The Great Amulet
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Maud Diver >> The Great Amulet
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She did not turn in speaking; but the softness of her voice soothed his
chafed spirit like a benediction, and robbed him for the moment of all
power to reply.
"I was really trying to stamp it all on my memory," she went on after a
pause. "It is a sight one doesn't see twice in a lifetime. Just for a
few seconds it was terrible. But I would not have missed it for the
world."
"Nor I. Now that I am here, I feel grateful to the Desmonds for
persuading me to come."
"Did they have to drag you here by main force?"
"Not quite! I thought I had better stay and grind at my book; that was
all. But they wouldn't hear of it."
"Do you always obey their orders implicitly?" There was veiled scorn
in her tone, and a new warmth in his as he replied:
"I would do any mortal thing they asked me to, within reason. In all
my life no two people have been so good to me."
"You evidently admire _her_ very much." The stress on the pronoun was
too delicate to catch his notice.
"I do, immensely. How could any man in his senses do otherwise? Or,
for that matter, any woman either? I hoped--I thought--you would have
been good friends with her."
He spoke his honest enthusiasm in the simple desire that she should
share it. But her nerves were still strung to concert pitch, and he
had struck the wrong note.
"You thought her many virtues might have an improving effect on me, I
suppose?"
The acorn was no longer veiled: and he winced under it.
"No: only is occurred to me that the two . . . . best women I have ever
known might reasonably have a good deal in common."
"It is kind of you to couple me with her. I am flattered, I assure
you!--But, personally, I prefer something lees exalted, something more
human, more fallible. . . ."
"Perhaps that explains your predilection for Garth?" he broke in
abruptly, pricked to resentment by her persistent note of mockery.
"I am not aware that my friendship with Major Garth requires any sort
of explanation."
She was rigid now--face, voice, figure: his golden opportunity gone
past recall. Men pay as dearly for sins of ignorance as for the baser
kinds of trespass: and the man who does not understand women is almost
worse, in their esteem, that the man who treats them ill.
"Is it wise--for your own sake . . . to be so careless of your good
name?" he persisted desperately; goaded by the knowledge that he would
not soon get speech of her again.
"Possibly not. But I don't feel called upon to retire into a convent,
or to advertise the fact that I am not . . . 'on the market.' Nor do I
choose to have my conduct called in question by any man living."
She faced him now;--defiant, a bright spot on either cheek.
And before he knew how to answer her, Colonel Mayhew was upon them,
overflowing with cheerful raillery, and radiantly unaware that he had
stepped into a powder magazine.
Long before the returning procession reached the Residency, Quita had
repented of her little-minded display of irritation, consoling herself
with the resolve that she would atone for it next time; whereas Lenox
had decided that for once Honor Desmond's intuition was at fault: that
it needed no 'bogey of heredity' to widen the impassable gulf dividing
him from his wife.
CHAPTER XI.
"O all that in me wanders, and is wild,
Gathers into one wave, and breaks on thee."
--Phillips.
In the deep heart of Kalatope Forest, where the trees fall apart as if by
unanimous consent, the natural glade of Kajiar lies like a giant emerald
under a turquoise sky. Peace broods over this sanctuary of Nature's
making, dove-like, with folded wings. No lightest echo of the world's
turmoil and strife disturbs the stillness. Only at dawn and dusk, the
thin note of the temple bell, the chanting of priests, and the unearthly
minor wail of conches, announce the downsitting and uprising of the
little stone image of godhead, housed in a picturesque temple that
nestles among low trees, beside the Holy Lake, at the southern end of the
glade.
For Hindus are the most devout Nature-worshippers on the face of the
earth. To them, beauty of place translates itself as God's direct cry to
the soul; and in the isolated glade of Kajiar, with its sweep of shelving
turf, its encircling pines and deodars, and its towering snow-peaks
standing sentinel in the north,--deity reigns supreme; deity and the
great grey ape of the Himalayas.
Only for one week in the year does Kajiar spring full-fledged into a
place of human significance. From Dalhousie, on the one hand, and from
Chumba on the other, a light-hearted crowd of revellers profanes the
quiet of earth and sky. On the outskirts of the forest tents spring up,
like mushrooms, in a night; the devotional voices of the temple are
drowned in the clamour of bugles, the throb of racing hoofs, the
challenging gaiety of the band, and the heart-stirring wail of the Royal
Chumba Pipers; wiry hill-men, in kilts and tartans;--the pride of the
young Rajah's heart.
