Behind him, by just turning his head, he could see another memorial. A
plate of flaming brass, this one; large, for it had to hold many names,
and very new. It was scored in vermilion tribute to those
yeomen--gentlemen and peasant--who, at the first breath of disaster, had
hurried overseas from the peaceful district to uphold the mother country
in a point of honour and had found quick honour themselves. In a little
while these blood-red letters, too, would fade, but not so quickly as
the memory of grief in the hearts of those who had sent their lads off
with such tears, such acclamations. Bethune thought to himself, with a
bitter smile, that there was not one of the churches dotted all over the
wide English land where some such brand-new memorial had not been nailed
this last year, and how, Sunday after Sunday, the eyes of the
congregation would sweep past it, with ever-growing dulness of custom,
until the record came to mean no more than the grey stones of the walls
themselves. No less quickly than England, the moment of peril past,
forgets those who rose to her call and fell for her name, does the
thought of the brother, the comrade, the son, pass from the home circle!
Not that he pitied the forgotten; not that he wished it otherwise with
his country. It was well for England that her sons should think it a
matter of course to give their lives for her. And it was what he could
wish for himself, to die where his duty was, and be obliterated. Who,
indeed, should remember him who had no ties of kinship and had lost his
only friend? ... Who should be remembered when Harry English was already
forgotten?
His lips curled, as he flung a glance along the aisles and wondered if
any heart, under these many-coloured Sunday garments, still beat true to
the lost lover; nay, how many comfortable widows had already brought a
second mate to worship under the tablet that commemorated the first?
Hold! yet the mothers remember--this was the church where Harry English
had worshipped, beside his mother, the grand tender silent woman whom
Bethune, too, had loved: the mother who had been alone, with himself, to
mourn!
When he had set out on his way this morning he had been moved by the
thought that to kneel where his friend had knelt was the last and only
tribute he could pay that memory. The mountain torrent had robbed them
of his grave; but in the shrine which sheltered his tablet, in this
church of a communion that had rigidly severed the old fond ties between
the living and the departed, no service could yet now be held that would
not be in some sort a commemoration.
As the thoughts surged through his mind like wreckage on the waves of
his feelings, he seemed to go back, with a passion that almost had
something of remorse, to his old sorrow for English and to his old
bitterness against the woman who had put another in his comrade's place.
In vision he placed the two men before him: Harry, stern, eager, true,
with his rare beautiful smile--eagle of glance, clear of mind, unerring
of judgment, swift of action; Harry English, the unrecognised hero of
the deep strong heart; he whose courage at the crucial moment had
maintained the honour of England; who, in saving the frontier
stronghold, had, as Bethune knew, saved India from gathering disaster!
And Sir Arthur Gerardine, the great man, with his fatuous smile, his
fatal self-complacency, his ignorant policy. Sir Arthur Gerardine, in
his high place, working untold future mischief to the Empire with inane
diligence. Bethune almost laughed, as he pictured the
Lieutenant-Governor to himself, one of the many of his order, busy in
picking out stone by stone the great foundations planned by the brains
of Lawrences, cemented by the blood of Nicholsons.
And yet, this Rosamond Gerardine, who had borne the name of English,
could not be dismissed merely as one who, light-natured, had found it
easy and profitable to forget. Sphinx, she had haunted his thoughts
that Indian night as he had walked back from her palace, carrying with
him her image, white and stately in the flash of her diamonds and the
green fires of her emeralds ... the great lady, who knew the value of
her smiles and gave the largess but with condescension. Sphinx she was
even more to him now, whether hurrying from her walk to receive him,
wide-eyed in the firelight, with the bloom of a girl on her cheek and an
exquisite gracious timidity; or wan in her black robes--widow, indeed,
it seemed--drinking in with speechless tenderness of sorrow every memory
of the lost friend, as if no Sir Arthur Gerardine had ever stepped
between her and her beloved.
Was this attitude but a phase of a sick woman's fancy, to be dropped
when the mood had passed? Was not, in truth, Lady Gerardine in this
freakish humour as false to Sir Arthur, who had given her affluence and
position, as she had been to him who had given her his love and faith?
Deep down under his consciousness there was a little angry grudge
against her that she should not have accompanied them this morning.
Were she now sincere, she would have felt the same desire as he himself
to pray where the walls heralded Harry English's name. Bethune did not
know, so little do even the most straightforward know themselves, that
had she knelt by his side to-day it would have been perilously sweet to
him: that had her footsteps gone with his along the frosted roads
between the brown hedges, that way, to him, would have remained in
fragrance as with a memory of flowers.
"Didn't you think," asked Baby, "that Mr. Smith--his name is Algernon
Vandeleur Smith, he's the curate--didn't you think his eyes would drop
out of his head? They make me feel quite ill!" They were walking down
the flagged churchyard path, and Baby was stamping her small cold feet.
She was talking in a high irate voice, regardless of hearers. "Did you
ever listen to such a sermon?"
She opened her bright eyes very wide and made a fish-like mouth in
imitation of the Reverend Algernon: "And now, brethren, shortly,
briefly, and in a few words, not wishing to detain you longer, I will
endeavour to set before you with conciseness and brevity."--She was a
born mimic, and had caught the dreary young divine's very intonation.
Bethune had no laugh for her: his heart was sore. For once the girl's
mood jarred on him.
She was quick to feel the shadow of his thoughts. The dimple went out of
her cheek, the spring from her step. The icy brilliancy of the day
seemed suddenly dim to her. The walk before them, towards which she had
been yearning with delicious anticipation, became instantly a grey
project, a weariness.
This gossamer of early love--it needs but a breath of adverse wind to
tear it apart and set it afloat in forlorn shreds, mere flecks to the
caprice of the airs; it that has been a fairy bridge for the dance of
the sunbeams! For a long while they trudged together in silence. But
all at once, Bethune looking down upon her was smitten, not by any hint
of her dawning sentiments towards him, but by the consciousness that he
must have seemed surly towards a mirthful child.
"God knows," he thought heavily, "the world gets sad enough, soon
enough, to make it shame to cloud even one moment for the children."
Himself, he felt old and sad, and miles away from her happy youth.
"So silent?" said he, turning upon her that softened look she loved.
She glanced up at him, forcing a smile, but over her frank eyes there
was a wet shimmer which she winked away indignantly. Once again, as on
that Indian evening when he had seen Lady Gerardine fit her slender hand
into the death-prints of the burnt queens, it struck him that here, in
this open-hearted, sweet-natured, gay-spirited girl, a man might find a
companion for life to help and comfort--a piece of charming, wholesome
prose, but ...
Raymond Bethune, in his lonely isolated life, had had dreams--dreams
that his temper had been too narrow, too severely matter-of-fact, to
bring into any connection with his actions. He had dreamed his dream as
he had read his book of poetry, to lay it aside without a sigh and take
up the moment's duty, as one lays aside a flower, a thing of fragrance,
a passing pleasure, which has no further influence on life.
