancied, with his throat dry and burning like that, that he must be
hoarse. “Was it fever or a scrimmage?”
There was a brief pause, and the men looked at each other.
“Neither,” said White, without glancing at the questioner. “He shot
himself.”
“Funked it, by Jove!” The words came under Brissy’s breath. He did not
know what it was that shocked him--the suggestion of cowardice to his
mind, or the staggering realisation of the extent of Alaric Lewin’s
indiscretion to have driven him to such a course. It must indeed have
been a disaster that had made Ally see no way out of it, but to take
his own life. What, in God’s name, had he been doing?
“Does his wife know?” he said roughly, in his fear.
“Poor girl!--no, how should she?”
“Some one must tell her. It will leak out, and she’ll hear it straight,
if they don’t.”
“I pity the man who breaks it to her, that’s all!” It was Rennie who
spoke, and his tones were heartfelt. “I wouldn’t for anything the world
contains!”
“Some one must.” Brissy set his white teeth and looked from one to the
other. There was no response in their faces, and their eyes avoided
his rather than otherwise. In the pause a heavy step sounded on the
landing above, and the Administrator himself appeared, leaning over the
rail of the stair. His gaunt form and harsh face showed not one sign of
weakness--hardly even of pity or concern--but he signed imperiously to
Arthur White.
“Can you come up and speak with me?” he said. “I want you.”
As if by a common impulse all the men turned and followed the
Attorney-General up the stair, and crowded into the narrow passage,
looking with stern earnestness into Gregory’s face. He held some
letters in his hand, and beyond him, through the open door of the
office he had just left, Alfred Halton’s figure was just visible,
seated by the open window. It was so hot at this hour of the day--being
barely past the Miroro--and in the narrow passage between the offices,
that the sweat hung in beads round the lips and on the temples of every
man present, without any movement or exertion on their part, while
the smell of the air seemed the essence of heat--a baked atmosphere,
without actual matter to flavour it.
“We were speaking of Mrs. Lewin, sir,” said the Attorney-General
firmly. “Does she know of Captain Lewin’s death?”
“Not unless some one has already ridden out and told her, or she is in
town.”
“She isn’t in town, I think, because her groom came down at eleven and
took out her mail.”
“She could not have heard through the mail, I suppose?” said the
Administrator quickly. “No, of course not--there was nothing but the
cable from Capetown. My information came from Beira, and Mrs. Lewin
would not hear from there.”
“They do not know any details at Capetown then?”
“No. Some one will have to break it to Mrs. Lewin.”
Again that reluctant pause, while each man in his own mind saw Chum
as she had appeared to him at some moment when she made the most
vivid picture of herself to him individually. So, Rennie saw her on
horseback, managing a fractious pony--Arthur White recalled one evening
when he had seen her with his wife in the nursery, bending over a
child’s cot. Hamilton Gurney fancied her in her own pretty shaded room,
lying back against some coloured cushions, while he sang to her,--but
no man offered to face her with such news as that the Administrator
held in the loose letters in his hand.
It was Bristow Nugent who spoke at last,--the least expected of the
group.
“All right--I’m going.”
He turned on his heel, as if he could not wait to think, and ran down
the uncarpeted stairs, his spurs clicking and jingling, and some metal
trapping or other adding to the audible hurry. Outside he caught his
pony by the mane, swung into the saddle far quicker than he had ever
done at a fourth chucker on the Polo ground, and was tearing past the
stores and out towards Maitso Hill before any one on the landing had
quite realised that it was Captain Nugent who had risen to the occasion.
“Bristles has no nerves,” said Rennie in selfish excuse. “He was about
the best man to go--he won’t really care much. He’s stolid.”
“Pity you’re so sensitive,” retorted the Chaplain cuttingly. “A little
of Nugent’s stolidity might do you good.... Lewin was his friend, too!”
