The Great Amulet
M >>
Maud Diver >> The Great Amulet
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
32 |
33
A Himalayan dawn is brief, as it is beautiful. One after one, the
snow-peaks passed from the pallor of death to the glow of life. Then,
sudden as an inspiration, the full splendour of morning broke, sublime
as the eternity from which it came. Rapier-like shafts of light
pierced the purple lengths of shadows that engulfed the valley.
Threading their way through fir and deodar and pine, they flung all
their radiant length across a rock-studded carpet of fir-needles and
moss, and rested, like a caress, upon Quita's face and figure.
At last, with a long breath of satisfaction, she forced her sun-dazzled
eyes and mind back to earth; only to discover that Garth had risen and
was standing at her side. The man had seen and studied her in many
moods. But never in one so exalted, so self-forgetful, as the present;
and to the varied new experiences of the morning was added a wholesome
sense of his own unworthiness to lay a hand upon her. In that
illumined moment he was vouchsafed a glimpse into the temple of Love; a
temple he had desecrated and defiled time and again; whose holy of
holies he had never entered, nor ever could.
"Does it really mean as much as all that to you?" he asked, still
watching her, with unusual concentration.
She nodded, and a soft light gleamed in her eyes. "Yes--as much as
that, and more--infinitely more. One's cramped mind and heart seem to
need expanding to take it all in."
Garth's smile lacked its habitual touch of cynicism.
"I am afraid even sunrise on Dynkund in your company has no power to
lift me to such flights of ecstasy."
"I never supposed it had, you poor fellow! I wouldn't change souls
with you for half a kingdom. Nearly every day of my life I thank the
goodness and the grace that dowered me with the spirit of an artist.
Think what a heritage it is to be eternally interested in a world full
of people who seem to be eternally bored!"
"I suppose you include me in that noble army of martyrs?"
"Decidedly. It is one of your worst faults."
"At least I never commit it in your presence."
She laughed, and lifted her shoulders.
"At least you know how to flatter a woman! But, for goodness' sake,
don't let's talk trivialities in the face of these stupendous
mountains."
"And why not? In my opinion, the trivialities of a human being are
worth more than the grandeur of a mountain, any day. But, seriously,
Miss Maurice--if you can be serious with me for five minutes--does all
this, and the Art in which you live and breathe, so satisfy you that
you feel no need for the far better things a man might have to offer
you?"
She frowned, and looked with sudden intentness at a distant, abject in
the valley.
"Yes--seriously--it does. What is more, it seems to me that most men
set too high a value on what they have to offer a woman, and that a
good many of us are better off without it."
Garth set his teeth, and did not answer at once. That his first
genuine attempt at a proposal of marriage should be thus cavalierly
nipped in the bud was disconcerting, to say the least of it.
"But not you--of all women," he protested, incredulously. "Are you
quite sure you understand what I mean? Won't you give me a chance to
explain----?"
Her low laughter maddened him.
"Oh, no--please have mercy on me! Explanations are the root of all
evil! If only people had not such a passion for explaining themselves,
there would be fifty per cent fewer misunderstandings in the world.
Don't you know the delightful story of a zealous mother reading the
Bible to her boy, and explaining profusely to bring it within the scope
of his small mind, and when she asked him, anxiously, 'Are you quite
sure you understand it all, darling?' he answered, with the heavenly
frankness of childhood, 'Yes, beautifully, mummy--except when you
explain.' That's my feeling exactly; so we'll skip the explanations,
if you don't mind."
He stifled an oath, and flung his half-smoked cigar down the khud.
"You're enough to drive a sane man distracted!" he declared hotly, and
was not a little surprised at his own vehemence.
"No, no! That's exaggeration, I assure you. The strong wine of the
morning has got into your head. Do be reasonable now, and keep
personalities at arm's length. I detest them."
He moved away for a space; then, turning on his heel, came back again.
"At least you don't object to my companionship?" he said, ignoring her
request.
"Of course not, so long as it amuses you to bestow it upon me."
"Amuses me! God in heaven, what makes you so hopelessly detached?"
"Some radical defect in me, I suppose. The Pagan strain, perhaps, that
comes out so strong in Michael. I believe I am incapable of _les
grandes passions_. But that does not prevent me from being a good
friend, and a constant one, as you will find, if you care to test me in
that capacity. Now you may sit down here," she patted her slab of rock
invitingly, "and discourse about anything you please, except myself.