Now this woman, whom he despised, who had outraged the deepest feeling
of his life, had become, in some inexplicable manner, the embodiment of
these inconsequent dreams. Her deep eyes, shadowed with sorrow as the
tarn by the mountain height; the trick of her sigh, the balm of her rare
smile; the melody of her voice, those low tones that seemed as charged
with mystery as the wind by the whispers of the forest depths, all were
as
Charm'd magic casements, opening on the foam
Of perilous seas, in faëry lands forlorn....
She was a vision of poetry that could be lived, that could become part
of a man's very flesh and blood!
Of a sudden he realised it. His heart gave a great leap and then seemed
to stand still; but the habit of years and the hard common sense of his
nature asserted themselves in violent reaction. He coloured to the
roots of his hair in shame at the monstrousness, the absurdity of the
thought, to which his idle dissatisfied mood had led him.
The girl saw his emotion and innocently attributed it to quite another
cause; connected it with the expression of his glance when it had rested
upon her. The song awoke once more in her heart, circling higher and
higher like a June lark. Renewed joy began to bubble from her lips in
laughter and talk.
When they emerged from the copse to the top of the downs, where the road
dipped into the hollow, she halted, with an exclamation.
"See," she cried, "the grass looks all gold and silver! And oh! did any
one ever behold anything so pale, pale, so blue, blue as the sky! Oh!
isn't this better than India; don't you love it; wouldn't you like to
put your arm round England and kiss her?"
"England, the mother; India, the mistress," thought Bethune. Then, at a
maddening tangent flight, his mind took wing. The words of Dr.
Châtelard came back upon him. "Cold, that woman? Touch that coldness
and be burnt to the bone!" He revolted from his own soul as it flamed
within him. He would have liked to set off running across the frozen
downs to that far violet line where washed the sea; to have plunged into
the icy waves, into the bitter turmoil of the living waters, to wash the
degrading madness from him.
Aspasia's fresh laugh brought his spirit back to her with a renewed
revulsion.
"Look, look," she cried once more, "there's Muhammed's turban going up
and down, and up and down, the garden path! I wonder what he's thinking
of? Not Runkle's monumental work, I'm sure. Ugh! I declare it's
uncanny only to look at that absurd turban in this winter land. It's
bad enough to have Jani chattering about the house like a human
castanet, without having that creature tramping up and down outside the
window, day after day. Major Bethune, I wish you'd speak to the
creature--and find out what he is up to. I never saw anything so
restless in my life."
"Oh, we've had several conversations," answered Bethune, following with
his eyes the movement of the red head-dress in the distant hollow.
"That is to say, I have done a lively bit of talking to him, and he has
given me mighty polite answers and said nothing at all. Those fellows,
Miss Aspasia, are queer cattle, proud as Lucifer, secret as the tiger in
the jungle. That one down there, however, is of the modern school--a
sort of animal I don't profess to understand, but one, at any rate, I
should not care to trust, myself. Sir Arthur would have done just as
well to have left him in India."
"Gracious!" cried Aspasia. "Lord!" Her mind sprang: "Perhaps he's
after Runkle! Oh, Major Bethune, you know what a mess poor Runkle is
making of things out there; I shouldn't like him to be thugged! I
always told him he was laying the seed of mutiny," said Miss Aspasia,
with tragic emphasis.
Bethune gave his rare laugh.
"Muhammed Saif-u-din would hardly have come over all the way to England
to make his private mutiny when he could accomplish the matter with more
kudos in India, and have a good chance of saving his own skin besides."
Aspasia shook her head, preferring to cling to her own dramatic
inspiration.
"Well, I'll give Runkle a warning, anyhow," said she. "There's
something fishy about Muhammed. You may laugh at me, if you like; but
the man is eaten up with some secret thought, some sinister thought.
There's a look in his eyes that makes me shiver. And when he
smiles--ugh! I do hate Easterns."
He glanced at her reflectively, then he smiled. Such a sentiment from
any one else would have aroused his indignation; but it was impossible
to take Miss Aspasia Cuningham's hatreds with seriousness. Only this
morning he had seen her half strangle a protesting Jani in vehement
embrace.
"And as for Aunt Rosamond," went on the girl, comfortably, "it upsets
her even to see the wretched being. That's the reason we keep him to
the orchard, you know; her windows look out on the front. I had to tell
him--it was an awful moment; he was so hurt and so grand. Then I
explained it was on account of poor Captain English, you know. Oh, you
know...!"
"Do I?" asked the man, with a faint raising of the brows.
"Well, if it amuses you to pretend you don't," she snapped back.
"Anyhow, Muhammed did. He may be a cut-throat, but there's something of
a gentleman about it. He put his hand on his heart and bowed. 'The Lady
Sahib's wishes are sacred,' he said. And I've seen the poor thing hide
behind a tree when she is coming. Rather touching, don't you think?"
said the inconsequent Baby.
"Did Lady Gerardine ask you to speak to Muhammed?"
"No. Why do you want to know that?"
"Mere idle curiosity," he answered, striking at a gorse bush with his
stick and watching the melted rime fly out in spray.
"If you knew Aunt Rosamond better, you'd understand she'd never say such
a thing as that. She keeps everything close. But we all know she does
not want to be reminded of things."
He threw back his head with his mirthless laugh.
"Even I know as much by this time, Miss Aspasia. It is perhaps a little
difficult for a solitary man to understand you women; but one thing is
quite evident: you never do anything heartless or selfish ... except
from excess of feeling."
He could not keep the sneer from his tone, and Baby's quick temper was
instantly aflame.
"You never have a good word for Aunt Rosamond," she cried; "but you need
not include me in your judgment, I think!"
Bethune laughed again, harshly.
"I am very hard on Lady Gerardine, am I not?" Then fixing his eyes upon
her, broodingly; "and, as for you, I hope----"
He did not finish the sentence. But to her reading, his glance needed
no word. She grew rosily shy and ran on ahead to hide it.
"Well, I love the Eastern," said the man, abruptly going back to the
origin of the dispute. "He's my trade. He will be the death of me one
of these days, no doubt. But what of that? Does not the sailor love
the sea that will swallow him. And besides, if they weren't always an
uncertain quantity, where would be the spice of life out there? One
might as well be in a broker's office. But I don't like your
westernised Eastern," he said, with a change of tone, and took a first
long step upon the downward way.
Aspasia skipped on before him.
"Well, we're a pretty queer lot down there, in the Old Ancient House,"
she cried, in her high merry pipe. "What with the Thug plotting--I know
he's a Thug, whatever you may say, and I know he's plotting," she gave
her companion a challenging blink of her bright eye; "and what with
crazy old Mary, who's lived so long in this old hollow that she's
positively part of the timber and plaster of the house, and can hear the
very stones talk. By the way, she's more creepy than ever now, and
swears that her pet ghosts are walking with extra vigour. And what with
Jani, running about after Aunt, with her dog eyes and poor chattering
teeth! Nothing will ever make me believe that Jani has got a soul. And
then, my poor aunt herself, with her hyper-what-you-call-'ems, and
Runkle bombarding her with telegrams which she don't even notice, and
which I have to answer as best I may. I say," said Aspasia, stopping
reflectively, "there will be a fine row, I tell you, soon! For if I
know Runkle, he'll pounce, one of these days. And Aunt Rosamond; well,
you see for yourself what she is just now. Positively there's only you
and I that are sane."
