The Great Amulet Part 49

"Well then, dear stupid, allow me to find it in yours also!"

"One to you," he admitted, smiling. "But now . . . I am in your hands till tiffin. What are you going to do with me? Read? Sing? The drawing-room's empty; and I haven't heard you since Kajiar."

"Do you want the Swinburne again?"

"No; by no means."

"Why not? Don't you like the song?"

"I like it far too well; and I'm not strong enough yet to stand a brutal a.s.sault upon my feelings! Come along, and give me something wholesome and simple. A convalescent needs milk diet mentally as well as physically, you know!"

This was on one of his best days. But there were others,--following upon nights of sleeplessness, and pain, and heart-searching unspeakable, only to be alleviated by the one unfailing remedy,--when the strain of repression demanded by her constant presence so wrought upon his nerves that he would get up and leave her abruptly without excuse; or shut himself into his room on the empty pretext of revising ma.n.u.script. As a matter of fact, he spent most of the time girding at the deliberate waste of good hours; till the consciousness of slipping deeper into the mire and the dread of ultimate defeat became almost an obsession, aggravated by ill-health and want of rest.

Quita, who remembered well his inexhaustible capacity for keeping still, was distressed and puzzled by these moods of restlessness verging on irritability, whose true significance she could not guess at; though she was woman enough to know that a position merely unsatisfactory for her, must be an actual strain on him. And as his strength returned, she could only hope from day to day for some allusion to the possibility of moving into their own bungalow; since it was clear that they could not remain with the Desmonds for ever! Pride and delicacy alike withheld her from the lightest mention of the subject. It seemed to her that she had transgressed sufficiently in both respects already. Yet, as the days acc.u.mulated to a week, and still he said no word, she grew definitely anxious to know what was going to happen next.

But, with all its drawbacks and difficulties, this week of intimate everyday companions.h.i.+p had been one of the best weeks in her life. It had served, above all things, to establish her conviction that the husband she had chosen, by a lightning instinct of the brain rather than the heart, was in all respects a man among men. He appealed to the artist in her by a natural dignity and distinction of person and character, by a suggestion of volcanic forces warring with the ascetic strain in him yet steadfastly controlled; and above all, by a superb simplicity and unconsciousness of self, that draws introspective temperaments as infallibly as the moon draws the sea.

And apart from her joy in him, she was keenly alive to her surroundings; to the practical work going on about her; to the stimulating contact with a new type, a new atmosphere. At first she saw little of outsiders, or indeed of any one besides her husband.

John Meredith came over every day; Wyndham, though still living in the house, had gone back to duty; while Desmond--after one day of complete collapse, when Frank revenged herself on him by monopolising Honor--had taken up his work again with heightened zest, and devoted every spare hour to his wife. But the four met at meals, and in the evening, when Quita kept all three men alert and amused by her intelligent questionings, her frank interest in every detail of her new profession, as it pleased her to call it.

Before the week was out her pocket note-book contained a small portrait-gallery of studies in pencil and water-colour. She sketched Desmond's old Sikh Ressaldar, with his finely carved features, deep eyes, and vast lop-sided blue and gold turban; and Desmond himself in the white uniform and long boots, which so greatly pleased her, occupied several pages.

Mounted on Shaitan's successor, she rode down with him twice to early parade; and sat entranced through the whole proceeding; watching the long lines of men and horses sweeping across the open plain, wheeling, retiring, advancing, changing formation with exquisite and instantaneous precision, in response to Meredith's brisk words of command; while ma.s.sed lance-heads and steel shoulder-chains flashed and winked in the level light.

It was her first experience of meeting soldiers in the ma.s.s, on their own ground, and the man who has faced death and dealt it out to others appeals irresistibly to the fundamental barbaric in women. To this fascination, Quita added the artist's reverence for the men who 'do things,' as opposed to the men who record or express them.

She enlarged on the subject at breakfast one morning, in her usual direct fas.h.i.+on; but Desmond would have none of it.

"Remember, Quita," said he, "that an artist, in the inclusive sense, when he is worth anything, stands for the strongest thing in the world . . . an idea."

Her face brightened with interest.

"That's true. But unhappily great art doesn't necessarily imply great character, and great action does. That's why the world's heroes have nearly always been men of action; and always will be."

"Ah, now you've given yourself away neatly!" Desmond cried, like a great schoolboy. "Where would your heroes be a hundred years after their death, but for the men who immortalise them on canvas, and in print? Would the effect of their n.o.ble living be one-half as far-reaching, if it remained unrecorded? It's no case for comparison, any more than the eternal man and woman question. They are diverse; and the world has equal need of both. So there's consolation for us all!"

"Well played, Desmond!" Lenox remarked, smiling and nodding across the table at his wife.

"I surrender at discretion," she admitted sweetly. "But still, being an artist, I take off my hat to men of action, and always shall."

"Good luck for the men of action!" Desmond retorted, with an amused glance at Lenox, as they rose from the table.