Egoist though I am, I have had enough of the subject for to-day!"
And Garth--the man of surface emotions and ready tongue--found nothing
to say in answer to this kindly but inexorable dismissal of his
unspoken suit. He had no choice but to accept the inevitable, and the
proffered seat. But the permission to discourse about anything he
pleased left him dumb, and it was Quita herself who guided their talk
into a less personal channel.
"Have you had any new arrivals at the Strawberry Bank lately?" she
asked, conversationally; and the question was more relevant to the
tabooed topic than Garth was likely to guess. He lived close to the
hotel, and dined there when he felt convivially disposed.
"Yes; two new fellows came up this week. A doctor from Mooltan and a
Gunner from 'Dera Dismal,'--the Thibet man,--Lenox, who seems to be
making a reputation of sorts. But he looks a wreck. Smokes like a
chimney; and is apparently working himself to death; a thankless form
of folly."
"Perhaps. Yet India needs a few unsparing workers--like Captain Lenox."
She spoke with studied indifference; but her fingers were busy
uprooting a patch of moss.
"Oh yes, India has a healthy appetite for unsparing workers! She is a
grasping harridan, who demands all and offers nothing. She devours the
lives of men who are foolish enough to lose their hearts to her, and
wrecks their bodies by way of thanks."
Quita's lips lifted in the merest shadow of a smile. "Aren't you a
little ungrateful to her? She has been fairly merciful to you!"
"I have never given her the ghost of a chance to be otherwise! I don't
believe in overwork, plus the Indian climate. More men kill themselves
by a happy mixture of both than the importance of their achievements
justifies. I was chaffing Lenox only last night about his leaning
towards that unrecognised form of suicide; and all the answer I got was
that a man might die of a more degrading disease. You never by any
chance get a rise out of old Lenox!"
"Do you know him well?"
"As well as it's possible to know a fellow who lives with all his
shutters up. And in any case an anchorite, and a woman-hater, would
never be much in my line. The symptoms appear to have developed in the
last few years. Not without reason, as I happen to know."
"_What_ do you happen to know?"
The question came almost in a whisper; but Garth, who had all a woman's
weakness for other people's affairs, was too intent upon his ill-gotten
scrap of gossip to observe his companion's slight change of manner.
"Why, that it's simply a case of _cherchez la femme_, as usual," he
answered, lightly. "I believe it's a fact that he went so far as to
marry one of these women he affects to despise, when he was on leave
five years ago."
Quita started, and bit her lips. "What reason can you have for
believing anything . . . so improbable?"
"My dear lady, marriage is never improbable. You women have a knack of
tripping up the most unlikely subjects! In this case, I had the
details from an old friend of mine. She happened to be stopping at the
same hotel as Lenox at Zermatt. Then one morning he disappeared; and,
as she had taken rather a fancy to him, she tried to find out what had
become of him. After a good deal of questioning, it transpired that he
had been seen coming out of the English church with a lady; and further
inquiry revealed the fact that an officer named Lenox had been quietly
married there the day before. Naturally, she scented a romance, and
was keen to know more. But he seemed to have vanished outright. Then
ten days later she met him on the station platform, travelling alone,
and obviously down on his luck. He told her he was off to join his
battery in India: nothing more. Problem: What, in the name of mystery,
had he done with the lady?"
At that Quita rose abruptly, her cheeks on fire, her whole frame tense
with suppressed agitation.
"Oh, stop--stop. I can't stand any more!" she protested, in a
smothered voice; and at once Garth was beside her, contrite and amazed.
"Miss Maurice--what have I said to upset you so?"
"It's not your fault. You couldn't help it," she answered, without
looking up. "But--you were telling me my own story!"
"Good Lord! Then--it was _you_?"
"Don't say any more, please. I never meant to speak; only--one had to
stop you--somehow. It's time we went back to the others now. I am
sure you must be wanting your breakfast. And remember"--she faced him
at last, with brave deliberation--"I trust you, as a gentleman, never
to speak of this again--to me, or to any one else."
And Garth bowed his head, and followed her, in a bewildered silence.
CHAPTER V.
"He that getteth a wife beginneth a possession; a help like unto
himself, and a pillar of rest."--_Ecclesiasticus_.