She sprang on again, to look back at him over her shoulder and laugh
like a schoolgirl.
His eyes sank before hers. Could she but have guessed on the brink of
what ignoble madness he--the sane man--was standing!
*CHAPTER X*
"How rosy you look!" said Lady Gerardine.
"I've been driving Major Bethune in the cart. And the pony went like an
angel on four legs," said Aspasia. "I suppose the wind caught my face."
She pressed the back of her hands to her cheeks, as she spoke, and her
eyes danced above them. It was the rose of happiness and no evanescent
wind bloom that glowed in her innocent childish countenance.
Women's glances are cruelly quick to read the tender secrets of each
other's souls. Lady Gerardine's look hardened as she still fixed the
girl; her own wounded inconsequent heart was suddenly aflame with anger
against her. Not a fortnight ago had Aspasia been setting flowers
before the portrait of Harry English and offering, in passionate love,
melodies to that mystic presence. And it had been sufficient that this
Bethune's everyday substantiality should show itself, for the fickle
creature to change allegiance. She had dared to think she loved Harry
English, and now she dared to desecrate this love!
They were in the drawing-room waiting the summons for lunch. Bethune
had not yet appeared. With an air of embarrassment very foreign to her,
Baby tossed off her hat and coat and moved restlessly to the piano. She
wished pettishly, to herself, that her aunt would stop staring. But
nothing could drive the lustre from her own eyes and the upward tilt
from her lips. She had had such a lovely drive over the wet downs; they
had watched the scolding, stamping squirrel in the hazel copse. His
dark face had brightened so often. His gaze had rested on her so gently
now and again. When he got down to open the wicket gate for her he had
gathered a little pale belated monthly rose from the bush at the side,
and had given it to her. She would always keep it, always.... Her
fingers strayed unconsciously over the keys from one harmony to another.
They fell into a familiar theme--the Chopin Prelude, with its sobbing
rain-beat accompaniment. She forgot Lady Gerardine and her dry hostile
tones, her cold violating look. Following the strong pinions of her
art, her young emotions had begun to beat tentative wings, when she was
brought down to earth, as once before, very suddenly and with no
pleasant shock.
"Whom is your music addressed to now, Aspasia?" asked Lady Gerardine,
leaning over towards her with folded arms on the piano.
The musician's fingers dropped from the notes.
"To nobody that belongs to you!" she cried rudely, with a flare of
schoolgirl anger. Her face crimsoned.
Lady Gerardine's gaze was filled with a lightning contempt. She
straightened herself and looked at the empty space on the wall, where
Harry English's portrait had hung.
"In truth," she said, "my dear, you don't take long to change."
Her voice was scornful.
Quite taken aback and in a hot rage, Aspasia bounced up from the
music-stool. But before a coherent word could relieve her, Major
Bethune came in upon them.
When her anger had somewhat cooled down--never a lengthy process with
Aspasia--she began to feel a sort of wonder at herself. What, indeed,
had become of the pale, gallant ghost that she had set up to worship in
the shrine of her heart? Gone, gone after the way of ghosts, before the
first ray of real sunshine--Bethune's hand-clasp, his softened glance,
his rare smile. With the realisation of her own fickleness came
another, so overwhelming in its suggestion, that all else was swept away
by it. She was in love! ... In love for the first time, really,
unmistakably, Aspasia Cuningham, who had meant to devote her whole life
to her art.
Bethune wondered, in his blundering masculine way, what blight had
fallen in the little dining-room, to render their wontedly harmonious
meeting of the three at meals so constrained that day.
But when, later, Lady Gerardine and her niece found themselves once more
alone, the memory of her curious resentment seemed to have faded from
the elder woman's mind, to have been erased by a fresh tide of thought,
as footprints on the sands are washed away by the waves.
Old Mary had been with her in the gloaming; old Mary, with her tender
memories of the dead past, her mystic whispers of present hauntings.
"Eh, ma'am, he's been very near to us, these days," she said. "Last
night, now, I heard his step come down the passage, as plain, as plain
as ever I heard anything. I always knew his step among a thousand,
ma'am, from a child; a clean, clear step, with never a slur nor a
slouch; not as most people walk."
"Oh, Mary," cried Lady Gerardine, a thrill, half exquisite, half
terrible, running through her, "why does he come back now?"
"Why, ma'am, it's because of you, I'm thinking," said the old woman,
simply. "You're just calling him back to you."
"Oh, Mary!"
"Does that frighten you, ma'am? Doesn't it make you glad? Why, the
other evening, they had not lit the lamps yet in the hall, and I felt
him pass me--his own presence, just as I feel yours there. Nothing of
the grave, of the cold about it, but warm, comfort--Heaven's warmth.
Oh, God is good, ma'am! He makes all easy."
"God is good," said Rosamond to herself, weighing the words, as she sat
alone. "Is God good?"
And within her some voice of truth answered her: answered that God had
been good, even to her; had meant well with her; very well, even in her
bereavement, could she but have taken His ruling as these women of
Harry's old home.
Thus, when she was found by Aspasia, there was no room in her heart for
any lesser thought.
*CHAPTER XI*
With hands clasped behind his back, head bent, absorbed in thought, the
black fan of his beard spreading over the black broadcloth on his
breast, the cross-folds of the turban startlingly exotic on top of the
fluttering sable garments--the latter pathetically European in
intention--an incongruous figure under these bare placid English
fruit-trees, Muhammed Saif-u-din came full upon Raymond Bethune.
The sodden grass of the long neglected road had swallowed the sound of
their footsteps. For once the Pathan was shaken out of his oriental
calm for a brief moment as, suddenly looking up, he found himself within
a yard of the officer of Guides.
The guest of the Old Ancient House had strolled out by himself to smoke
a solitary meditative pipe in the wild avenue. Seeing Muhammed's
flaming headgear, he had deliberately directed his steps towards him;
for Bethune would not have been that self that India had made him, had
he not felt instinctively lured into the company of the Eastern, all
degenerate as he chose to consider him. Moreover, the personality of
Sir Arthur's secretary baffled him, and Bethune resented being baffled.
He fixed his eye keenly upon the Pathan, turned babu.
"Your soul is in the East, Muhammed," said he, addressing him in his own
tongue.
The dark face opposite relaxed into a smile, the white teeth flashed,
Muhammed made the supple Indian salaam.
"Nay, your honour, my soul is in great England," he said, and would have
passed on. But the other arrested him somewhat peremptorily. Muhammed
wheeled back and brought his hand to the edge of his turban with a
gesture that betrayed the soldier, then drew himself up rigidly.
