Captain Desmond, V.C. Part 7

But Desmond had been in no mood just then to reckon with after-results. All the inborn chivalry of the man was up in arms, less against the spoken words than against the petty spite underlying them--the cowardly hit at a woman powerless to defend herself. In an unguarded moment he gave full vent to the scorn and disgust that consumed him, and lashed the man without mercy.

Then--realising the utter inability to alter the other's peculiar point of view--natural magnanimity checked his impetuous outburst:

"I don't know whether you are aware," he said, "that after to-night I should be justified in asking the Mess President to remove your name from the list of Honorary Members. But that is rather a strong measure, and I decided instead to speak a few straight words to you myself. If they've been a trifle too straight, I am sorry. But remarks of the kind you made this evening are inadmissible at a mess-table; or, for that matter, at any other table where--gentlemen are present.

Now, if you give me your word to keep the rules of the Mess strictly in future, I will give you mine that this incident shall never be mentioned to any one by me, or by any one of the fellows here to-night."

Kresney had given the required promise none too graciously. But his effort at perfunctory thanks stuck in his throat; nor did Desmond appear to expect them. With a brief rea.s.surance in respect of his own silence he turned back into the Mess; and there, so far as externals went, the incident had ended.

Yet, on this still March evening, as Kresney strolled back and forth on his narrow verandah, enjoying an after-dinner cigar, every detail of that detested interview darted across his memory for the hundredth time, like a lightning-streak across a cloud. Wounded, in the most susceptible part of his nature, Kresney saw no reason to deny himself the satisfaction of hitting back. Whatever may have been his principles in regard to debts in general, he was scrupulously punctilious in settling debts of malice,--indirectly, if possible; and in this instance personal antipathy added zest to the mere duty of repayment.

Very early in the cold weather Kresney had become aware that an effective weapon lay ready to his hand, and had taken it up without scruple or reluctance. Evelyn Desmond's natural lack of discernment, her blindness to the subtle impertinence of flattery, and her zeal for tennis--a game seldom patronised by cavalrymen,--had worked all together for good; and Kresney had gone forward accordingly, nothing loth.

He had looked to the riding picnic to mark a definite step in advance, and Mrs Desmond's intention of inviting them was beyond doubt.

Remained the inference that Desmond had used either authority or persuasion to prevent it.

The idea stirred up all the dregs of the man's soul. A sudden bitterness overwhelmed him--a sense of the futility of attempting to strike at a man so obviously favoured by the G.o.ds; a man who held his head so resolutely above the minor trivialities of life.

But the will to strike would soon or late evolve a way. There were other means of achieving intimacy with a woman as inexperienced as little Mrs Desmond, and he would get Linda to help him. Linda was a good girl, if a trifle stupid. At least she had the merit of believing in him and obeying his wishes with unquestioning fidelity--a very creditable merit in the eyes of the average man.

These reflections brought him to a standstill by one of the doors that opened into the drawing-room. It was a long narrow room of an aggressively Anglo-Indian type--overcrowded with aimless tables, painted stools and chairs in crumpled bazaar muslins, or glossy with Aspinall's enamel. The dingy walls were peppered with j.a.panese fans, China plates, liliputian brackets, and photographs in plush frames.

Had Miss Kresney taken her stand on each door-sill in turn and flung her possessions, without aim or design, at the whitewashed s.p.a.ces around her, she could not have produced a more admired disorder. This she recognised with a thrill of pride; for she aspired to be artistic, and some misguided friend had a.s.sured her that the one thing needful was to avoid symmetry or regularity in any form.

Her own appearance harmonised admirably with her surroundings. She wore the shapeless tea-gown beloved of her kind--made in the verandah, and finished with dingy lace at the neck and wrists, and even at this hour a suggestion of straw slippers showed beneath the limp silk of her gown. Yet, as Evelyn Desmond saw her on the tennis-courts, she was a neatly clad, angular girl of eight-and-twenty, with a suppressed, furtive air that was an unconscious reflection upon her brother's character. In her heart she cherished a lurking admiration for Desmond, and aspired to become the wife of a cavalry officer--Harry Denvil being the temporary hero of her dreams.

When her brother entered the room she was fitfully engaged in perpetrating a crewel-work atrocity for one of her many chairs.

He did not speak his thought at once, but stood looking down at her critically through the smoke-wreaths of his cigar. The major share of good looks certainly rested with himself; but for eyes set too near together, and the relentless lines that envy and ill-humour pencil about a man's mouth, the face was attractive enough, in its limited fas.h.i.+on. He had the same air of being "off duty" which pervaded his sister, and his j.a.panese smoking-suit showed signs of being a very old friend indeed.

"Look here, Linda," he began at last, "when are we playing tennis again with little Mrs Desmond?"

"I think it was Tuesday," she said.

"Well, then, ask her to tea here first, d'you see?"

Linda's brown eyes--it pleased her to call them hazel--widened with surprise.

"Oh, my! D'you think she would reallee come? It was nastee of her to leave us out of her picnic like that, after she told me all about it, too."

Miss Kresney's insistence on the consonants and the final vowels was more marked than her brother's; for although three-fourths of the blood in her veins was English, very few of her intimate a.s.sociates could make so proud a boast without perjuring their souls: and there are few things more infectious than tricks of speech.