Such a thought was in Bristow Nugent’s mind all through that dusty
gallop up the tangled green road, while the sweat poured down his brown
face, and his heart beat thickly with his errand. Memories of Ally--old
Ally Sloper!--at Sandhurst with him, when they both came perilously
near being “chucked” because of a certain escapade connected with
a frying-pan and the senior captain’s banjo;--that night too, when
Forrester of the Duke’s (Forrester always did lay it on so thick!)
borrowed his man’s uniform and went out with Ally as his “girl,” Ally
in a hat and feathers after the style of a London flower-seller! Lucky
thing they were not spotted that time. And his own special breed of
fox-terriers from which Ally had that bitch he was so fond of--what was
her name? Kiddy--yes, of course, after some girl on whom he was awfully
gone. Kiddy went to India with Ally, and he confessed that he cried
like a fool when she died from a karait’s bite. He could understand
that too--a fellow got as fond of a dog as of a child. He thought
inconsistently of his own boy in England, and wondered how he should
feel if his unopened letters contained bad news. Then his thoughts
harked back to Sandhurst--poor old Ally!... Such stupid, lovable
times!... Men make tenderer friendships in their young manhood than
they care to express.
He was covered with dust--caked with it--and streaked with the heat
as he dismounted in the stable yard of the bungalow. Not the state in
which to go into a lady’s drawing-room, he thought ruefully, pulling
the handkerchief out of his sleeve to wipe his shining face! The hair
clung to his damp forehead as he slipped off his helmet and dropped it
with a little clang of the chain, on to the table in the hall. Mrs.
Lewin was in the further room, Abdallah said--oh, yes, she was at home
to visitors. Brissy tried instinctively to muffle his spurs as he
walked across the bare boards, through the hanging curtains, and into
her white presence.
She was sitting by the window, looking out through an open door to the
hot riot of the hillside, where the wind sang in the grasses and came
back laden with sweetness from the flowering trees, but she turned her
head sharply at the sound of his ringing step (why did those spurs jar
so?) and rose and met him. The instant he got close to her he saw that
she knew, though how he did not stop to puzzle out, and with the tears
running down his scorched face he took her hands in his and tried to
speak.
“This is kind of you, Brissy,” she said in a quick, low voice, looking
up into the eyes she had called soulless. The first thing she had
realised was that he had made the simple self-sacrifice from which
other men had flinched, and come to tell her as he best could, with
less self-consciousness than they, but suffering far more from a
personal feeling. Another of her theories fell from her while he stood
there holding her hands, and with a bewildered humiliation she felt
that she would never judge any one again. For this man of all the
Station she had always held a little in contempt.
“I had a letter by the mail,” she said, quite quietly and collectedly,
but as if a little weary. “He sent it by a runner, just before--he....
And the man got through in time to deliver it and catch the
mail--almost before any one knew. Mustn’t it have been a wonderful
journey? All down through the German territory, and by Lake Nyassa
into Rhodesia, I suppose. But he was a Malagasy--Ally’s own servant,
Longa--and they are marvellous runners. You know Longa means _friend_
in the vernacular--strange, isn’t it?”
She paused, as if she were thinking, and put her hand up to her hair
as if a little uncertain that it lay in its usual correct masses. He
only said brokenly, “Poor old Ally!--he backed out,”--that seemed to
trouble Brissy!--“I wish I had been there.”
“You would never have done it,”--she shook her head with a flash of
intuition. “You were stronger than he.” She thought a moment, and then
went on in the same curious fashion. “Yes, Longa (and that means a
friend!) brought the letter to Capetown, and sent it on to me by the
mail. Here it is--oh yes! do look at it!”
She nearly thrust it into his hands, which trembled as they held it. He
almost felt that he ought not to look, as his blurred eyes travelled
over the blotted sheets.
Poor Ally! Poor, handsome, unreliable Ally--proved incompetent, and
such a failure!
It was a disconnected letter at best, and nothing really but a
confession of the man’s shame, which had to be pieced together from a
knowledge of him, for he had made no coherent statement. He had fallen
in with his own regiment, who were camped just outside Port Cecil, and
what with the reaction in getting out of Key Island, and “the fellows”
being glad to welcome him--well, the result was the same as it had
been when he failed before, and the Administrator wanted him on the
night of the threatened rising. He did not remember very much. He was
not dead drunk this time--if he had been it might have saved him--but
after dining with the regiment (and God knows what he had said to them,
only they were decent fellows and would shield him), he had had an
important interview with the men most involved in the insurrection.