Under Bethune's long scrutinising look the thin face fell into deep
lines of gravity; the large dark eyes, somewhat restless as a rule in
their brilliancy, gazed back straight and full. The Englishman's heart
kindled as the unconquered spirit of the Pathan seemed to rear itself to
meet the cold domination of the conquering race. There was nothing of
revolt in the man's look, yet something untameable, he thought. And it
pleased him hugely. His mind leaped back to his own "devils of boys" on
the mountain sides--eagles and leopards of humanity, as compared with
the domestic animals. He ran a loving glance over the Indian's muscular
yet lithe proportions: built for strength--for endurance--for the
strenuous side of life.
"How comes it, O son of the Mountain," cried he, "that you are not among
the Emperor of India's warriors? How come you to bend those eyes over
screed and parchment, to cramp that hand round the quill instead of the
talwar?"
The florid oriental language came oddly enough in stiff, abrupt British
accents from the officer's tongue. The flowing guttural which replied
was in marked contrast:
"I have heard it said," answered the secretary, without moving a muscle
of his countenance, "that the pen is mightier than the sword."
A sneer, aimed at the Lieutenant-Governor's literary production,
trembled on Bethune's lips, but he prudently suppressed it.
"You cannot deceive me, friend," cried he, abruptly; then: "You have
flown with the birds of battle and heard the cannon roar, and thought
the smell of the powder sweet."
Again the Pathan smiled; and Bethune, watching him, was stirred, he knew
not why, as by a glimpse of something at once immeasurably fierce and
immeasurably sad.
"Sir," said Muhammed, in slow deliberate English, "I have seen many
things; and no man knows where his fate leads him."
"Oh, no doubt!" said Bethune, laughing not very pleasantly. He was
irritated with the fellow's impenetrability and his own inability to
deal with it.
"And so fate has brought you to a wealthy master," said he, tauntingly;
"and you think that this scribbling business will prove worth your
while. 'Tis certainly an odd job for a Pathan! ... I trust well paid?"
"I sought the post, sir," said Muhammed. "My master, since he is to be
called my master," a sudden fire leaped and died in his eyes, "will no
doubt pay me what he owes me. When I come into my own country again, it
may be I shall have found it worth my while."
To this the officer made no reply. After a second's pause, Muhammed
lifted his hand to his brow once more and moved away on the noiseless
turf. Bethune turned to watch the swing of the strange figure through
the trees.
"Greed for money, and wily determination to get to lucrative posts in
life--ambition to play the European--or--what?" No motive that his
sober common sense could accept as a plausible alternative. Yes, his
previous impression had been correct; nothing but a desire for
self-advancement--nothing but greed and an Eastern cleverness to seek
opportunities--animated that splendid bronze, after all! A
disappointing specimen to one who loved the warrior race; a specimen of
the westernised Eastern--degenerate leopard, with the spirit eliminated
and the wiliness twice developed, according to the law of nature that so
often strengthens one attribute by the elimination of another.
*CHAPTER XII*
The old tin box again and the breath of terrible India in this quiet
English room. Siege, struggle, treachery, bloodshed, hunger, thirst,
and fever, the extremes of heat and cold, the death agony of the young
comrade--this was the story it held. The story of the difficult grave
dug in the rock; of the inexorable exigency of the moment, the narrow
strait for England's honour which could allow no lingering thought for
him that was become useless; of the drawing together of the ranks to
hide the gap and keep up the long fight. The story of every conceivable
distress of the flesh, every sordid misery of the body, every anxiety of
the mind; of hopeless outlook, lingering torture. But, above all, the
record of the indomitable purpose; of the white and red crossed flag
floating high--of the spirit unconquerable, even to death.
Rosamond sat down on the slanting floor, lifted and took into her
lap--as a mother may lift her dead child from the cradle--the old
leather case that contained in such small compass so great a story;
Captain English's papers of the siege. The parcel had been delivered to
her even as he had prepared it for her. To the elastic band that
clasped it a scrap of paper was still pinned: "For my wife."
And she had never opened it!
All these years his voice had been waiting to speak to her; his own
words for her had been there, the last cry of his soul to hers; nay--how
did she know?--the message that should have shaped her future.
Something of himself that could not die, he had left her, something of
himself to go with her through the desolation! But she, the wife so
tenderly loved and thought of to the last--she had, as it were, denied
herself to his death-bed. She had closed her ears to his dying speech.
She had thrust his dear ghost from her. How was it possible for any
woman to have been so cruel, so cowardly? How was it possible ... yet
it had been!
"It is we who make our dead dead," had said the mourning mother.
Rosamond, the wife, had done worse: she had buried what was not yet
dead. She had heaped earth upon the lips that still spoke, that she
might not feel the sorrow of their last utterance!
When trouble comes it is woman's way, as a rule, to yield herself up to
it, to gloat upon her grief, to feed upon tears. She has a fine scorn
for man's mode of mourning, so different from hers; for the seeker of
distraction, of forgetfulness; for his deliberate shunning of those
emotions in which she sinks herself. And yet it may be that this
divergence comes less from man's more selfish nature than from the fact
that he is a creature of passion, where she is a creature of sentiment;
that he knows within himself forces which are to her undreamed of; that
her sorrow is as the chill rain that wraps the land and clears in
lassitude at last over tender tints, while his sorrow is as the dry
convulsion that defaces the earth and rends the foundations of life's
whole edifice.
But there are women apart; women who unite with their own innate
spirituality the virile capacity of feeling; who can love fiercely and
suffer as fiercely. Of such was Rosamond. And she had been called to
suffering before her undeveloped girl-nature had had time to lay hold on
love. Love and sorrow, they had fallen upon her together, in her
ignorant youth, like monstrous angels of destruction. What wonder then
that she should have cried out against them and hidden her face! What
wonder that she should have shrunk with a sickly terror from her own
unplumbed deep capacity for pain!
But no one may deny himself to himself. And the passionate soul makes
for passion, be it a Paul or an Augustine! The nemesis of her nature
had come upon Rosamond; and she was to be fulfilled to herself, after so
many years, at this moment of her woman's maturity, with a handful of
relics and the dust and the smell of the distant Indian fort upon them.
Out of the far far past her love and her sorrow were claiming her--at
last.
* * * * *
The logs from the Dorset beech-woods flamed in the queer corner
chimney-piece of Harry's attic room. The light flickered on the
scattered papers in Rosamond's lap and threw illusive ruddy gleams on
the pale hands, on the pale cheek that turned to the glow, yet felt it
not.
When she had sat down to read, it was some time still before noon. The
December sun crept out between two rain-storms, threw a yellow circle on
the boards, marked the shadow of the ivy spray, then paled and passed.
The merry logs grew red, grew grey; they fell together with sighs into
white ash; and the last creeping flicker of life in the grate sparkled
and went out. Below, the placid life of the Old Ancient House jogged
its round. Baby's business-like morning music was ground out and caught
into the silence. The tinkling bell, that from time immemorial had
sounded the homely meal-time gatherings, rang its thin summons up the
wooden stairs from the hall. Some one came to the attic door and
rattled it against the drawn bolt; knocked and called. And later the
stillness of the attic room was troubled again, and Aspasia cried out
between petulance and anxiety. So insistent was she that within the
room some one answered back at last in a strange hoarse voice of anger.
