People who talk of the still Indian night can scarcely do so from
experience, for, especially during the hot weather, darkness in the
East is vocal with life. The cicala shrills its loudest, the birds are
awake, and the very trees and plants seem to blossom audibly. Go round
an Indian garden at sunset and it is a sepulchre; the roses shrivelled
in their prime, the buds scorched in the birth, the foliage beaten
down by the fierce sun. Visit it again at sunrise and you will find it
bright with blossom, sweet with perfume, refreshed with dew. That is
the work of night; what marvel then if it is instinct with sound and
movement! Never for one hour does silence fall upon the world. The
monotonous beat of some native musician's drum goes on and on; a
village dog barks, and is answered by another until seventy times
seven; a crow takes to cawing irrelatively; the birds sing in
snatches, and the Indian cock, like that of scriptural story, crows
for other reasons besides the dawn.
The long-legged rooster who habitually retired to sleep on the summit
of Colonel Stuart's cook-room, had, however, legitimate cause for his
vociferations, and dawn was just darkening the rest of the sky when
the sudden flapping of his wings startled the horse of an early
wayfarer who came at a walk down the Mall.
It was Philip Marsden setting out betimes for a two days' scour of the
district in search of the very mules out of which Shunker Dâs had
hoped to make so much profit. Most men, carrying ten thousand rupees
with them, would have applied for a treasure-chest and a police guard;
but Major Marsden considered himself quite sufficient security for the
roll of currency notes in his breast-pocket. As he quieted the
frightened horse, his close proximity to the Commissariat office
reminded him that he had forgotten to apply for a certain form on
which he had to register his purchases; the omission would entail
delay, so he anathematised his own carelessness and was riding on,
when a light in the office-windows attracted his attention. It was
early for any one to be at work, but knowing how time pressed in all
departments under the strain of war, he thought it not improbable that
some energetic _babu_ was thus seeking the worm of promotion, and
might be able to give him what he required. Dismounting, lest his
horse's tread should disturb the sleepers in the house by which he had
to pass, he hitched the reins to a tree, and made his way towards the
office; not without a kindly thought of the girl, forgetful of care,
who lay sleeping so near to him that, unconsciously, he slackened his
step and trod softly. He had been as good as his word, and that very
day the doctor was to go over and prescribe immediate change. Change!
he smiled at the idea, wondering what change could stem the course of
the inevitable.
As he drew near he saw that the light came, not from the office, but
from its chief's private room. He hesitated an instant; then a
suspicion that something might be wrong made him go on till he could
see through the open door into the room. Thefts were common enough in
cantonments, and it was as well to make sure. Through the _chick_ he
could distinctly see a well-known figure seated at the writing-table,
leaning forward on its crossed arms.
"Drunk!" said Philip Marsden to himself with a thrill of bitter
contempt and turned away. The bearer would find the Colonel and put
him decently to bed long before the girl was up. Poor Belle! The
little platform where she had stood but the night before was faintly
visible, bringing a recollection of her pale face and sad appeal. "It
is father,"--the first words she had ever said to him; the very first!
He retraced his steps quickly, set the _chick_ aside, and entered the
room. The lamp on the table was fast dying out, but its feeble flicker
fell full on the Colonel's grey hair, and lit up the shining gold lace
on his mess-jacket. Silver, and gold, and scarlet,--a brilliant show
of colour in the shabby, dim room. A curious smell in the air and a
great stillness made Philip Marsden stop suddenly and call the sleeper
by name. In the silence which followed he heard the ticking of a
chronometer which lay close to him. He called again, not louder, but
quicker, then with swift decision passed his arm round the leaning
figure and raised it from the table. The grey head fell back inertly
on his breast, and the set, half-closed eyes looked up lifelessly into
his.
"Dead," he heard himself say, "dead!"--dead, not drunk. As he stood
there for an instant with the dead man's head finding a resting-place
so close to his heart, the wan face looking up at him as if in a mute
appeal, a flame of bitter regret for his own harsh judgment seemed to
shrivel up all save pity. The great change had come, to end poor
Belle's anxieties. And she? Ah! poor child, who was to tell her of it?
He lifted the head from his breast, laying it once more, as he had
found it, on the crossed arms; then looked round the room rapidly. An
empty bottle of chloral on the table accounted for the faint sickly
smell he had noticed. Was it a mistake? If not, why? Perhaps there was
a letter. Something at any rate lay under the nerveless hands,
powerless now to defend their secret. Philip Marsden took the paper
from them gently and turned up the expiring lamp till it flared
smokily. The blotted writing was hard to read, yet easy to understand,
for it told a tale too often written; a tale of debt, dishonour,
remorse, despair. Ten thousand rupees borrowed from the safe, and an
unsigned cheque for the amount, drawn on no one, but payable to the
Government of India, lying beside the dead man in mute witness to the
last desire for restitution in the poor stupefied brain. A pile of
official letters were scattered on the floor as if they had fallen
from the table. All save one were unopened, but that one contained a
notification of Colonel Stuart's transfer. Major Marsden drew a chair
to the table and deliberately sat down to think.