"Yes, of course," he acquiesced readily. "But I'm jolly well certain that was not her doing. She'll come, right enough, if you ask her nicely. At all events it is worth trying, if only on the chance of annoying her insufferable husband."

"If you wish it, certainlee. I would like to be better friends with Mrs Desmond. Only, I do not quite see why you dislike _him_ so much more than the others."

Kresney hesitated before replying. It was not often that Linda aspired to question either his motives or decisions; and he had begun to suspect that her loyalty wavered, by a hair's-breadth, where Desmond was concerned. After all, why not tell her an expurgated edition of the truth. The idea commended itself to him for many reasons, and even as she was beginning to wonder at his silence he sat down beside her and spoke; the sting of humiliation stimulating his inventive faculty as he went on.

Desmond himself would scarce have recognised the incident, but Miss Kresney was clearly impressed.

"You see, Linda," her brother concluded, "a fellow can't be expected to stand that sort of thing without hitting back, and I am trying to hit back a bit now. It is only fair. These Frontier Force chaps need a lot of setting down, I can tell you. They fancy they hold all India in their hands. And what is it they do after all, except play polo like maniacs, and play all manner of foolish pranks at Mess? They make a G.o.d out of this Desmond, here; and the fellow is as proud as the devil. He will be jolly well mad if his wife gets really friendly with me. As he will not ask us there, we will ask her here--you see? And you must be as nice as you can. Say pretty things to her--that pleases her more than anything: and make yourself useful, if you get the chance. She's not half a bad little woman; and if you help me, Linda, I shall get in with her yet in spite of her conceited prig of a husband."

The smile that accompanied the words was not a pleasant one, but the girl returned it with an uncritical fervour of affection.

"You know I am always glad to please you, Owen. I am onlee sorree you did not tell me all about it sooner."

Her ready champions.h.i.+p put him in high good-humour with himself and the world at large.

"You really _are_ no end of a good girl, Linda," he said, as he rose to his feet. "I shall ask Denvil to tea for you on Tuesday; and you shall have a new frock as soon as ever I get next month's pay. Not a thing made in the verandah; but a good style of frock from Mussoorie or Lah.o.r.e, whichever you please; and you can ask Mrs Desmond to help you choose it. Her dresses are always first cla.s.s, and she is interested in such things."

CHAPTER VI.

GENIUS OF CHARACTER.

"For still the Lord is Lord of Might, In deeds, in deeds, He takes delight."

--R. L. S.

Evelyn Desmond's picnic was an accomplished fact. At four o'clock, in the full glare of a late March sun, a business-like detachment of twenty horses, and one disdainful camel, proceeded at a brisk trot along the lifeless desolation of the Bunnoo Road. The party kept in close formation, straggling of any sort being inadmissible when the bounds of the station have been left behind. Ten of the riders were English, and an armed escort guarded them in front and rear; the camel, in gala trappings of red and blue, being responsible for provisions, enamelled iron tea-things, and the men's guns.

Notwithstanding the absence of the Kresneys, Evelyn Desmond was in a mood of unusual effervescence. Harry Denvil rode at her side, and the two kept up a perpetual flow of such aimless, happy nonsense as is apt to engender vague regret in the hearts of those who have arrived at greater wisdom.

Three miles of riding brought them to the welcome refreshment of a river running crystal clear over a bed of pebbles. Beside the river rose an isolated plateau--abrupt, inconsequent, and, like all things else in the tawny landscape, unsoftened by a blade of living green.

The face of the rock was riddled with rough, irregular holes, as though t.i.tans had been using it for a target. Around and above it a bevy of blue rock-pigeons--circling, dipping, and darting with a strong rush of wings--shone like iridescent jewels, green and blue and grey, against the unstained turquoise of the sky, whose intensity of colour made generous atonement for the lack of it on earth. At the foot of the cliff a deep pool mirrored the calm wonder of the sky.

Here the camel was brought to his knees, and the escort, dismounting, formed a wide circle of sentries round the little party, the undernote of danger suggested by their presence giving a distinct flavour to the childishly simple affair. The white man's craze for carrying his food many miles from home, in order to eat it on the ground, remains a perpetual bewilderment to the natives, who express their opinion on the matter in all frankness and simplicity by christening it the "dinner of fools."

Pigeon-shooting was the established amus.e.m.e.nt of afternoons spent under the cliff; and, the meal being over, sport was soon in full progress, Frank Olliver and Mrs Jim Conolly handling their guns as skilfully as any man present.

While Honor stood watching them, Wyndham drew near and remained by her for a few seconds without a word. Then: "Shall we go and sit over by the river, Miss Meredith, and leave them to their sport?" he asked suddenly, his eyes and voice more urgent than he knew.

"Yes; I'd far rather watch the birds than shoot them. They are too beautiful to be killed for the sake of pa.s.sing the time. But you probably don't see it that way--men seldom do."

"I must be the eternal exception, then!" he answered, as they turned away. "It's not a creditable confession for a right-minded man: but I shrink from taking life, even in the exigencies of my profession."

At that she turned upon him with a spontaneous frankness of interest, which had lured many men to their undoing.

"Will you think me very ill-mannered if I ask how you ever came to choose such a profession at all? I wondered about it the first time I saw you."

"Do I look as hopelessly unsoldier-like as all _that?_"

"No--a thousand times, no!" And the quick colour flamed in her cheeks.

"Well, then?"