It was a private interview, and a diplomatic affair that was to be
kept very dark. Melton Hanney arranged it, he had been most decent all
through--there was no blame attached to him. He had settled with Ally
as to when the meeting should take place, but had not been present at
the interview. There was an argument--Ally did not remember the details
very well--only his head was heated, and he got impatient, and lost his
temper and threatened. The men saw his condition and drew him on--then
he bragged of his Government, and their powers; and then--then--all
that Gregory had explained to him so carefully lest he should make
mistakes, was blurted out, and the very nation perhaps involved by
his folly. He knew what he had done almost before they left him with
smooth, guarded speeches, though no hint of animosity, and a kind of
sullen despair settled down on him. That was three days ago, before his
letter was written--three days of agonising suspense, and time to think
over what he had done. Nothing was known as yet; he was supposed to be
communicating with his chiefs, or forming an ultimatum. In the meantime
he had arranged for a shooting excursion inland--and there was more
truth in it than would appear! It seemed the only thing to do--but he
must write the truth to Hanney. It was not Hanney’s fault, and it might
leave him a chance to do something, and avert disaster.
“He is a thoroughly capable man, and knows the whole situation--in
my opinion, if that goes for anything now, he ought to have managed
it from the first,” wrote Alaric Lewin a few hours before death. “Why
did they send me? You said I could not do it--you were right as usual.
I’m no good, Chum--you always wanted me to do something, but you would
never have made me. I’m better out of it--it’s the least I can do, for
I should only disgrace you if I lived. You don’t know what I’ve done
this time--it was a big thing, bigger than you all imagine, and I’ve
hashed it. I only trust I shan’t get Gregory into the mess with me. It
is not his fault any more than Hanney’s. The Home Government ought to
leave it to the man on the spot, or be sure who they send. And there
have been worse things in my life that concern you, that I can’t tell
you either. They involve others. Only forgive us, and believe that I’m
doing the best thing possible for you now. Good-bye, Chum--and God
bless you!”
It was signed with his full name, but the letters were more scrawled
than usual, and the whole letter was blotted and uncertain. The
suspicion that hurt Brissy more than all was what the trembling
handwriting betrayed--the man had been so afraid of the thing he was
going to do! He had not wanted to die. Only his desperation and the
stress of circumstances in which he found himself had driven him to a
last bold action--forced him, morally at least, to go down with his
back against the wall.
For the idea of cowardice had faded out of Captain Nugent’s mind.
He saw from that piteous, confused letter of the man who had hardly
understood his own disaster, that what might have been weakness in
himself was a kind of furious bravery in Ally. With an unusual stretch
of imagination, he fancied the beautiful set face, the splendidly-built
figure in the lonely place in which his friend had chosen to die,
and heard the crash of the revolver. Curiously enough he knew Ally’s
revolvers; they were a pair he had given him himself. That they should
come to such a use as this!
Mrs. Lewin had been standing beside him patiently while he read the
letter. She made no comment, and asked no question as he handed back
the sheets, but with a curious new speculation in her face she turned
upon him suddenly.
“They know--at Government House?”
“Yes, there was a cable, and a letter followed by the mail from Beira.”
“When did the cable come?”
Brissy hesitated. “This morning, I suppose. I did not hear.”
“You are wrong,” she said quietly. “It came last night.”
The conviction was so strong in her mind that it seemed to
revolutionise her thoughts. Gregory had certainly known last night,
it accounted for his disturbed manner and his sudden appearance. But
why had he not prepared her at least? Why had he thought that when she
knew it would prove a barrier between them--unless he had expected
this beforehand, calculated upon it, plotted some such solution of the
problem that had threatened to keep them apart! The dreadful suspicion
was so intolerable that she began to fancy she was going mad. She could
not think consecutively--she could not reason, or judge with mercy. She
seemed to have lost her power to be charitable, and almost to think of
him as a deliberate murderer. For the time all other feeling was dead
in her, stunned with the shock, and her one dread was that she might
have to see him or speak to him. Her last night’s self seemed as far
removed from herself of to-day as though they were two separate beings.