The 'Kajiar week' is the central event of Dalhousie's season:--an
Arcadian revel of perfumed shadow, and sun-warmed earth; a carnival of
camp-life; ushering in the gloom of the Great Rains;--the triple tyranny
of mist, mildew, and mackintoshes. And early on the morning after the
_Mela_,--while the breath of night still lingered in gorges and ravines,
and in shadowed patches of the ascending path, a mixed procession of men
and horses, shuffling mules, and trotting coolies wound, snake-like, out
of the Chumba valley towards Kalatope Forest and the emerald glade.
All the Rajah's party was mounted, save Mrs Mayhew and the medical
missionary's wife, who preferred the leisurely ease of their dandies: and
in the van of the procession, a hundred yards and more in advance of it,
Quita rode with James Garth.
Her husband's bearing throughout the previous evening had convinced her
that their passage of arms in the _shamianah_ had killed the budding
possibility of a better understanding between them: and the fact that she
was to blame, did not make the knowledge easier to bear. For she knew
now--knew consciously--that she craved the love and admiration of this
big silent husband of hers, as she had never yet craved anything in earth
or heaven: that his mere presence disturbed every fibre of her in a
fashion she had hitherto believed impossible; that his aloofness drew and
held her, as no other man's ardour had ever done. These two days of
closer contact, of hearing his voice, of watching, without seeming to
watch, the familiar movements of his face and figure, had waked to
conscious life germs that had long lain at her heart, quickening in
darkness.
But pride was a stubborn element in her. Where she gave greatly, she
demanded greatly. The fact that he had taken her to task bred a
suspicion that she had been sought out for that purpose, not because he
could no longer keep away: and his evident determination to give her no
chance of retrieving the damage done in a moment of irritation, brought
her near to defiance,--the danger-point of her nature. Hence renewed
encouragement of Garth, with intent to italicise her Declaration of
Independence; and with a half-acknowledged hope that Lenox might be
goaded by jealousy to renewed remonstrance.
And Garth,--who was used to the bestowal, rather than the receipt of
favours,--accepted this woman's encouragement as gratefully as an
enamoured subaltern. Desmond's recent tactics had but served to convince
him that the walls of Jericho must be carried by assault. Whatever the
outcome, the thrill of conquest must at least be his.
The six-foot roadway up to Kajiar gave him ample excuse for riding
needlessly close to his companion; and he inclined himself closer in
talking, thus giving a provocative flavour to ordinary speech.
"I think, in common fairness, it is my turn for an innings again,--don't
you?"
She laughed, and lifted her shoulders, evading direct reply.
"Does that mean that you care nothing, one way or other?" There was
smothered passion in his tone.
"And if it does? What then?"
"Gad! How coolly you stab a poor devil, whose worst sin is that he is
in----" But before the word was out, she checked him sharply.
"Major Garth!--How _dare_ you?"
Her white-hot anger seared both his vanity and his heart. But he had
courage of a sort: and he stood his ground.
"A man in my case will dare anything. Besides, you have insight enough
to have known it these many weeks; and why should the plain statement
anger you, when evidently the plain fact does not?--Tell me that."
The question smote her to silence. For she could not tell him: neither
could she answer hotly and break with him for good. Throughout the
coming week, at least, their intimacy must remain intact; and beyond it
her mind refused to look. She saw herself caught in a tangle of her own
making: a hot wave of vexation at her helplessness, at her cruelly false
position, fired her face from chin to brow.
But Garth, noting the phenomenon, interpreted it otherwise.
"You find my riddle unanswerable?" he questioned almost tenderly: and was
met by a lightning-flash of denial.
"No. By no means! The answer is simple enough. Unhappily you cannot
wipe out--the fact. But you can avoid expressing it: and you
must,--unless you are prepared to lose everything."
"By Jove, no!--I keep what I have gained,--at any price. And at least
your proffer of friendship gives me better right to monopolise you than
that chap Desmond can lay claim to. But he appears to be privileged."
"He is privileged."
"How so?"
"Simply by being the right sort of man."
Garth scrutinised her keenly.
"And a V.C. into the bargain--eh? I don't mind betting that's half the
attraction. Just a showy bit of pluck, dashed off at a hot-headed
moment--and you women turn a man into a god on the strength of it! The
fellow got his chance, and took it--that's all."