By now cholera and fever were dying out slowly, like spent fires. The Infantry had come in from camp; and the Battery was expected back shortly, only two fresh cases having occurred. Then, as Honor began to mend, people dropped in again at tea-time, eager for news of her; and Quita discovered how widely and deeply she was beloved. Little Mrs Peters disappeared behind a very crumpled handkerchief while trying to express her feelings; and the Chicken blew his nose vigorously when Quita announced that Honor would soon be allowed into the drawing-room for tea.

She was getting used to her new name now. Officers of all ranks came to call on her as a 'bride'; an embarra.s.sing attention which she would gladly have dispensed with in the circ.u.mstances, since Eldred basely deserted her on each occasion; and she was introduced to Norton, who inspected her critically and flagrantly, as a possible stumbling-block to a promising career. Altogether, she was beginning to see India in a new perspective. Hitherto, in her aimless wanderings with Michael, she had merely looked on at its vast and varied panorama of life; had studied it with the detached interest of the outsider. Now she felt herself absorbed into the brotherhood of those who worked and suffered for the great country of her husband's service; who were as flies on the wheels of its complex mechanism; and who heartily loved or hated it, as the case might be.

At last, after a week of devoted nursing, Honor was allowed to make her first appearance in the drawing-room; and Desmond invited a 'select few' to tea for the occasion. Wyndham stood alone on the hearth-rug when she entered, her husband supporting her with his arm. She was visibly thinner; and her face was almost as colourless as the sweeping folds of her tea-gown. Otherwise her beauty had rea.s.serted itself triumphantly; and Wyndham caught his breath as he came towards her.

She gave him both her hands; and he held them closely for a long moment. Then, obeying a rare and imperative impulse, he bent down and touched them with his lips. A faint colour tinged Honor's cheeks.

"Dear Paul," she said under her breath: and Desmond, leading her to the sofa, established her in a nest of cus.h.i.+ons, with a light covering for her feet, just as Quita and Lenox came in, closely followed by Max Richardson in uniform.

He had come in from camp not an hour ago; and had ridden over without changing, in his zeal to shake hands with Lenox and his wife. The former had endured his congratulations and delight at the news with the best grace he could muster; and had avoided a word with him alone. Now he drew up a chair and sat down by Honor: while Quita, p.r.i.c.ked to a pa.s.sing jealousy by his instant gravitation to her, moved off with Max Richardson, talking and laughing as if she had known him for years. It was not her habit to waste time in preliminaries.

"They'll get on splendidly, those two," Honor said, smiling as she watched them.

"I'll be glad if they do," Lenox answered without enthusiasm; and her eyes scanned his face.

"You aren't getting on splendidly, though. You look worn to a shadow.

I'm afraid it's been difficult."

"Hideously difficult."

"And you ought both to be so happy, now of all times . . ."

"Yes. That's the exquisitely refined torment of it."

"You haven't been sleeping?"

"No . . . nothing to speak of. But don't give yourself a headache on my account, dear lady. Desmond would never forgive me! I'm a tough customer. I shall pull through somehow."

"If you could only bring yourself to talk it over with Theo," she urged in a lower tone, as he came towards them with Mrs Peters, who flung shyness to the winds, and fairly took Honor's breath away by kissing her on both cheeks.

Desmond's 'select few' amounted to less than a dozen. Honor's sofa was the centre of attraction; and her sympathetic spirit thrilled in response to the friendliness that glowed, like a jewel, at the heart of everyday talk and laughter. For the past fortnight of pain and stress seemed to have drawn them all indefinably closer to one another: which is the true mission of pain and stress in this very human world.

Later in the evening there were light sports on the Cavalry parade-ground, which Meredith, Desmond, and Olliver were bound to attend; Wyndham and half a dozen others remaining behind.

Courtenay, on his way to the door, remarked to Lenox that a short outing would do him no harm; and Quita, who chanced to be standing at his elbow, pressed lightly against him.

"Drive me down, dear," she said softly. "I should love it." And since he had avoided her for the greater part of the morning, he could not well refuse.

"I like your 'd.i.c.k,' Eldred," she informed him, as they bowled along the wide straight road. "He is _bon garcon_, through and through. Not brilliant, perhaps: but quick, appreciative, and he can talk."

"Yes: d.i.c.k's a real good sort. Glad you approve of him. And as for talking . . . _you_ could draw conversation out of a stone wall!"

"I don't always succeed with the one I am leaning against just now!"

"Well, I'll swear it's not your fault if you fail," he answered, smiling down upon her with such unfathomable sadness in his eyes, that she cried out involuntarily, between vexation and despair--

"Oh, _mon Dieu_, is it always going to be like this between us? Is there nothing I can do to make you happy again?"

"Nothing just at present, worse luck," he said grimly, looking straight ahead: for in the face of such an appeal he could hardly confess his desperate need to be left alone. "It's a question of time, as I told you, and my own strength of will. But if the situation becomes too intolerable for you, there is always the last resort of overstepping the limit, and setting you free for good."

Quita could not know how cruelly ill he had slept since her coming, nor how little a man tortured by insomnia can be held responsible for his utterances; and the significance of his last words so startled her that she clutched his arm.

"Eldred . . . Eldred, promise me you'll never even think of such a thing . . . never!"

He winced under her touch. "Quita, remember where we are," he said sharply; and she dropped her hand.