Captain Desmond, V.C. Part 58

"Where's Miss Kresney?" she asked, stopping dead upon the threshold.

"Why, what a fool I am!" the man exclaimed with a creditable air of frankness. "I clean forgot she had gone out to tea. But you're not going to desert me on that account! You wouldn't be so unkind!"

Evelyn felt herself trapped. It would seem foolish and pointed to go; yet she had sense enough to know that it would be very unwise to stay.

She compromised matters by saying sweetly that she would come in just for ten minutes, to have a cup of tea before going back in the sun.

Kresney looked his gratification--looked it so eloquently that she lowered her eyes, and went forwards hurriedly, as if fearing that something more definite might follow the look.

But the man, though inwardly exultant, was well on his guard. If he startled her this first time, he could not hope to repeat the experiment. He chose the most comfortable chair for her; insisted on an elaborate arrangement of cus.h.i.+ons at her back; poured out her tea; and plied her a.s.siduously with stale sponge-cake and mixed biscuits.

Then drawing up his own chair very close, he settled himself to the congenial task of amusing and flattering her, with such success that her ten minutes had stretched to an hour before she even thought of rising to go.

Captain Olliver, meanwhile, had ridden on to the blue bungalow, which chanced to be his destination; and had spent half an hour in desultory talk with Desmond, Wyndham, and the Colonel, who had fallen into a habit of dropping in almost daily.

As he rose to take his leave, a glance at Wyndham brought the latter out into the hall with him.

"What is it?" he asked. "Want to speak to me about something?"

"Yes. Can we have a few words alone anywhere? It concerns Desmond, and I can't speak to him myself."

Paul frowned.

"Nothing serious, I hope. Come in here a minute." And he led the way into his own Spartan-looking room.

"Now let me hear it," he said quietly.

But Olliver balanced himself on the edge of the table, tapped his pipe against it, and loosened the contents scientifically with his penknife before complying with the request.

"The truth is," he began at length, "that it's about Mrs Desmond and that confounded cad Kresney."

"Ah!" The note of pain in Wyndham's voice made the other look at him questioningly.

"You've noticed it, then?"

"Well,--it was rather marked while Desmond was away. Nothing to trouble about, though, if it had been any other man than Kresney."

Olliver brought his fist down on the table.

"That's precisely what my wife says. You know what a lot she thinks of Desmond; and I believe she's capable of tackling the little woman herself, which I couldn't stand at any price. That's why I promised to speak to you to-day. Hope it doesn't seem infernal cheek on my part."

"Not at all. Go on."

Each instinctively avoided the other's eyes; while Olliver, in a few curt sentences, spoke his mind on the subject in hand.

The bond that links the inhabitants of small isolated Indian stations is a thing that only the Anglo-Indian can quite understand. Desmond's illness, and the possible tragedy overhanging him, had roused such strong feeling in Kohat, that his wife's conduct--which at another time would merely have supplied material for a little mild gossip--had awakened the general sense of indignation, more especially among the men. But men are not free of speech on these matters, and it was certain pungent remarks made by little Mrs Riley of the Sikhs which had set Frank Olliver's Irish temper in a blaze. The recollection of what she had seen during Desmond's absence still rankled in her mind; and her husband, with a masculine dread of an open quarrel between the only two ladies in the Regiment, had accepted the lesser evil of speaking to Wyndham himself.

"Mind, I give Mrs Desmond credit for being more pa.s.sive than active in the whole affair," he concluded, since Paul seemed disinclined to volunteer a remark. "But the deuce of it is, that I feel sure Desmond knows less about the thing than any one else. Can you see him putting up with it under any circ.u.mstances?"

Wyndham shook his head; and for a while they smoked in silence thinking their own thoughts.

"You want me," Paul asked at length, "to pa.s.s all this on to Desmond?

Is that it?"

"Yes; that's it. Unless you think he knows it already."

"No,--frankly, I don't. But is it our business to enlighten him?"

"That's a ticklish question. But I'm inclined to think it is. We can't be expected to stand a bounder like Kresney hanging round one of our ladies. Why, I met him as I came here, taking her into his bungalow; and I had only just pa.s.sed the sister on that old patriarch she rides.

I call that going a bit too far; and I fancy Desmond would agree with me."

Wyndham looked up decisively.

"I wouldn't repeat _that_ to him, if my life depended on it."

"No, no. Of course not. You can make things clear without saying too much. Beastly unpleasant job, and I'm sorry to be forcing it on you.

But you must know that you're the only chap in the Regiment who could dream of speaking two words to Desmond on such a delicate subject."

Paul acknowledged the statement with a wry smile under his moustache.

"I doubt if he will stand it, even from me; and I'd a deal sooner wring Kresney's neck. But I'll do the best I can, and take my chance of the consequences to myself."

Thus rea.s.sured, Olliver departed, and Wyndham, watching him go, wondered what he intended to say.

There are few things more distasteful to a well-bred man than the necessity of speaking to a friend, however intimate, on the subject of his wife's conduct or character; because there are few things a man respects more intimately than his fellow-man's reserve. Wyndham knew, moreover, that the real sting of his communication would lie less in the facts themselves than in Mrs Desmond's probable concealment of them; and his natural kindliness prompted him to a pa.s.sing pity for Evelyn, who, in all likelihood, had not yet penetrated beyond the outer sh.e.l.l of her husband's strongly marked character.

The only means of tempering the wind to the shorn lamb lay in speaking first to Honor; and on that idea Wyndham unconditionally turned his back. Mrs Desmond had brought this thing upon herself. She must face the consequences as best she might.

But on entering the study, the words he had come to say were checked upon his lips.

Desmond stood beside the writing-table, where the green shade lay discarded; and a noticeable scar on his right cheek was all that now remained of the wound which had threatened such serious results. His whole attention was centred upon Rob, who pranced at his feet with ungainly caperings, flinging dignity to the winds, and testifying, with heart and voice and eloquent tail, to the joy that was in him.

Paul's sensitive soul revolted from the necessity of imparting ill news at such a moment; and it was Desmond who spoke first.

"Mackay's been here this minute making a final examination of my eyes.

Gave me leave, thank G.o.d, to discard _that_ abomination; and Rob hasn't left off congratulating me since I flung it on the table. The little beggar seems to understand what's happened just as well as I do." He turned on Wyndham with a short satisfied laugh. "By Jove, Paul, it's thundering good to look _you_ squarely in the face again!

But why,--what's the trouble, old man? Have you heard bad news?"

"Not very bad, but certainly--unpleasant."

"And you came to tell me?"

"Yes, I came to tell you."

Desmond motioned him to a chair; and, as he seated himself with unhurried deliberation, laid a sympathetic hand on his shoulder.

"What is it?" he asked. "The Regiment or yourself?"

"Neither."