Something must be done, and that quickly, for already the merciless
light of day was gaining on the darkness. "And there is nothing hid
that shall not be made manifest;" the words somehow recurred to his
memory bringing another pulse of pity for poor Belle. What was to be
done? The answer came to him suddenly in a rush, as if it had all been
settled before. Why had Fate sent him there with more than enough
money to save the girl from shame? Money that was his to use as he
chose, for he could repay it twenty times over ere nightfall. Why had
Fate mixed the girl's life with his, despite his efforts to stand
aloof? Why had she sent for him? Why,--why was he there? The dead
man's keys lay on the table, the sum owed was clearly set down in
black and white, the safe close at hand. What was there, save a
personal loss he could well afford, to prevent silence? And he had
promised help--
When the hastily-summoned doctor came in a few minutes later the
bottle of chloral still lay on the table, but the blotted paper and
the cheque were gone. The lamp had flared out, and a little heap of
grey ashes on the hearth drifted apart as the doors and windows were
flung wide open to let in all the light there was.
"He has been dead about two hours," said the doctor. "Over-dose of
chloral, of course. I forbade it from the hospital, but he got it
elsewhere."
They had laid the dead man on the floor, and the grey dawn falling on
his face made it seem greyer still. The native servants huddled
trembling at the door; the two Englishmen stood looking down upon the
still figure.
"There is always the fear of an over-dose," said Philip Marsden
slowly, "or of some rash mistake."
The doctor met his look comprehensively. "Exactly! who can tell?
Unless there is circumstantial evidence, and I see none as yet. Anyhow
he was not responsible, for he has been on the verge of _delirium
tremens_ for days."
"Then you give the benefit of the doubt?"
"Always, if possible."
Again the wind of dawn fanning the dead man's hair drifted the grey
ashes further apart.
"He had better stay here," continued the doctor. "Moving him might
rouse the poor girl, and there's no need for that as yet. By the way,
who is to tell her? There isn't a lady or a parson in the place."
"I suppose I must," returned Philip after a pause. "I think it might
be best, since she confided her trouble to me. But couldn't I get some
sort of a woman from barracks just to stay with her?"
"Right; you're a thoughtful fellow, Marsden. Take my buggy and go to
the sergeant-major; his wife will know of some one. I'll stay till you
return in case she wakes; and look here, as you pass send a man about
the coffin. The funeral must be this evening, and--"
Philip Marsden fled from the dreary details of death with a remark
that the doctor could send a messenger. He was no coward, yet he felt
glad to escape into the level beams of the rising sun. As he drove
down along the staring white roads he asked himself more than once why
he had interfered to save a girl he scarcely knew from the knowledge
of her father's dishonour; and if he could find no sufficient reason
for it he could find no regret either. It had been an impulse, and it
was over. He had kept his word to Dick, and done his best to drive
care from those clear eyes,--what beautiful eyes they were!
"Och then!" cried Mrs. O'Grady, the sergeant-major's wife, who,
hastily roused from her slumbers, came out into the verandah in scanty
attire, "and is the swate young leddy alone? It's meself wud go at
wanst but that I'm a Holy Roman, surr, and shud be talkin' of the
blessed saints in glory. An' that's not the thing wid a Prothestant in
his coffin."
Despite his anxiety her hearer could not repress a smile. "I don't set
so much store by religious consolation, Mrs. O'Grady. It's more a
kind, motherly person I want."
"Then, Tim!" cried the good lady, appealing to her spouse who had
appeared in shirt and trousers, "Mrs. Flanigan wud be the woman, but
that she's daily expectin' her tinth--"
"Isn't there some kindly person who's seen trouble?" hastily
interrupted the Major.
"Ah, if it's the throuble you're wantin', take little Mrs. Vickary. A
Baptist and a widder,--more by token twice; bore with two dhrunken
bastes, Major, like a blissed angel, and wud be ready to spake up for
anny one."
Major Marsden, with a recollection of Widow Vickary's sad face as
nurse by a comrade's sick bed, pleaded for a younger and brighter one.
Thereupon the serjeant-major suggested poor Healy's Mary Ann, but his
wife tossed her head. "What the men see in that gurrll, surr, I can't
say; but she'll go, and cheerful, wid her little boy; a swate little
boy, surr, like thim cherubs with a trumpet--for her father she come
to live wid died of the fayver a month gone, and her man is waiting to
be killed by thim Afghans somewhere."
