The Great Amulet

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She entered talking; and shook hands talking still.

"The top o' the morning to you both! 'Tis an unholy hour for a visit.
But I'm after the loan of a feeding-cup, knowing you've two. That
murdering villain of a _messalchi_[2] broke me only one this morning;
an' I'm afraid I used 'language' when I saw the corpse, besides
threatening to cut the price of a new one out of his pay! '_Memsahib
ke kushi_,'[3] he answers, salaaming like a sainted martyr, and taking
the wind clean out o' me sails. But I'll wash yours meself; so you
needn't fear to lend it." Then, becoming aware of Honor's red eyelids,
she broke off short. "Why, Honor, me dear, it's the born fool I am to
be chattering like a parrot when you're in trouble, by the looks of
it." A glance from one to the other revealed the telegram in Paul's
hand. "Great goodness, it's never the child, is it?" she asked with a
swift change of tone.

"Yes. Honor has had disturbing news," he answered for her. "She'll
tell you about it while I send off this wire."

Honor, who had risen, sank into her chair again as he left the room.

"Read that, dear," she said simply: and while Frank Olliver read, a
strange softness stole over her face, blanched and lined by many
Frontier hot weathers. Outsiders, who wondered how any man had ever
come to fall in love with her, might have wondered less had they
chanced to see her then. On reaching the signature, she awkwardly
patted Honor's shoulder.

"'Tis just one o' the bad minutes there's no evading, me darlint. The
price you've to pay for the high privilege of carrying on the race."

"It seems a big price sometimes . . in India," Honor answered, not
quite steadily. "And it's your one bit of compensation, Frank, that
you're spared the wrench of having to live with your heart in two
places at once."

At that Frank bit her lip, and stinging tears--an unusual
phenomenon--blinded her eyes. But she was overstrung by a week of hard
nursing; and some childless women never loss the tragic sense of
incompleteness, the unacknowledged ache of empty arms.

"Spared? Ah, me dear, you ought to know me better by now," she
protested reproachfully. "I've no use at all for cheap comforts o'
that kind. What's the sharpest pangs, after all, balanced
against . . . the other thing? Lighter than vanity itself; an' you
know it. None better. But there . . . I'm clean daft to be talking so
at this stage o' the proceedings. It's the happy woman I am, sure
enough. Geoff and I are rare good friends. Always have been. But
don't you talk to me again about being spared. It's one more than I
can stand; an' that's the truth."

Honor took possession of the hand that patted her shoulder,--a square
hand; rough with much riding and exposure,--and laid it against her
cheek.

"Bless you, Frank," she said softly. "You make me feel quite ashamed
of myself. Come and get the feeding-cup; and take me home with you.
I've wired to Mrs Rivers; and the answer will come to you. I couldn't
tell Theo, till . . I must."

Frank's smile had the effect of sunshine striking through a shower.

"Saints alive, how you spoil the dear man! But indeed an' I wonder who
could help it? Not meself, I'll swear."

Desmond came in very late for tiffin. At Paul's announcement that
Honor had gone to Mrs Olliver's till tea-time, he raised his eyebrows
without question or comment: then, going over to the mantelpiece, stood
contemplating a recent photo of her and the child.

"Did you happen to notice her at breakfast?" he asked abruptly, his
eyes on the picture. "She didn't seem to me quite up to the mark. And
of course . . bringing her into this . . . one feels responsible . . ."

There was more in the tone than in the broken sentence; and Wyndham,
coming up behind him, grasped his shoulders.

"My dear Theo," he said soothingly, "I can't let you be hag-ridden by
your favourite nightmare! Honor is woman enough to be responsible for
her own actions. Besides, she is perfectly well. I had a talk with
her before she went. As to her coming down into this, you couldn't
have held her back. She has every right to stand by you, if she
chooses; and you must know, even better than I do, that in the good
future ahead of you, wherever you may be, unless it's active service,
Honor will be there too, . . as sure as my name's Wyndham."

This was quite a long speech for Paul; one that it cost him an effort
to make; and Desmond, fully realising the fact, turned upon his friend
with impulsive warmth.

"True for you, Paul, old man! She's a Meredith. That about covers
everything. What an amazing talent you have for casting out
devils!--Now, let's be common-sensible, and have some food. Kohi hai!
Tiffin lao." [4]

And as if the walls had ears, the meal made its appearance with that
silent celerity which the retired Anglo-Indian--who has sworn at native
servants for thirty years--misses so keenly, when he is relegated to
the cumbersome ministrations of the British house-parlourmaid of Baling.