And the steps pattered away, and silence reigned once more.
The rain dried on the window pane, shadows stole forth from the room
corners. The air grew cold and colder; a grey dimness settled upon
everywhere; the chilling bars of the grate clicked. But still the woman
sat by the empty hearth ... reading, reading, reading.
*CHAPTER XIII*
As Rosamond read, that page of her womanhood which she had hitherto so
deliberately kept blank was printed as with a tale of fire. Between
those short winter hours, between the leaping of the wood flames and the
fall of the cold chill twilight, all that she had cheated her heart
of--the tears, the passion, the grief--came upon her like a storm. And
fate worked its will.
* * * * *
It's no use mincing matters (wrote Harry English); we are
besieged, and the worst of it is, our work's not done. For
Cartwright and his good fellows have either fallen into the wily
old chief's hands, or are as hotly pressed as we are ourselves.
We have been able to get no tidings from him so far. It's
rather a joke, isn't it--though a grim one? We started so
cocksure of setting him free, and here we are in a trap
ourselves. Well, I'm going to try and get this letter through
to you, as the Major--we call him the Colonel now--is trying to
run another despatch. It will probably be the last for some
time, so don't be alarmed, love, if you are long without news.
The old fort is sturdy and well placed, and we shan't have even
the glory of danger. God keep you.
The letter--in its incredibly soiled and creased cover--was docketed
with soldierly neatness: "Brought back by messenger unable to pass."
The rest of the papers in the case were all loose sheets. The earlier
of these were carefully dated. But presently this methodic precision was
dropped. Most of them seemed to be merely disconnected jottings, at
times scarcely more than a phrase or two--as it were the fixing of a
passing thought--others, again, a sort of outpouring that covered whole
pages: thus, nearly to the end. But the last two sheets were once more
inscribed with something of the formality of a document.
I shall write you a sort of journal, and, please God (had begun
Harry English), we shall read it together some day. Our poor
dusky Mercury came back to us quicker than he left, with a
bullet in him. I am troubled at the thought of your suspense,
but, from the last letter I got through, you will gather that
this state of affairs was not unexpected: the old chief has been
too much for us for the moment. But they are warned at
headquarters and we may expect relief in our turn any day. We
must not be impatient, though, as they'll have a stiff job
getting across the snows. Meanwhile we are all for glory here,
and are determined to out-guile or out-fight the Khan before
anything so common and everyday as a relief takes place. We're
a first-class set of fellows, doctor and all complete; the
Major's a brick. Our own boys are rocks (as usual), and
Leicester has forty Goorkhas that I'd back--well, against
anything! Of course there are these Afridis we can't trust; but
they know who's master here. And we've got the old flag,
Rosamond--floating grandly like a living thing. We keep up the
good old ceremony when running it up at dawn. And you should
see the grins flash out on those black faces, when Vane gives
his last vicious little twist to the cord in the cleat to make
fast for the day! By the way, this business is doing Vane a lot
of good. He was a soft pink pulp of a boy, but the little
fellow's got pluck, and it's coming out now.
Talking of the flag--last night I was up on the roof, counting
the enemy's fires; everything was very still, and I heard the
loose line beating fretfully against the staff in the wind: it
brought me back--back! Do you remember Fort Monckton, at Stokes
Bay, Rosamond, and the smell of the gorse that day of days to
me? The night after, when I could not sleep, I walked the
bastion at Monckton and heard the cords of the flagstaff flap.
I was to meet you again in the morning--Oh, Rosamond!
* * * * *
Great news! Cartwright has fought his way to us with his little
band. As fine a bit of mountain fighting as has ever been done.
We made a sortie to his aid, and only lost four men and a
sergeant. Bethune has a piece out of his shoulder, but no bones
broken, and Whiteley thinks he'll be up again in a day or two.
It's like having my right hand in a sling to have the old chap
laid up.
We've got him tight in bed now; and all the fun he is allowed is
to watch the bullets that come in through the window and break
on the opposite wall. He's in the safe angle, but it's rather a
job for us dodging in and out to get at him.
* * * * *
The poor Major's gone. We feel orphaned. His stout old body
seemed to keep the soul of us all together. It was a bullet
through the eye. He never even knew it. I was beside him,
Rosamond--the laugh was still on his lips. He fell slowly, like
a tower. Dear old fat jolly fellow! I won't grudge him his
quick passage. Vane has done nothing but blubber. We buried
him in the inner courtyard: they sniped from the crags like
blazes, but we did it, and no casualties. Tomorrow ends the
first week of the siege proper. We have ten men sick, four
wounded, and have lost our major, and all the responsibility
devolves upon me now.
* * * * *
Rosamond, you never loved me. I have blinded myself to it. But
here, alone in this fort, with death in every breath I draw,
many things have become clear to me. This is the truth: you
never loved me, but you are still a child. I could have had
such patience, oh, my God!--but now I may have no time left for
patience.
* * * * *
Rosamond, my rose, I took you before your hour--but I was as one
who rides past and sees his flower bloom, and knows that he must
pluck it in all haste, to wear on his heart, or leave it for
another. I never kissed you but that you turned your cheek.
Oh, I could have taken your lips had I wanted to, and I knew it.
Now it breaks upon me like a wave, that if God only gave me ten
minutes more with you, I could teach you how to love. But no,
what is not given is not good to take: I would not rob you of
your own gracious gift. Oh, my darling, you wept when I left
you, the tears rained down your cheeks into my lips. I kissed
your sweet eyes and drank the salt of them, and in that hour of
grief you left me your lips at last--but they were open lips,
like a child's; what could they give me--who wanted your woman's
soul?
* * * * *
The words seemed to spring out of the page; to strike her as she read.
She had not loved him. She herself had not known it, but it was true
and he had known it. All the blood in her body seemed to rush back to
her heart; she felt her cheeks grow cold and stiff in a sudden horror of
the discovery. Then, with the reaction, the full tide seemed to turn
upon itself and rush tingling through her frame. With a burning face
she bent over the lines and read them avidly again--and again. How he
had loved her! Ah, she felt what love meant, now! She understood! She
was no longer the rigid, self-centered schoolgirl, looking forth on the
narrow boundaries of her own ethics and deeming them the limits of life.
She was a woman, a woman with a heart for him, for the man who had
selected her; a woman with a passion leaping to his own. And he ... he
was dead! No, no; he was not dead, he must not be dead! If she only
knew how to reach him.... "It is we who make our dead dead." He must
be somewhere. By that very craving of her whole being for him he must
exist to answer it. And wheresoever he was, the cry of her soul must
surely reach him and call him back to her.
Outside, in the winter sunshine, a robin began to pipe. The exultant
beating of her heart slowed down; the eddy that had seized her fell away
from her. Her spirit, that had seemed about to be caught up into some
realm of ecstasy where pain was inextricably blent with joy, sank back
into the material bondage. She heaved a great sigh and languidly took up
the next sheet.