So Major Marsden, driving back with poor Healy's Mary Ann and the
cherub wielding a piece of sugarcane as trumpet, found Belle still
sleeping.
Then together, in the fresh early morning, they broke the sad tidings
to the girl. How, it does not much matter, for words mean nothing. We
say, "He is dead," many and many a time, carelessly, indifferently.
Then comes a day when the sentence is fraught with wild despair and
helpless pain. The sun seems blotted out, and the world is dark. Yet
the words are the same, nor can pen and ink write them differently.
"Let me see that he is dead! Oh, let me see him!" was her cry; so they
took her across to the shabby room where everything stood unchanged
save for the sheeted figure on the string bed. The gardener had strewn
some roses over it and the sun streamed in brightly. The sight brought
no real conviction to Belle. It all seemed more dreamlike than ever.
To fall asleep, as she had done, in the turmoil of life, and to wake
finding the hush of death in possession of all things! She let Philip
Marsden lead her away passively like a child, and all through the long
day she sat idle and tearless, with her hands on her lap, as if she
were waiting for something or some one. Yet it was a busy day in that
quiet, empty house; for in India death comes rudely. Many a time has
the father to superintend the making of the little coffin, while the
mother stitches away to provide a daintier resting-place for the
golden head that is used to frills and lace; until, in the dawn, those
two go forth alone to the desolate graveyard, and he reads the Church
service as best he can, and she says "Amen" between her sobs. There
was none of this strain for Belle, nothing to remind her of the
inevitable; so she wondered what they wanted of her when, as the glare
of sunset reddened the walls of her room, Major Marsden came and
looked at her with pitying eyes. "It is time we were starting, Miss
Stuart," he said gently.
"Starting! where?"
"We thought you would like to go to the cemetery, and I have arranged
to drive you down. It will be a military funeral, of course."
She rose swiftly in passionate entreaty. "Ah no, no! not so soon! he
is not dead! Oh I cannot, I cannot!" Then seeing the tender gravity of
his face, she clasped her hands on his arm and begged to see _him_
once more,--just to say good-bye.
He shook his head. "It is too late--it is best not."
"But I have no dress,--it can't be--" she pleaded vainly.
"Every one will be in white as you are," he returned with tears he
could not check in his eyes. "Come! it will be better for you by and
by." He laid his hand on her clasped ones. She looked in his eyes
doubtfully, and did as she was bidden.
"We will drive out a bit first," said Philip, when she had taken her
seat by his side in the tall dog-cart that seemed so out of keeping
with its dismal office. "We have plenty of time for I thought the air
would do your head good,--and,--it was best for you to be away just
now."
Better, and best! As if anything could make any difference now! "You
are very kind," she said in dull recognition of his care.
Philip Marsden never forgot that drive; the memory of it remained with
him for years as a kind of nightmare. The girl in her white dress and
sailor hat as he had seen her at many a tennis-party; the great bank
of clouds on the horizon telling of welcome rain; the little squirrels
leaping across the white road; the cattle returning homewards amid
clouds of dust; the stolid stare of the natives as they passed by. It
was almost a relief to stand side by side before an open grave
listening to an even, disciplined tramp audible above the muffled
drums coming nearer and nearer.
A dingy brick wall bleached to mud-colour shut out all view, but high
up in the sky, above the fringe of grey tamarisk trees, a procession
of flame-edged clouds told that, out in the west, Nature was
celebrating the obsequies of day in glorious apparel. Suddenly _The
Dead March_ struck up, loud and full, bringing to Philip Marsden's
memory many a sword-decked coffin and riderless charger behind which
he had walked, wondering if his turn would come next. The music ceased
with a clash of arms at the gate; and after a low-toned order or two
the procession appeared in narrow file up the central path. The white
uniforms looked ghostly in the deepening shadows; but through a break
in the trees a last sunbeam slanted over the wall, making the spikes
on the officers' helmets glow like stars.
Belle's clasped yet listless fingers tightened nervously as the
Brigade-Major's voice rose and fell in monotonous cadence about "our
dear brother departed." It seemed to her like a dream; or rather as if
she too were dead and had no tears, no grief, nothing but a great
numbness at her heart. Then some one put a clumsily-made cross of
white flowers into her hands, bidding her lay it on the coffin, bared
now of the protecting flag; and she obeyed, wondering the while why
other people should have thought of these things when she had not, and
thinking how crooked it was, and how much better she could have made
it herself. Perhaps; for the hands that twined it were not used to
such woman's work. It was Philip Marsden's task, also, to throw the
first handful of earth into the grave, and draw Belle's arm within his
own before the salutes rang out. They startled the screaming parrots
from their roost among the trees, and sent them wheeling and flashing
like jewels against the dark purple clouds.