"By the way," Desmond remarked, as he dissected a fowl, cooked--by the
mercy of the gods--in that elusive interval between toughness and
putrescence, the pursuit of which gives to hot-weather housekeeping an
excitement peculiarly its own, "there's bad news from the Infantry camp
this morning. Poor old Buckley. A cramp seizure at midnight. Went
out in three hours; and was buried at dawn, Mackay showed me a note
from Dr Lowndes saying he believed it was one of those odd freaks of
disease, a spurious case. Sheer funk; and nothing else. Camp was in a
flourishing condition. No deaths for nearly a week. Then, yesterday,
the Colonel's bearer must needs appropriate an unattached germ; and it
seems that this got on the poor chap's nerves. He dined chiefly off
whisky; and afterwards yarned away to Lowndes about his wife and
children. Hadn't seen 'em for eight years. Never mentioned 'em to
Lowndes in his life before: and from what one has heard, the wire that
goes home this morning will barely spoil her appetite for dinner; which
only seems to add a finishing touch to the pity of it all. Mysterious
thing . . . marriage . . ."

He broke off short on the word. The thought of his own first venture,
and the misery that might have come of it, but for an accident so
strange as to seem unreal, sealed his lips on the subject of the
eternal riddle of the universe: and Paul, being blest with
understanding, unobtrusively shifted the talk to another channel.

There could be no thought of polo for Desmond that afternoon; though
Major Olliver came and reasoned with him forcibly in the verandah. He
devoted himself, instead, to the exhaustive disinfection of the
sick-room and dressing room. It was hot work; unpleasant work. But it
was good to be through with it; to have rid the house of the last
vestige of an uninvited and unwelcome guest. With which reflection
Desmond sat down finally in the sanctuary of his study; lit a cheroot;
and opened a battered original of Omar Khayyam, whose stately quatrains
and exquisite imagery were less hackneyed then, than they have since
become among modern devotees of culture.

A great silence pervaded the house. He had left Lenox in the blessed
borderland between sleeping and waking, with Zyarulla on guard; and
looking in on Paul, had found him dozing also, after the morning's
unwonted exertion. No doubt Frank would drive Honor back for tea: and
even while he read Desmond's ear was strained to catch the sound of
wheels. This capacity for sustained ardour is a very rare quality in
love that has attained its object, and the woman who does not
succeed--unwittingly enough--in extinguishing it within the first few
years of marriage is rarer still.

The sound he waited for came at length; and he sprang out of his chair.
But in hurrying through the drawing-room, towards the hall, another
sound arrested him; the unmistakable clink of the tonga bar.

"A tonga? Why, who the deuce . . ." he ejaculated mentally. "It can't
be . . . ."

But at this point he fairly ran into the arms of a woman, in alpaca
dust-cloak and shikarri helmet; a woman who clutched his left arm with
both hands: and before he could collect his scattered senses, Quita's
voice was in his ears.

"Oh, Captain Desmond . . tell me . . is he . . . ?"

"He is out of all danger now, . . if he can be kept quiet," Desmond
answered, stifling his own amazement in view of her white face and
shaking lips.

"Thank God. Oh, thank God!" The words were a mere flutter of breath;
and with the sudden relief from long tension all her courage went to
pieces. A dry sob broke in her throat. Her lids dropped; and she fell
limply against him.

"You poor, dear, plucky woman," he murmured, putting an arm round her,
and gently removing the heavy helmet; while she lay motionless; her
head on his shoulder; no vestige of colour in lips or cheeks.

Desmond began to think she must have fainted outright: and while he
held her thus, meditating a cautious removal of his burden to the sofa,
steps in the hall were followed by the appearance of Honor in the
doorway: a radiant Honor, aglow with the good news that had brought her
straight back to him, like a homing bird. Her small gasp of surprise
melted into a smile of amused understanding, as Theo telegraphed
wireless messages to her over the golden brown head that was
trespassing, flagrantly and confidingly, on her own exclusive property.
The whole thing was so exactly like Quita: so daring; so preposterous;
so entirely forgivable! And Honor's hospitable brain at once began
scouring the bungalow for some corner where she might stow this
unexpected addition to her elastic household.

"She must have left Dalhousie directly she got my first wire," Desmond
said under his breath. "Get some brandy, while I put her down."

But his first movement roused Quita from semi-unconsciousness. She
lifted her head with a startled sound; and at sight of Honor the blood
rushed back into her face.