After his love cry, Harry English, too, had relapsed into the everyday
cares; this entry was dated March 23.
My first act as C.O. here has been to reduce the rations one
third. The dear old Major could not bring himself to do it.
"We'll have as good a time, boys, as can be expected in the
circumstances, and then, by George, if they don't come to get us
loose we'll make a rush for it. A man can die but once; but we
won't die by inches, if I know it." It was a jolly soldier's
doctrine in its way, and had a dash of fatalism in it that
suited our lads here down to the ground. But now that I have
the management of the business, I cannot see my duty in that
light. This fort is but a little peg in England's
machinery--but lose a peg and who can tell what may happen to
the machine! So your husband holds the fort, Rosamond, and will
hold it to the last minute of the last hour, to the last pinch
of pea-flour and the last bag of gunpowder to blow the last of
us up! And to-day we begin to draw in our belts.
* * * * *
Vane's got a touch of fever. He's never really looked up since
the Major went. Poor little chap, he'll see plenty more. It
has rained three nights, and the men are drenched. Our sick
list is increasing. Old Bethune's getting quite fit again,
however, and that's a comfort to me. Queer chap, he lies on his
back and reads an odd volume of Browning and hasn't a word to
throw to a dog; and, with all his poetry, if I know him, not an
aspiration or a thought except his men and his work.
* * * * *
_April_ 1*st*.--The beginning of a new military year is not
likely to add much to our store of anything, except appetite.
Old Yufzul, the Khan, has been parleying with us, day after day,
for the last week. He rigs up his blessed white rag, and up
goes ours, and then comes the messenger--generally an aged
woman, with one of the old devil's interminable letters. These
never vary. He's ready to make the most favourable terms with
us. First condition: surrender of the fort.... I send him back
the same document with a polite note affixed--we keep all the
decorum of civilised warfare! My conditions are simple: first,
he is to lay down his arms unconditionally; then he is to send
us in so many scores of sheep, so many measures of corn, and
then I will see what I can do about making his peace with the
Government of India. I end up with a delicate warning as to the
flight of time. Down comes his rag, down comes ours, and the
bullets begin to patter again!
The doctor has a bad opinion of Vane. He says he has no
stamina. I never saw any one waste so quickly. Poor little
chap, and I who used to think him too pink and too plump!
Leicester, the fellow, you know, we found in the fort here with
his forty Goorkhas, goes and nurses him like a woman, in the
intervals of business. I went to see him to-day--Vane, I mean.
He seemed very low, but quite conscious. I thought I worried
him, so did not stop long. Leicester tells me he's deadly
ashamed of himself for being ill, and thinks I must despise him.
Good Lord!
Bethune's up.
* * * * *
_April_ 3*rd*.--My sleep has gone. That's a weak thing for a
soldier to have to confess. But I'm tough. I've got into the
way of writing like this in the quiet hours. Not that night is
always our quiet time, far from it. A black night is our worst
enemy. We never know when the creatures will try and rush the
fort. Last night we had a lively two hours of it, but I think
they've had a lesson, and Rajab, my havildar, has suggested a
plan for lighting the walls with pitch on little platforms hung
out of the loopholes. If it works, we shan't be taken by
surprise again.
* * * * *
We buried poor little Vane this morning. Whiteley came to me at
eight o'clock last night and said he did not think he'd last out
another twelve hours. I went to see him about eleven o'clock,
but was no sooner in the room when they called the alarm from
the tower--and we had a hot time of it. Our men were splendid,
and I am thankful to say our casualties are comparatively few.
Leicester made a sally with his Goorkhas, splendidly in the
nick, and that settled the day, or rather the night, for us.
There's been a good deal of wailing across the water this
morning, at which you should see those little devils smile. In
fact, the whole garrison would be in high spirits if it were not
for Vane. Last night every one, even the orderly in charge, ran
away from him in the scrimmage. I thought of this, I knew it
would be so, but, of course, we can't waste time on the dying at
such a time. The moment the pressure was over I clambered up to
his room. The dawn was just breaking; there he was, lying on the
boards under the window. Poor little beggar! flat on his back,
in his pyjamas, his carbine by his side. He'd been potting at
them out of his window, he was not gone, though. He opened his
eyes and grinned at me.
"I'm done for, sir," he said. "But it's not the fever. I'm
hit, thank God!"
I lifted him up. Poor little chappy, he had a scratch along his
ribs, but it would not have killed a mouse! "You'll tell them,"
he said, "it was the wound, not the fever."
"I'll have you down: 'Killed in action,'" said I, loud into his
ear. And he heard, though he was slipping away very fast. He
grinned at me again, and then died without a sigh, his head on
my breast, like a child.
This is the fifth week of siege.
* * * * *
I am haunted by your presence. We all dream a great deal when
we sleep, these times. That's part of the game when one is
half-starved. The fellows amuse themselves by telling their
dreams at breakfast. It's almost like: "What's the news?" when
one meets at the club.
Bethune makes every one laugh: he's so deadly matter-of-fact, "I
dreamed I was sitting down to a Porterhouse steak!" You should
hear the boys yell! Leicester, now, yarns away at a magnificent
rate. Of course it's half invention; he's a real Irishman; but
he keeps us alive. It's as good as a mutton chop to us to see
him come dancing into mess--such a mess!--twanging his banjo and
singing some absurd lilt of his own making.
"You see, boys," he says, with a piece of horse on his fork; "to
a fellow brought up on 'potatoes and point,' this is positively
gorgeous!"
But I don't tell my dreams, Rosamond. They are yours and mine.
* * * * *
Once you looked at me with fear in your eyes. It was on board
ship. I think if I had ever seen that shadow in your beautiful
eyes again, I should have had it in me to throw myself into the
sea. Oh! what could you fear in me, Rosamond?
* * * * *
It has been snowing again on the heights. I pity those who try
to conquer the snow. You take it to your arms and try to warm
it, and it goes from you in tears. Rosamond, you have been like
the snow to me. How could I have ever aspired to you?--white
child!
I think I am wandering--you are the rose-flower to me. My white
rose--no! my red red rose--Rose of the World!
* * * * *
If they are coming over the snows to relieve us, it will go hard
with them. Were it only not to disappoint the brave fellows,
I'll hold on; but we are pulling the belt pretty tight. The
worst of it is, I feel so terribly alive; I'll take as much
killing as a wild cat. I have so much to live for: I have to
come back to you! I can make such a fight for it yet.
Rosamond, if I have to die, I'll die hard. Now Bethune will be
like an old dog fox; he'll sit on his tail and show his teeth
and let them have their will at the end without a sound--but
I'll fight!
* * * * *
I dream, I dream. Rosamond, you came to me last night. First I
saw the grey gnarled boughs of the old orchard trees at home
grow, as it were, out of the darkness, naked as in the winter
time. They broke into lovely leaf and blossom even as I looked
... and then, loveliest flower of all, flowered your face among
the rosy wreaths! You had a lace thing over your head, tied
under the chin, and you were smiling and your cheeks were young
and soft, your face was young and beautiful, but as I came close
to you I saw that your hair--your golden hair--was white. I
looked into your eyes, deep, deep, and they were wells of love.