Eldred Lenox stood alone in the Desmonds' diminutive drawing-room,
patiently impatient for companionship more responsive than that of cane
chairs and tables, pictures and a piano. Yet the room itself, with its
atmosphere of peace and refinement, gave him a foretaste of the
restfuluess that made Honor Desmond's companionship a growing necessity
to this man, whose heart and brain were in a state of civil war. It
was filled with afternoon sunlight, with the faint, clean fragrance of
violets, wild roses, and maiden-hair fern, and its emptiness was
informed and pervaded by countless suggestions of a woman's presence; a
woman versed in that finest of all fine arts, the beautifying of daily
life.
In this era of hotels, clubs, and motors, of days spent in sowing hurry
and reaping shattered nerves, the type is growing rarer, and it will be
an ill day for England's husbands and sons, nay, for her supremacy
among nations, if it should ever become extinct. For it is no
over-statement, but simple fact, that the women who follow, soon or
late, in the track of her victorious arms, women of Honor Desmond's
calibre--home-loving, home-making, skilled in the lore of heart and
spirit--have done fully as much to establish, strengthen, and settle
her scattered Empire as shot, or steel, or the doubtful machinations of
diplomacy.
A half-acknowledged conviction of this truth was undermining Eldred's
skin-deep cynicism; and it did not tend to alleviate his renewed sense
of loss. A week had passed since his astounding experience on the
Kajiar Road; a week in which the hours of sleep had been a more
negligible quantity than usual; in which he had fought squarely against
an imperative need to escape from the haunting consciousness of his
wife's presence, and had been squarely beaten. His present need to see
and speak with Honor Desmond was an ultimate confession of that defeat.
On reaching the bungalow, he was told that the Mem-sahib bad gone out
with the Chota Sahib, but would doubtless be back before long, and had
decided to await her return. During his ride with her that morning, he
had not been able to bring himself to speak. But this time he intended
to go through with the ordeal. He felt too restless to sit down; and
she did not keep him waiting long.
Footsteps and low voices, punctuated with silver laughter, heralded her
coming, and a few minutes later she entered, carrying a pocket edition
of herself, who clung about her neck, and pressed a cool rose-petal
cheek against her own.
Lenox had described her as a magnificent woman. A Scot may generally
be trusted not to overstate his facts; and certainly Honor Desmond, in
those radiant early days of marriage, deserved no less an adjective.
Height, and a buoyant stateliness of bearing, lent a regal quality to
her beauty. Her grey-blue eyes under very level brows were the eyes of
a woman dwelling in the heart of life, not merely in its outskirts and
pleasure-grounds.
She expressed no surprise at seeing Lenox again so soon. Come when he
might, his presence was accepted as a matter of course; the surest way
to put a man at his ease.
"So sorry I kept you waiting," she said simply, and the hand she gave
him was at once soft and strong,--an epitome of the woman. "Theo was
lunching out with Colonel Mayhew--they are both very full of that book
of his on the Hill Tribes--and I have been devoting most of my time to
this very exacting person!"
Lenox caressed the child's red-gold hair with a cautious reverent hand,
and a contraction of envy at his heart.
"What a beautiful little chap he is! Begins to look an out-and-out
Meredith already. Desmond must be tremendously proud of him."
She smiled and pressed him closer.
"He is; and I'm nearly as bad! One son, three fools, you know! Poor
little Paul, it's not fair to call him names when he can't hit back."
"You called him after Wyndham?"
"Yes. They're like brothers, those two. Now let me get rid of him,
and we'll have a quiet talk till Theo comes back. Sit down and smoke,
please."
He complied; and she, returning, established herself beside her
work-table, and took up an elaborate bit of smocking without question
or remark.
His trouble and stress of mind were very evident to her; but she was
one of those rare women who are chary of questions--who, for all their
desire to help and serve, never approach too near, or say the word too
much, which was, perhaps, one reason why men found her so restful, and
instinctively talked to her about themselves.
But Lenox was long in beginning.
By imperceptible degrees, this unsought gift of friendship was melting
the morsel of ice at his heart; was reviving in him, against his will,
that keen appreciation of a cultivated woman's sympathy and
companionship, which, among finely tempered men, is as potent a factor
in the shaping of destinies as passion, or hot-headed emotion.