She could not remember even her love for him; there seemed only the
dull pain of it left.
When Mrs. Gilderoy came in later to see her, she found her lying on
her own bed in a kind of stupour; yet the instant she spoke to her
Leoline’s brain responded, and she answered with perfect coherence--it
was only her feeling that was numb. She had even settled her plans too,
and knew what she meant to do.
“I cannot leave in this mail boat. I must wait to see if there are
more details to be got, and to arrange things also. There is business
to settle here that could not be done by to-morrow, and much to go
into.”
“What will you do then? You will not remain here?”
“I shall go to Vohitra as soon as I have packed up our things and left
this house ready for--for the next people. I want you to stay here with
me for the few days if you will.”
“I’ll go with you to Vohitra too, if my good man can spare me. Or if
I can’t actually start with you (of course you’ll want to get away as
soon as ever you can) I’ll follow you.”
“I shall stay here until the next mail,” said Leoline levelly. “I have
no black clothes of course--is there a sewing woman in the town who
could make me something?”
“Yes, a very decent little woman too for such a place. I will see about
that for you. You won’t go out, I suppose?”
“No.”
“She can come up to you. Oh, I am the bearer of a message from Mr.
Gregory himself. His sincere----”
“Don’t!” said Leoline sharply. For a moment her calm seemed broken
through. She put her hands over her horror-stricken eyes as if she saw
something that Mrs. Gilderoy could not see. “The Administrator was the
man who appointed Captain Lewin to East Africa,” she continued in a low
voice. “You can understand how I feel. Of course it is unreasonable.”
“But natural at the moment. I quite understand. Under the circumstances
you would rather not see him?”
“He has not asked to see me, surely!”
“No, but a visit of condolence is almost inevitable. I will see that
he does not come. If he wants to express his sympathy he can lend
you his yacht to take you round to Port Albert. That is a much more
practical and sensible thing to do.”
But Mrs. Lewin did not answer. She lay with closed eyes, not bearing,
but enduring, until thought was kind to her, and instead of the
nightmare of her new suspicions, or the recollection of that blotted
letter, she remembered the revelation of Bristow Nugent--poor Brissy,
who had come to her with the tears running down his face, and whom she
had always good-humouredly despised as too coarsely moulded for fine
feeling. Truly, our God creates strange and hidden beauties in the
vessels which He makes of clay. And who shall know His mind as to which
were fashioned to honour and which to dishonour?
* * * * *
Two days later the mail went out, and carried Alfred Halton through
the Gates, out of prison back to England. Half Port Victoria, still
talking of “poor Lewin’s death,” came down to the wharf to see him off,
and the Administrator came also. Hardly a word had passed between the
two men on the subject in everybody’s mouth beyond what was necessary,
but before they said good-bye Halton expressed an official regret over
the gravity of the situation in Port Cecil, and his eyes, meeting
Gregory’s, declared war.
“I have already stated my opinion that Lewin was the wrong man
to send,” he said quietly, “I can only wish you well out of the
unfortunate complication!” The small man was turning to bay at last.
“The Colonial Office will not hold you responsible, at any rate,”
said Gregory with his insolent lidless stare. “My course of action was
entirely my own.”
“And any disaster that followed.”
“Melton Hanney is at Port Cecil,” said Gregory with a shrug of his
shoulders. “If one cannot trust the man in place one may as well throw
up the sponge. I do not suppose that Lewin’s indiscretions will lead to
international trouble, but if they did--it means a certain expenditure
of men and money,” he ended composedly.
Halton turned his face slowly to the man who was his better by just the
larger qualities that made him without fear, and it was ugly to see. As
the Administrator put his foot on the gang-plank to leave the ship, his
fellow in office spoke softly, barbed words that were intended for, and
reached no other ears.
“‘Some of the King’s servants be dead,’” he quoted slowly, “‘and thy
servant Uriah the Hittite is dead also!’” It was the last that passed
between them.