"This is pretty behaviour!" she said with a little broken laugh. "I'm
so sorry. It must have been the reaction, the relief, after that
excruciating journey."

"No need to apologise!" Desmond answered, a twinkle of amusement in his
eyes. "No use either to try and push my arm away. Let me get you to
the sofa first."

Honor piled two cushions behind her; and as she sank back into their
silken softness, leaned over and kissed her cheek.

"You very wonderful person," she said. "How on earth did you pull
through it, all alone?"

Quita shrugged her shoulders.

"It was not amusing," she answered with her whimsical smile. "But it
was an experience: and that is always something,--when it is over! I
think I never realised before how big and how terrible a country India
is; or how kind people are out here," she added, looking from one to
the other with misty eyes.

"Kind? Nonsense!" It was Honor who spoke. "Now . . will you have a
peg, or some tea?"

"Tea, please. And after that, I may see . . Eldred, mayn't I?"

Instinctively she appealed to Desmond, who knitted his brows in
distress. "I'm afraid that's out of the question, . . yet awhile," he
said.

"Well then . . when?"

"Can't say for certain. Probably not for two or three days. I
wouldn't so much as risk telling him that you are here till then."

The mist on her lashes overflowed; and she dashed an impatient hand
across them with small result.

"But I have waited three days already. And since this morning I have
been counting the hours . . the minutes . ."

It was no use. She could not go on without further loss of dignity;
and Honor hastened into the breach.

"Drink your tea first, dear. You can talk afterwards."

And as she obeyed, Desmond came round and sat beside her.

"See here, Miss Maurice," he began. But she raised an imploring hand.

"Oh, don't call me that . . now. It hurts. It makes me feel I have no
manner of right to be here. And I have a little right, haven't I?"

"More than a little, I should say, . . Mrs Lenox. Is that better?"

She flushed to the eyes, and glanced down at her bare left hand. It
was the first time she had heard her married name; and the sound of it
was music in her ears. But she shook her head.

"No. It's almost worse, till I know for certain what's going to come
of my mad leap in the dark."

"Well then . . . ?"

"Why not . . 'Quita'?" She looked up beseechingly. "I should love
that: and it would make me feel less of an intruder."

"You are forbidden, on pain of instantaneous eviction, to feel anything
of the sort! And I heartily vote for 'Quita,'" Desmond answered,
smiling into her troubled face with so irresistible a friendliness that
she must needs smile back at him, however mistily.

"Oh, but it's good to talk nonsense with you again!" she cried. "Only,
I want to know, . . please, about Eldred. He is too weak. Is that it?"

"Far too weak. You see, we only pulled him round the corner at three
o'clock this morning; and the great thing now is to avoid any risk of
reactionary fever. Well, you know yourself . . I may speak frankly?"
She inclined her head. "Your coming, besides being emotionally
disturbing, will make something of a complication under the
circumstances . ."

"Oh, I know . . I know! It seems like forcing his hand. Every minute
I see more plainly that I ought never to come at all."

"Waiting would have been wiser," Desmond reproved her gently. "But I
admire the pluck of the whole thing far too much to scold you for it."

Her smile had a touch of wistfulness.

"That's so like you! But I don't know about pluck. Perhaps, if I had
realised all the details, I might have hesitated; though I doubt it. I
half lost my senses for the time being; and I believe poor Michel
thought I'd lost them permanently! He was furious with me for going."

"Rather rough on him, when you come to think of it! But why on earth
didn't you wire to us before starting?"

"At first it simply didn't occur to me; and when it did, I had just
sense enough to know that you would probably wire back 'Don't come.'
And even _I_ could hardly have persisted in the face of that! So I
determined to take the small risk with the big one. Dak bungalows seem
to grow wild in India; and I thought there would surely be one here
where I could get some sort of a bed."

"Dak bungalow, indeed! If there is one, _I_ won't help you to find
it!" This from Honor, in a burst of righteous wrath. "So you may as
well resign yourself to staying with us, whether you like it or not!"

"With you? Is it possible? I thought . . . But have you really a
corner available? I could sleep divinely on the hearth-rug, I'm so
desperately tired, and so relieved."

"Very well. That settles it. But I'll let you off the hearth-rug,
even though you did fling Dak bungalows at my head! Captain Lenox is
in Baby's nursery; and we can shut off the dressing-room for you, if
you can manage with a chair-bed. It's quite safe. Everything has been
disinfected. I believe Theo knew you were coming! Will that do?"

"Do? _Ma foi_, . . but how does one say thank you for such goodness?"