It is of the nature of small minds to disparage great ones; and in
general Quita would have dismissed the matter with a light retort. But
in her present mood, the man's petty personalities jarred more than
usual. "I think we won't discuss Captain Desmond," she said without
looking round. "To pick holes in a man of that quality only seems to
accentuate one's own littleness."
"Yours--or mine?"
"Both."
"By Jove--but you're frank!"
"Have you ever known me otherwise?"
"Can't say I have.--But I'm hanged if I know what's come to you these
last two days! Except that you are always far too alluring for my peace
of mind, you hardly seem like the same woman."
The truth of his assertion wrenched her back to a lighter mood.
"What an alarming accusation! Is any healthily intelligent and
progressive human being ever the same for many weeks together?
Change--readjustment--is the keynote of life; the very breath of it.
When you can accuse me of _not_ changing I shall know that I have fallen
into the sere and withered leaf past redemption. And now that I have
expiated myself--(probably to your more complete confusion!)--we'll have
a short canter to blow away cobwebs. The road is rather less breakneck
just here."
A flick of the whip sent Yorick forward at a bound; and Garth--stifling
unheroic qualms--could not choose but follow her daring lead.
Throughout the remaining eight miles neither her tongue nor her spirit
flagged; and for the man at least the journey's end came too soon.
It was a transformed Kajiar that basked in the full glory of noon, as
they emerged from the forest, and drew rein on the high ground behind the
little wooden rest-house, to enjoy a few moments' survey of the brilliant
scene.
At the far end, around the Rajah's private chalet, the native camp was
fast springing into life. While, down in the northern hollow, where
white tents clustered thickest, lay the big general camp; the core of all
things social and frivolous.
Hurdles, water jumps, and a long tent pavilion had changed the centre of
the glade into a racecourse, where subalterns, undaunted by a blazing
sun, were practising ponies for forthcoming gymkhanas. Goal-posts were
already fixed for the great yearly football match between Chumba and
Dalhousie; in which contest victory was by no means always to the West,
since Jeff Bathurst, a famous performer, trained and captained the Chumba
team: and in another part of the green, three wooden sign-posts of
unequal height gave promise of tilting matches to come.
Couples and groups, in the lightest of muslins and flannels, sauntered
idly in the scented shadow of the pines; or lounged, smoking and talking,
on the warm green earth.
The appeal of the whole was to a spirit of enjoyment pure and simple, to
the casting aside of care and thought; a passing respite from the shadow
of the future: and Quita's native zest for happiness urged her to instant
response.
"Unborn To-morrow, and dead Yesterday,
Why fret about them, if To-day be sweet,"
she quoted softly. "That is clearly the motto of the week; and it looks
as if every one intended to live up to it,--conscientiously."
Garth saw his advantage and pressed it home.
"You and I among the number, eh? At least we understand one another,
which is more than most of those philandering couples do. Why shouldn't
we make the most of our seven golden days and leave next week to look
after itself?"
"Why not, indeed?"
She spoke absently; her eyes resting on the snow-peak in the north. The
answer lay too deep down for utterance. But Garth took her enigmatical
echo for acquiescence, and laid his plans accordingly.
Nor were these two the only pair who arrived at Garth's philosophical
conclusion. Life was fulfilled, for the nonce, with laughter and
leisure; with the unchanging, passion-breathing blue and gold of a
Himalayan June; and on all sides the charmed circle of pines and deodars
shut them off from the forgotten world and 'them that dwell therein.'
Atmosphere, circumstance, and her own half-awakened heart conspired with
Michael Maurice to draw Elsie down, by slow and delicious degrees, from
the small pedestal whereon she had taken refuge since the night of the
Palace dinner; till all unaware, she acceded to his fantastic notion of
shutting the door upon Wisdom. Nor was it long before those whose profit
and pleasure it is to make capital out of their neighbours' doings had
assured themselves and each other that the 'week' would be responsible
for two engagements at least.
Such talk did not readily reach Lenox's ears. But Kenneth Malcolm, whose
aspirations were no secret to the busily idle world around him, was
speedily enlightened: and there could be neither peace nor rest for him
till he had confirmation or denial from Elsie's lips.
Six months earlier he had pleaded his cause with such halting eloquence
as he could command; and the girl's refusal had been qualified by a
confession that at least she preferred him to any other man of her
acquaintance. On the strength of this admission the boy had simply stood
aside and waited: hoping, as only the young can hope, because the fervour
of their desire renders the possibility of non-fulfilment unthinkable.