For a while he permitted himself the bitter-sweet satisfaction of
merely watching her where she sat, in a shaft of sunlight, that struck
golden gleams through the burnished abundance of her hair; of noting
the grace and dignity of her pose, and speculating as to the nature of
her thoughts. His wife's reckless impulse on that fateful September
day was bringing him now within measurable distance of a very human
danger. The deep, passionate heart of him, crushed and stifled during
the past five years, was in no safe state to be brought into contact
with a lighted match. But of this danger he was, by his very nature,
sublimely unaware.
Finally he took the short pipe from his lips and spoke.
"Of course you know I have something definite to say, or I should
hardly have the cheek to inflict myself on you twice in the twenty-four
hours."
She looked up and smiled. "You're evidently in one of your bad moods,
or you would not vex me by putting it like that."
"Sorry to vex you, but I _am_ in a bad mood; have been for the last
week; so you must make allowances, I can't sleep, and a restless devil
inside me won't let me settle to steady work. Nerves, I suppose. I
don't look a likely subject, do I? But they give me a deal of trouble
at times; and I came to say that I must go back on my arrangement with
you and Desmond and clear out of this before the end of the week."
"Oh, but surely that would be a great pity; a great disappointment to
us both. Is it really a case of 'must'?"
"I think so."
"And you have only been here a fortnight! Isn't it rather early days
to give in?"
"Very early days--as the case must appear to you; and the evil of it is
that I have no power to make things clearer. Think me an overwrought
fool; a broken-backed corn-stalk, if you choose. It will hurt, of
course; but it can't be helped."
He spoke with undisguised bitterness, and, laying down her work, she
looked at him straightly, a great compassion in her eyes.
"You misunderstand the fundamentals of friendship if you can talk like
that," she said gently. "It is rooted in reticence in respect for
another's individuality. Whatever you choose to do, you may be very
sure that I shall neither doubt your good reasons, nor seek to know
them. That is my idea of what it means to be a friend."
"I stand rebuked," he answered gravely, "and I'm not likely to forget
what you have said."
"At the same time," she added in a lighter tone, "one is only human!
And I can't let you leave Dalhousie without a word of protest--even if
it is useless." She hesitated. "May I speak straight?"
"As straight as you please. I should prefer it."
"Well, I think that if it is a case of nerves, or--worry of any kind,
nothing can be worse for you than your own society. Such amusement as
we can offer you up here may be frivolous and insignificant enough,
but, believe me, it is far better for you just now than the most
sublime snowfields and glaciers at the back of Beyond! You know you
are free to come here whenever you please. Theo enjoys having you; so
do I. And I'm sure it's good for you to fraternise with something more
human than a mountain!"
He smiled, but did not answer at once; and suddenly she lifted her
head, her face all animation.
"Look here, I have a notion--an inspired notion. Why should not you
two get Colonel Mayhew's permission to go off on a week's shooting trip
beyond Chumba. Ten days if you like. Theo would love it. You would
come back to your writing like a giant refreshed. There now, isn't
that a plan worth thinking over?"
Moved beyond his wont, Lenox leaned impulsively towards her.
"My dear Mrs Desmond, your kindness overpowers me. But I really can't
see that you and your husband are called upon to put yourselves out
like that, on my behalf. You are up here to enjoy your short holiday
together; and you are rare good companions, as I know. What right have
I to monopolise him for ten days, and leave you alone? Why should you
care, after all, if I do go and knock myself to bits in the interior?"
"That question is unworthy of you, and doesn't deserve an answer," she
said on a note of gentle reproof. "Mine does. Will you do what I ask?"
"Since you ask it of me--yes. Always supposing that it suits Desmond
to go."
"Of course it will suit him. We will settle it when he comes in."
He leaned back in his chair, and sighed.
"You're amazingly good to me, Mrs Desmond; and I'm an ungrateful brute.
Will you overlook that, and play me something warranted to soothe
jarred nerves, till your husband comes?"
"Of course I will, gladly. Only you mustn't expect real music from a
hireling!"
She chose one of Beethoven's most tenderly gracious Allegrettos, and
the soul of the hireling responded creditably to the magic of her touch.
But before she had played many bars a clatter of hoofs announced
Desmond's return. He flung himself from the saddle, cleared the
verandah steps at a bound, and entered the room:--a man of magnetic
vitality, with a temperament like a clear flame; a typical officer of
that isolated force to whose gallantry and unwearied devotion to duty
India owes more than she is apt to acknowledge, or, possibly, to
perceive. He nodded a welcome to Lenox, signed to him to remain
seated, and going straight to the piano laid a hand on his wife's
shoulder.