"One refrains!" Desmond remarked, handing her empty cup across to his
wife.

Quita laughed.

"You are incorrigible!" said she. "But there is still this to think
of. With your friends coming and going, how am I to be . . accounted
for till I have seen . . Eldred? If I am Miss Maurice, _par exemple_,
what am I doing in Dera Ishmael? And if not . . ? _Mon Dieu_, but
it's an ignominious tangle. I'm as bad as Alice in Wonderland in the
wood. I seem suddenly to have lost my identity: and in my mad anxiety
and impatience to get here I never thought anything about it till I was
sweltering in that horrible barge this morning. Shall I live
altogether in my room? It would be no more than I deserve."

"My dear, you'll do nothing of the sort." It was Honor this time,
"Luckily for you, the Battery's in camp; and since Captain Lenox's
illness there's been an end of my tea-parties. Our own people may be
looking in now he's better. But for the next two days or so I shall
simply be '_dawazar bund_.'[5] It needs no effort to develop a
headache, or a touch of fever this weather. There's only Paul, and
Frank, whom I couldn't shut out. May we just explain to them, more or
less, how things stand?"

"But yes. Of course you must. And . . after all . . ."

She hesitated, flushing painfully.

"After all," Desmond came to her rescue, "it won't be so very long
before the vexed question of your identity is settled for good. Now
I'd better go and speak to Paul. He may be turning up for tea, any
minute; and that would be awkward for you."

As he reached the door at the far end of the room, Honor fled after him.

"Read those, dear," she said breathlessly, thrusting a letter and
telegram into his hand. "They will account for this morning. I had
bad news. But thank God it's all right now. I wired."

"And never told _me_?"

"You were so happy. How could I?"

"Then that was why you bolted?"

"Yes. I couldn't have kept it up for long."

"Well . . I've no time to scold you now," he said, looking unspeakable
things at her. "Wait till I get you to myself, . . that's all!"

This short colloquy, carried on in an undertone, did not reach Quita's
ears.

"What sort of a man is this Paul?" she asked as Honor returned to her
chair. "I don't know his other name! Is he the sort that would be
likely to understand . . our very incomprehensible position?"

Honor took a leather frame from the table beside her, and put it into
Quita's hands.

"If you are any judge of faces, that's the best answer I can give you."

Quita scanned the picture abstractedly for several seconds.

"Yes. He'll do," was her verdict. Then she flung the thing from her;
and burying her face in the cushions sobbed with the heart-broken
abandonment of a child.

"Oh, what a blind fool I was to come!" she lamented through her tears.
"I don't believe he'll understand my madness. And if he doesn't . . .
he'll never forgive me!"

[1] Account.

[2] Scullery man.

[3] As Memsahib pleases.

[4] Any one there! Bring tiffin.

[5] Not at home.

CHAPTER XXI.

"Here the lost hours the lost hours renew."--Rossetti.

"It progresses, doesn't it?"

"It does more than that. It lives. You've transfigured it in these few
days; and I like your knack of emphasising essentials without jarring the
harmony of the whole. You ought to make your mark as a portrait painter
in time."

"I've done so already . . more or less," Quita answered modestly,
stepping backward, with tilted head, to get a better view of her
achievement. It was the study of Lenox, which, for all her perturbation,
she had packed as tenderly as if it were a live thing; and which alone
had made life endurable for the past three days. Her easel had been set
up in the dining-room, where she could work without fear of chance
intruders, who gravitated either to the drawing-room or the study: and on
this fourth morning after her arrival, she was standing at it with
Desmond, who had looked in for a word with her before starting for the
Lines. "If you were to go home now," she added, after a pause, "you
would find the name Quita Maurice not quite unknown in artistic circles.
But they'll never see this, though it's going to be the best thing I've
done yet; because . . ."

"Yes, naturally, . . because . . ."

"How nice you are!" she said simply. "One needn't dot the i's, and cross
all the t's with you. Of course it's very incomplete still. A
suggestive study is the most one can achieve from memory. So you mustn't
judge it as a portrait,--yet. It's just a daring experiment that no
right-minded artist would have attempted. But it's come out better than
I thought possible. And I'm glad you like my work."

"I do; no question. I'm no critic, though; only a soldier, with a taste
for most kinds of art. It's full of latent vigour; rugged without being
rough, like Lenox himself. A fine bit of weathered rock, eh? I am only
afraid that after feasting your eyes on this, the original may give you
something of a shock at first sight."

"Is he so terribly changed . . in one month?"