Then Maurice had entered the field, carrying all before him, with the
inimitable assurance that was his; and by now Kenneth had reached the
agony-point in a painful, if educative experience. Standing aside was no
longer endurable. By some means he must secure Elsie, if only for ten
minutes, and discover the truth.
"And a man need only look into her eyes for that," he decided, with a
throb of troubled anticipation.
His opportunity came on the third day of the 'week.' The great football
match between East and West was progressing vigorously to the tune of
shouts and cheers. Maurice, who had small taste for sport, had gone
sketching with his sister at her urgent request; and as Elsie settled
herself, with a book, on a slope of hot pine-needles, she was surprised
and startled to see Kenneth Malcolm approaching her.
"May I sit here for a little?" he asked. "I have hardly had two words
with you since you came back from Chumba. I suppose you enjoyed it all
tremendously?"
"Oh yes. It was delightful. Do sit down."
The restraint of his manner was infectious, as restraint is apt to be;
and she was hampered by a prescience of things to come.
"I was awfully keen to go too," he said, as he obeyed her. "But perhaps
it's just as well that I didn't get the chance, judging from . . . from
what I hear."
"You shouldn't judge from what you hear," she murmured.
"Shouldn't I? But unluckily it fits in with . . . what I see. Miss
Mayhew . . ." he pressed forward, his eyes searching her face, devout
worship in the sincere blue depths of them. "Will you be angry with me,
if I ask you a straight question?"
She shook her head.
"And will you give me a straight answer?"
"If I can."
"Is it true that you are likely to . . . marry Maurice?"
"Not that I know of." He took a great breath, like a condemned man who
hears his reprieve.
"Then, may I still believe . . . what you told me at Lahore?"
Her answer seemed an eternity in coming; for a plain 'yes' or 'no' were
equally far from the truth. This boy of four-and-twenty gave her the
restful sense of reliance and reserve force that she so missed in
Maurice. But there was no art, no thrill in his love-making. It was
direct and simple as himself. He never struck a chord of emotion and
left it quivering, as Maurice had done many times.
"May I?"--he persisted gently.
"I still think you are . . . the best man I know," she admitted, without
looking at him; and he flushed to the roots of his hair.
"But not the one you--care for most? It's that that matters, you know."
"Oh, I can't tell--truly I can't," she pleaded distressfully.
"Then I must just go on waiting."
"I wish you wouldn't even do that."
"I can only prevent it by putting a bullet through my head."
The quiet finality of his tone was more convincing than volumes of
protestations; and she shuddered.
"Don't say such things, please.--You hurt me."
"I wouldn't do that for a kingdom. But it's the truth.--I go down on the
fifteenth, you know."
"Yes.--I'm sorry."
"Are you? Then why--oh, I don't understand you!" he broke off in despair.
"I'm not sure that I understand myself--yet. It takes time, I suppose."
"Not when the right chap turns up, I fancy. But I'll give you as much
time as you want. I have a year's leave due. Shall I take it, and go
home?"
She looked rueful.
"A year is a long time. But perhaps that would be best. You might
find--some one else there, who understood herself better."
"That's out of the question," he answered almost harshly.
"But at all events,--I'll go."
A prolonged silence followed this statement: and when he spoke again, it
was of other things. Elsie followed suit: but the result was not
brilliant. She endured the strain as long as she could; then inventing
an excuse, she left him; though, to her surprise, it hurt her more than
she could have believed a week ago.
That afternoon, during the progress of a hybrid gymkhana,--ranging from
steeplechasing to obstacle races for men and natives,--the first whisper
of current gossip reached Lenox's ears.
Standing behind a restless row of hats and parasols, he was watching with
some interest the preliminary canter of a horse he had backed heavily,
when Garth and Quita, deep in animated talk, passed across the line of
chairs, and a woman close to Lenox turned to her neighbour.
"That match is a certainty, Mrs Mayhew. Say what you like. I'm sure of
it. I only wonder it hasn't been given out before now."
Mrs Mayhew shifted her parasol and inspected the retreating pair through
her gold-rimmed pince-nez, as though, by examining their shoulder-blades,
she could determine the exact state of their hearts.
"I don't quite know _what_ to think," she remarked with judicial
emphasis. "I don't believe anything is a certainty where Major Garth is
concerned. But if they are not engaged they _ought_ to be! I don't like
that girl, though. She is much too independent for my taste; and
engagement or no, she probably lets Major Garth make love to her. He
would never have stuck to her for six months otherwise."