"Was it never going to end?" she thought wearily as they waited again,
and yet again, for the rattle of the rifles. Yet she stood heedlessly
silent, even when the band struck into quick time and the cheerful
echo of the men's answering footsteps died away into the distance.
"Take her home," said the doctor, who with John Raby had remained to
see the grave properly filled in. "I'll call round by and by with a
sleeping draught; that will do her more good than anything."
As they drove back she complained, quite fretfully, of the cold, and
her companion reined in the horse while he wrapped his military coat
round her, fastening it beneath her soft dimpled chin with hands that
trembled a little. She seemed to him inexpressibly pitiful in her
grief, and his heart ached for her.
"It is going to rain, I think," she said suddenly, with her eyes fixed
on the dull red glow barred by heavy storm clouds in the west; adding
in a lower tone, "Father will get wet!"
Major Marsden looked at her anxiously and drove faster, frightened at
the dull despair of her tone. He had meant to say good-bye at the
door, but he could not. How could he leave her to that unutterable
loneliness? And yet what good could he do beyond beguiling her to take
a few mouthfuls of food? Poor Healy's Mary Ann proved helpless before
a form of grief to which she was utterly unaccustomed, and as her
presence seemed to do more harm than good Philip Marsden sent her into
the next room, where she nursed her boy and wept profusely. He sat
talking to Belle till long after the mess-hour, and then, when he did
turn to go, the sight of her seated alone, tearless and miserable in
the big, empty room was too much for his soft heart. He came back
hastily, bending over her, then kneeling to look in her downcast face,
and take her cold little hands into his warm ones and say kind words
that came from his very heart. Perhaps they brought conviction,
perhaps the touch of his hand assured her of sympathy, for suddenly
her dull despair gave way; she laid her head on his shoulder and cried
pitifully, as children cry themselves to sleep.
With the clasp of his fingers on hers and his breath stirring her soft
curly hair, Philip Marsden's heart beat fast and his pulses thrilled.
His own emotion startled and perplexed him; he shrank from it, and yet
he welcomed it. Did he love her? Was this the meaning of it all?
"How good you are," she whispered, trying to regain her composure.
"What should I have done without you?" Her unconsciousness smote him
with regret and a great tenderness.
"There are plenty who will be kind to you," he answered unsteadily.
"Life holds everything for you yet, my dear; peace, and happiness, and
love."
Love! Did it hold his for her? he asked himself again as he walked
homewards in the dark. Love! He was quite a young man still, only two
and thirty, yet he had deliberately set passion and romance from him
years before. Poverty had stood between him and the realisation of a
dream till, with the sight of his ideal profoundly happy as some one
else's wife, had come distrust and contempt for a feeling that
experience showed him did not, could not last. Why, therefore, should
it enter into and disturb his life at all? Friendship? ah, that was
different! Perhaps the future held a time when he would clasp hands
with a life-companion; a woman to be the mistress of his home, the
mother of his children. But Belle! poor little, soft Belle Stuart,
with her beautiful grey eyes! He seemed to feel the touch of her hand
in his, the caress of her hair on his lips; and though he laughed
grimly at himself, he could not master the joy that took possession of
him at the remembrance. Dear little Belle! Amidst the doubt and
surprise which swept over him as he realised his own state of mind,
but one thing gave him infinite satisfaction,--he had saved her from
the far more lasting trouble of her father's disgrace. Friend, or
lover, it had been a good deed to do, and he was glad that he had done
it. Nothing could alter that. And while he slept, dreaming still of
his clasp on the little cold yet willing hand, an official envelope
lay on the table beside him mocking his security. He opened it next
morning, to lay it aside with a curse at his own ill luck, though it
was only a notification that Major P. H. Marsden would carry on the
current duties of the Commissariat office till further orders. He had
half a mind to go over to the Brigade office and get himself excused:
a word or two about his other work would do it; but his pride rose in
arms against any shirking for private reasons. Besides, there might be
nothing wrong in Colonel Stuart's accounts, and even if there was, he
would be the best man to find it out. Yet he walked up and down the
verandah a prey to conflicting desires, bitterly angry with himself
for hesitating an instant. Common sense told him that it might be as
well for one less biassed than he was by previous knowledge to
undertake the scrutiny, that it was scarcely fair for him to go to the
task with a foregone conclusion in his mind; but pride suggested that
he could not trust himself to decide fairly even now. How could he,
when he was bitterly conscious of one overmastering desire to save
Belle? Then came the thought that if she was indeed what in his heart
he believed her to be, if her steadfastness and straightforwardness
were more than a match for his own, then the very idea of his refusing
the task would be an offence to her. After that, nothing could have
prevented him from placing himself with open eyes in a position from
which, in common fairness to himself and others, he ought to have
escaped.