"Well, think what he's been through. Concussion and cholera have knocked
some of the vigour out of him; and he looks years older, for the time
being. But you mustn't let that upset you. It's not unusual after
cholera; and in a week he'll be looking more like himself again."

Then the truth dawned on her.

"Captain Desmond,--are you telling me all this because . . ?"

"Yes . . again, because . . . !" he answered, smiling.

"To-day?"

"As soon as you please."

She gave a little gasp; then shut her lips tightly.

"Do you mean . . have you actually told him?" she murmured with averted
eyes.

"Yes."

"And did he--is he----?"

"It's not for me to say." Desmond seemed equal to any amount of
incoherence this morning. "You'll find out for yourself in no time."

"Oh dear!"

"Is it as dreadful as all that?"

"In some ways,--yes. It takes my breath away."

"Try and get it back before you go in to him," he counselled her kindly.
"And keep some sort of hold on yourself--for his sake. Don't trouble him
about results, unless he broaches the subject. It we can keep clear of
the worry element, just getting hold of you again may do him a power of
good."

Then,--creature of moods and impulse that she was,--she turned on him
spontaneously, both hands outflung.

"_Mon Dieu_, what a friend you have been to us both! Thank you a
thousand times, for everything. I know you hate it. But if I kept it in
any longer, I should burst!"

"Just as well you let it out, then," Desmond answered, laughing, and
grasping the proffered hands. "I must be off now. Good luck to you,
Quita. You're worthy of him."

For some minutes after he had gone Quita stood very still, trying to get
her breath back, as he had suggested: a less simple affair than it
seemed, on the face of it. For although she had taken the plunge, in an
impulse of despair, a week ago, she had only grasped the outcome in all
its bearings during the past three days, throughout which she had been
acutely aware of Eldred's presence on the farther side of her barred and
bolted door. He had told her plainly that, until he felt quite sure of
himself, he dared not take her back. Yet now, by her own unconsidered
act, she was forcing upon him, at the least, a public recognition of
their marriage; an acknowledgment that might make further separation
difficult, if not impossible, for the present. All her pride and
independence of spirit revolted against this unvarnished statement of
fact; and the memory of Michael's random remark heightened her nervous
apprehension. Yet, on the other hand, Love--who is a born
peace-maker--argued that, after all, he might not be sorry to have his
hand forced by so clear a proof of all that she was ready to do and
suffer on his behalf. An argument strongly reinforced by her original
determination to overrule his scruples, and help him in the struggle that
loomed ahead.

In this fashion Love and Pride tossed decision to and fro, as they have
done in a hundred heart-histories; till common-sense stepped in with the
reminder that Eldred was waiting; and that by now retreat was out of the
question. The thought roused her to a more normal state of confidence
and courage. Putting away palette and brushes, she covered up her
canvas: and because, for all her artistry, she was very much a woman,
went straightway--not to her husband's door--but to her own mirror! The
vision that looked out at her was by no means discouraging: a demure
vision, in a simple, unconventional gown of green linen, with a Puritan
collar, and a wide white ribbon at the waist. A few superfluous touches
to her hair, and equally superfluous tweaks to the bow of her ribbon
belt, wrought some infinitesimal improvement in the picture, which no
mere man, hungering for the sight and sound of her, would be the least
likely to detect. Then half a dozen swift steps brought her to his door:
the one that communicated with the dining-room.

It opened on to a curtain, about which there still clung a faint
suggestion of carbolic.

"Eldred?" she said softly. And the voice she had last heard through the
hiss of rain, and the crash of broken branches, answered: "Come in."

She pushed aside the curtain, and stood so, paralysed by a nervousness
altogether new to her.

He lay on a Madeira lounge-chair, with pillows at his back. Every bone
in his face, every line scored by the graving-tools of conflict and pain,
showed cruelly distinct in the morning light. At sight of her, he tried
to speak; but the muscles of his throat rebelled: and he simply held out
his arms. Then, in one rush, she came to him: and as he laid hands on
her, drawing her down on to a spare corner of his chair, she leaned
forward and buried her face in the soft flannel of his coat.

Nothing but silence becomes the great moments of life; and for a long
while he held her thus, without power or desire of speech. All his man's
strength melted in him at the faint fragrance of her hair; at the
exquisite yielding of her figure, as she lay palpitating against him; at
the yet more exquisite assurance that the love he had gained was a thing
beyond estimation, a thing indestructible as the soul itself. For her
very surrender was quick with the vitality that was her crowning charm.

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