There was no fear of me in them, Rosamond, only love. And then
we drew nearer and nearer to each other. And your lips met
mine. Your lips--Rose of the World!
It was a dream of inexpressible sweetness to me and
inexpressible comfort. When I woke up I had a perfume as of red
roses in my mouth. I have riddled it all out for myself. I
take it to mean that we shall, in spite of everything, meet
again, and that I shall love you till you are old, and your hair
is white, and that to me, because of our love, you will always
be lovely in youth.
* * * * *
The want of you comes over me like fire, and I feel the marrow
fail me in my bones.
* * * * *
Perhaps it is because you are the only woman I ever knew, that I
love you so madly. Was it the influence of my dear old mother's
high and simple theory of life, or was it by reason of my own
energetic ambition of work and utility in this world, or is it
merely some innate fastidiousness? ... However it may be, I have
never played with love. I never kissed a woman in love before I
kissed you. Ah no, love, it was not for any of those
reasons--it was because I was keeping myself for you! And now
this single passion of my life is devouring me. I dreamed you
lay on my heart last night.
* * * * *
Rosamond raised her eyes, to look unseeingly at the plaster walls before
her. The ignorant thing that had been Rosamond English, that once had
had such treasure given her, and knew it not; she had but placed her
hand in his as a lost child places her hand in that of the first kind
stranger who will lead her out of the desolate wood. Hers had been a
privilege so rare that, to the eyes of the world, it seems to be a thing
impossible--a man's virgin love. Too often had Lady Gerardine seen a
meaning smile, under a white moustache, on lips that recalled
complacently "the little indiscretions of my youth"; too much had she
seen herself, unwillingly, of the lives of the young men about her in
the Residency not to realise this now. But then--Harry had been
right--she had feared him, feared this strong and chaste passion, feared
these virgin ardours; feared the man who had brought her his whole
heart, whose eyes had never even looked on sin.
* * * * *
There was a great silence about her. The fire was dead; the day was
closing in; the robin had flown away. Extinct hearth, bleak falling
twilight, empty room, silence itself seemed to cry to her with one great
voice: "Too late ... too late!"
And the gloom and the desolation of the deserted old house, on the waste
English downs, were fit accompaniments to the slow agony in that fort,
clinging on the bare flank of Himalayan crags, far away, under the
eternal snows; agony over now and world-forgotten, but re-enacted for
her alone, who had refused herself at the right hour to her share in it.
*CHAPTER XIV*
Despondency was beginning to creep over even Harry English's dauntless
spirit: in the next sheet Rosamond took up--she had to peer closer now
in the gathering dusk--for the first time he expressed doubt of their
reunion.
You will go back to England (he wrote). You will go to the old
Mother. My poor girl, I feel as if I had broken your life. But
you are young and she is very strong. She will take you to that
deep heart of hers, where I have been so well all my life; and
you will both always remember that it is for England. And if
you forget me, oh Rosamond, my Rosamond, you are young, you will
forget!--no, I will write no more in this strain.... I won't
bind you; but there are things that a man in his living flesh
cannot regard without rebellion, whatever his sense of justice
may tell him. The dead will be quiet. Sometimes I think I am a
little mad.
* * * * *
You will like to know how this old place looks that you have,
all unconsciously, filled with your presence these days, these
nights....
The valley is set in a sort of scoop between the mountains, and
all round there are the peaks, snow-covered. The river runs
brawling from east to west, where the plateau is narrowed
between the two huge buttresses of rock which almost close the
valley; the water falls there a pretty good height, and on quiet
nights one can hear the churn of the rapids. The fort is built
on the right bank, and on that side we are safe from attack, as
the ledges are very precipitous. It is thus too we get our
water, our salvation. But this is becoming increasingly
difficult, in spite of our trenches, as the fellows over there
are getting to know the range pretty closely.
The valley is beginning to grow beautifully green, but the rocks
above and all about are grey and drab and arid all the year
round, and the snows never pass. It is over the snows our help
must come. In our courtyard we have an almond tree, in blossom.
I think of you, of your face under the bridal veil.
* * * * *
The flag, Rosamond, the old flag! What creatures we are with
our symbols! So long as the spirit is enclosed in the flesh, so
long must we grope in our efforts of expression. You can't
conceive what this rag means to us, riddled with bullets,
bleached, draggled! ... We are all in high spirits to-day. I
doubt if even a score of fat sheep could have so cheered the
garrison as our half-hour tussle on the roof, and the triumphant
fact that the flag was not lowered, even for an instant. They
gave us a hot time between seven and eight this morning; two or
three of our best were bowled over, and I saw that our fellows
had lost heart a bit--there's just a bad moment, Rosamond,
between the glory of the fight and the last desperation; and
that's a dangerous moment! Well, as if the fates were against
us, the flagstaff was struck, repeatedly, and all at once, in
the thick of it, we heard it crack and saw it bend. There was
not a man but turned his head. Rosamond, that flag's their
fetish! It's astonishing how quickly one can take in a thing at
an instant like that. I seemed to see all at once the change
that swept over the dark faces. You know how the whole aspect
of a field of corn can be changed in a moment by a puff of wind.
I made one spring for the breaking pole and caught it just in
time. And then I held it high, as high as I could, crying out to
them in such a flood of Hindustani as never fell from my lips
before. God knows what I said, or didn't say! But they can do
with a lot of talk, these boys of ours. I must have looked like
a madman, I know I felt like one. One gets sort of light-headed
in the fight, now and again. I felt as if I were growing taller,
as if the old flag were lifting me up higher and higher. The
bullets played about us like spray, and not one hit me. As for
the boys--well, my madness got into them somehow--they fell to
like devils; they shot like angels; it was as if magic wine had
been poured into them. I don't suppose even the oldest soldier
among us had seen anything like it before. We made a record
score, I can tell you!
Now it's over, I look back and think that we were all possessed.
But it's had a useful effect on the Khan and his tribes, for
they had the worst of that hour, and the flag was not lowered,
not an inch. I never let it out of my hands till a new pole had
been spliced on--a stout one, you may be sure. And this is a
happy garrison to-day. You should hear the Goorkhas jabbering
and laughing over their half-ration of rice. We have served out
extra rum. They've drunk the great white Empress's health, and
are quite sure now that anything belonging to her must be safe.
As for me, the poor superstitious creatures have begun to regard
me as a small god; they think I bear a charmed life. Rosamond,
if that flag had fallen, there is no knowing if we could have
held the men. And if we'd lost the fort, I should never have
seen you again, for we four Englishmen could not let it go
before our lives. The fellows are all kicking up an idiotic
fuss about my share in the business--it makes a man feel such a
fool to be made a hero of for nothing. Rosamond, did I even do
my duty? Then, even then, upholding my country's flag, the fury
of my thoughts was all with you: If the flag falls I shall never
see her again--that was what I was saying to myself. God knows
I am no hero.
* * * * *
No hero!