On the last words Lenox started as it a cold finger-tip had touched his
heart. Such a thought had never occurred to him: and he could have
murdered, without compunction, the small self-satisfied woman who had
lodged the poisoned shaft in his mind.
Turning on his heel, he made straight for his tent, where a littered
camp-table gave proof that the art of taking a holiday could not be
reckoned among his accomplishments. Then he sat down by it and bowed his
head upon his hands. To doubt his wife's integrity was rank insult. Yet
he knew Garth's evil reputation; knew also that the suggestion would
cling to his memory like a limpet, and torture him in the endless hours
of wakefulness from which there was now no way of escape.
Enforced abstinence from tobacco and stimulants had told severely upon
his nerves, appetite, and health; and a foretaste of the sleepless night
ahead of him tempted him to regret his hasty destruction of the bottle of
chlorodyne, which had not been replaced.
Till dusk he worked without intermission; and, as if by a fiendish nicety
of calculation, the evening mail-bag,--brought out by runner from
Dalhousie,--contained the coveted parcel of tobacco, whose arrival he had
alternately craved and dreaded throughout the past ten days.
Zyarulla set it before him with manifest satisfaction.
"Now will my Sahib taste comfort and peace again," he muttered into the
depths of his beard, and having cut the strings of the parcel, discreetly
withdrew.
For a while Lenox merely grasped his recovered treasure, feasting his
soul upon the knowledge that here, within the space of one small cube,
lay the promise of sleep, peace of mind, oblivion. Then, with unsteady
hands, he opened the tin: took from his pocket a briar of great age and
greater virtue; filled it; lighted it; and drew in the first mouthful of
aromatic fragrance, with such rapture of refreshment as a man, parched
with fever, drains a glass held to his lips.
A great peace enfolded him: and no thought of resistance arose to break
the enchantment. For the 'mighty and subtle' drug kills with kindness.
Coming to a tormented man in the guise of an angel of peace, it lures
him, lulls him, and wraps him about with false contentment before
plunging him into the pit.
While the holiday folk trooped into the long mess-tent, laughing or
lamenting over the afternoon's vicissitudes, Lenox sat at his table in
shirt and trousers, his pen devouring the loose sheets before him. He
bade Zyarulla bring him meat, bread, and a cup of coffee, and deny
admittance even to 'Desmond Sahib' himself. And throughout the night he
worked, and smoked, and finally slept as he had not slept since the
Bachelors' Ball.
Before dawn he was up, and out: a gun on his shoulder, field-glasses
slung across his back. He had given orders for a party of beaters to be
requisitioned, in his name, from the Rajah's camp; and Zyarulla could be
trusted to see to it that he should not starve. All day he tramped and
climbed, shot and sketched, to his huge satisfaction; and returning at
dusk, repeated his programme of the night before.
His departure without a word of explanation had roused Desmond's anxiety.
He suspected a fresh supply of tobacco; and this sudden invisibility
confirmed his worst fears. He spoke of them to his wife after breakfast:
and for all her radiant hopefulness of heart, she had small consolation
to offer him.
The 'week's' events had disappointed her grievously; for the deadlock
between man and wife seemed complete.
"Truly, Theo, I don't know what to make of them both," she concluded
desperately. "They are the most perverse couple that were ever invented.
Benedick and Beatrice were turtle-doves by comparison! After this week I
shall give them up in despair."
"Poor darling! They ought to mend their ways, if only out of
consideration for you! Come on now and comfort your soul with tilting.
I want you to carry all before you in the tournament."
"Do you indeed!" she answered, laughing. "But I shan't hit a single ring
to-day. This distracting muddle is getting on my nerves!"
And if Honor Desmond found the strain of sympathetic anxiety ill to
endure, what of Quita, whose life's happiness hung upon the issue?
For her the Kajiar Camp, despite its light-comedy atmosphere, had proved
a nightmare of surface hilarity, broken rest, and growing distaste for
the man whose name she had permitted to be coupled with her own:--all to
no purpose, it seemed, save to inflate his self-satisfaction, and fortify
his intention, now too clearly manifest, of hindering to the utmost her
reunion with her husband.
Moreover, her self-imposed attitude became increasingly hard to maintain.
A flash of defiance is one thing; but sustained defiance, when the heart
has unblushingly gone over to the enemy, puts a severe strain upon the
nerves.
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