Rosamond's heart was beating high, her eye had kindled, her cheek was
glowing. Was he not a hero? Her Harry. She could see him towering in
his strength--the "archangel" of Bethune's description; the born leader,
stimulating his starving men to unheard-of valour!
* * * * *
But the end was drawing near. She must read on. The darkness had
gathered so close that she had to light a candle and put it beside her
on the floor. This she did mechanically, hardly aware of her own
action--so bent upon her single thought. The handwriting had become
irregular; it sprawled upon the page.
The hunger is nothing, it's the thirst! People who slowly
starve can bear hunger, but thirst is an active devil. They've
found an enfilading spot commanding our trench to the water. We
lost three men in succession two days ago. Dug all day
yesterday to strike a well, no success. To-day it's gone hard
with us. Last night, I think I'd a touch of fever; you were so
mixed up in my mind with my thirst that it seemed to me it was
the want of you made me suffer so much. I found myself, found
my dry tongue, calling for you, clamouring out loud in the
silence. Ah, there are miles and miles of mountains between us!
This is worse than death.
* * * * *
They've heliographed from the hills; the relief is in sight.
They've had an awful time in the snows, and half the fellows are
blind. They will have to recoup a bit before they can strike.
But they have guns and that ought to settle it. Meanwhile we
can't wait--we're going to run up a fresh trench to the water,
if we lose twenty men by it.
* * * * *
The job is done. Leicester managed it splendidly with less loss
than we expected. But he's got a nasty wound in the hip. We've
got water again--Rosamond, Rosamond, when will you hold the cup
for me to drink?
The first gun went to-day. They haven't got to the right spot
yet, but such as it was the shooting flustered the ant-hill down
there, finely. For two days Yufzul has left us in peace, and
meanwhile the guns on the hill get closer and pound away. But
the enemy shows no sign of packing yet. The Khan is a tough old
boy; we'll have a tussle for it yet. They've flashed to say
they are ready up there. We shall co-operate.
This last sheet but one was dated April 15, 8 A.M.
The next entry was marked 3 P.M. of the same day.
In measure as the relief approaches, I know not why, my hopes go
down. Rosamond--oh, if I should never see you again! What will
you do with your life? You will have my mother, though that may
not be for long, and there is enough to keep you both from want,
thank God, under the roof of the Old Ancient House. Go to her
there; at least for the first. And then and then--I won't bind
you.
If we had had a child you would be more mine!
I wish we had another night, even in this trap of death. I
might perhaps dream of you once more. The dead won't dream.
Perhaps that is best. What if we should never meet again!
Rosamond's breath came short, shudders ran through her. She laid down
in its turn this record of the fever of a man's mind and took up the
last sheet. The last sheet! This was, indeed, the end! It was dated,
carefully written without any of the wildness or disjointedness of the
previous entries. The strong man on the verge of action would do all
things as became a soldier, even to his final letter to his beloved.
Rosamond, my wife, I have decided to lead the counter-attack
myself to-night. Leicester is incapacitated. Bethune's head is
stronger than mine, now, and should the suspense be longer
delayed and the relief fail, he will make a better job of it
than I should here. Yufzul shows no sign of budging, and we
begin to suspect he is reckoning on fresh reinforcements. Do
not think that I should throw away that life which belongs to
you without just reason. When you get this letter (perhaps
after all I shall come back to-night to tear it up) you will
know that I went out with the full acceptance of the inevitable.
God keep you, Rosamond! My mother taught me to believe. I
could not have remembered her all these years of manhood and
forgotten my God. And to-night I am strong. What is to be, will
be right. I kneel before you and I kiss your sweet hands, and I
bless you.--Your HARRY.
The woman read and dropped the letter on her lap. Was that all? The
end, the end! It was impossible. He could not have left her like that.
There must be more from him. One word, one last word. And she did not
even know how he died. There was no God, or life could not be so cruel!
She was tearing, with maddened fingers, in the depths of the box....
Why will women hoard the orange blossom of their bridal hopes that it
may torture them with its hideous relentless sweetness, when fate has
fulfilled its mockery upon them!
Harry's pocket-book--the familiar old pocket-book! It fell apart in her
hands. A portrait.... Her own face looked out on her with serious
girl's eyes. She flung it from her: she had nothing in common with that
creature. Then she caught it up again and kissed the worn leather with
wild passion. Dear fingers had touched it. He had worn it, who knows,
over his dear heart.... Plans, service notes--"range to the shoulder of
the North Bluff works out at 1300." Lists of stores, calculations of
stores and rations, gone over and over again. Oh, misery, there is
sorrow beyond what human strength can bear! To think of him in these
sordid straits of hunger, to stay on that thought is more than she can
do and live. And she cannot die yet: she must know first.
Ah! a letter, still in its envelope inviolate, addressed to Mrs. Harry
English. Not his the hand. Oh, then, it is that he is dead now indeed!
Broken woman with her belated grief, what wonder that her brain should
work confusedly!
It was Mrs. English in very truth--fresh widowed, her boding heart
telling her, but too surely, what last bitter detail she would find in
this stranger's letter--who broke the seal at last after so many years.
DEAR MRS. ENGLISH,--We have wired to your friends to break the
bad news to you. You will want to hear all about it. I suppose
you know by this time, broadly speaking, what happened to us.
We were hard pressed. The relief force--worn out by the march
across the snows--was not strong enough to take the hill, which
was the key of the position, unassisted. It was agreed that we
should co-operate. English insisted on taking charge of the
party. We all knew it was a forlorn-hope business, and the men
had a superstitious feeling about him; with any one else they
would not have gone with the same spirit. It was an hour before
dawn, and the fight went on till sunrise. We--such of us as
were left in the fort, hardly an able-bodied man except myself
and Whiteley, the surgeon--did not know which way it was going
with us till dawn, when we found the enemy in retreat. Then our
men and the relief party came straggling in; none of us were up
to pursuit, and we began to count our loss. English had saved
us with his life. He had succeeded in capturing and holding the
post on the hill, completely occupying the enemy's attention,
until the guns of the relief force came down upon their flank.
It was carried through by a stroke of genius, but it was
absolute sacrifice. Only a third of his splendid fellows have
come back to us--and English is gone.
His jemadar saw him fall (he swears it must have been instant
death) amid the Ghasi swordsmen, and then in the rush they were
swept apart. Mrs. English, you have the right to know the
complete truth. We have been unable to recover any of our dead
or wounded. The enemy carried them away; and, as we watched
them in their retreat, we saw them strip the dead and roll them
over the crags into the rapids. We shall not have Harry
English's grave--but would he have desired a better one than the
great cold mountain waters, in the desolate valley, utmost
boundary of that Empire whose honour he died for? He will live
in the hearts of his countrymen. To you I dare not offer any
other words of consolation. What he was to us, these days of
trial, I have no power to express. Without him we should have
come badly through this business. What he was to me--forgive
me, I can write no more. All his papers I have placed together.
They will be brought to you with this letter. His last letter
to his mother was mailed to England.--Yours truly,