"Don't stop. Finish your piece," he said, as she smiled up at him; and
he did not remove his hand, but remained standing there, in simple
satisfaction at having got back to her.
Now and again, at very rare intervals, Nature seems to select a
favoured man and woman to uphold the torch of the ideal, lest it be
reduced to sparks and smoke, to refute the cynic and the pessimist; to
hearten a world nauseated and discouraged by the eternal tragi-comedy
of marriage, with the spectacle of a human relationship of unsullied
beauty: a relationship that passes, by imperceptible degrees, from the
first antiphony of passionate hearts to a deep deliberate bliss,
"durable from the daily dust of life."
Desmond's first marriage had brought him no such revelation of the
hidden mysteries of union; no companionship worthy of the name; and the
happiness that comes late, on the heels of conflict and pain, takes a
more conscious grip on the heart, is more firmly held to, more
jealously guarded, than that which meets us on the threshold, and is
accepted as part of the natural order of things. Blest with vivacity,
courage, and an ardent zest for Frontier soldiering, Desmond had rarely
found life other than very good; but he had only proven the full
measure of its goodness since his marriage with Honor Meredith. And
the mouths brought increasing reliance on her comradeship; increasing
insight into the depths and delicacies of a passion that was almost
genius. His need of her was deeper now than it had been two years ago,
when he had believed himself at the summit of desire. For a great love
is like a great mountain-range. Each height scaled reveals farther
heights beyond. Attainment is no part of our programme here; and there
may well be truth in the axiom that "to travel hopefully is better than
to arrive."
But Eldred Lenox, tangled in the twofold cords of temperament and
circumstance, was denied even the privilege of travelling hopefully,
and at moments like the present he suffered the additional torment of
looking into happiness through another man's eyes. It was futile to
reiterate the obvious drawbacks of marriage for an ambitious man,
standing on the threshold of a coveted career. These distracting
Desmonds cheerfully and unconsciously refuted them all! But he
accepted the thorns of the situation as toll paid for the privilege of
an intimacy he would on no account have forgone, and endured them with
the grim stoicism that was his.
The Allegretto ended, Honour swung round on her stool, and set forth
her Chumba project without reference to Eldred's threatened departure.
Desmond laughingly professed himself ready to obey orders, within
reasonable limits; and it was finally decided that he should write at
once to Colonel Mayhew, Resident of the native State in which
Dalhousie's hills are situated, and whose capital lies in a cup-shaped
valley eighteen miles below the English station.
Thereupon Lenox rose to take his leave; but on the threshold he paused,
as though an afterthought had occurred to him.
"Next time you happen to go out calling, Mrs Desmond," he said, with
studied carelessness, "you might like to look up a Miss Maurice and her
brother. They've been here all the winter; and are living on the top
of Bakrotas. I met them--some years ago, in Switzerland. Artists, out
here for painting purposes--and rather out of the common run. You
might find them interesting."
"They sound as if they would be! Thank you for letting me know of
their existence. I'll amuse myself by exploiting them while you two
are away."
But Lenox had no wish to expatiate upon the subject, and with a
muttered disclaimer he was gone.
CHAPTER VI.
"I will but say what mere friends say--
Or only a thought stronger.
I will hold your hand as long as all may--
Or--no very little longer."
--Browning.
"No, I don't like her, and I don't believe I ever shall. One cannot
deny that she is beautiful, charming, complete; too complete for my
taste. _Cela me gene_. I know no other way to express it."
Quita Maurice balanced herself on the railing of her matchbox verandah,
and gazed critically at the corner where the last of Honor Desmond's
_jhampannis_ had not long since disappeared from view. Garth, the
inevitable, stood close beside her, faultlessly equipped as always,
even to the gold-tipped cigarette, and the violets that blossomed
perennially in his coat. He grew them in pots expressly for the
purpose; and his bearer set them in a wine-glass on his breakfast-table
every morning.
Quita's verdict on her visitor moved him to a smile of half-cynical
amusement. He enjoyed her occasional unabashed lapses into the eternal
feminine.
"I'm with you there," he answered, heartily. "The worst fault a human
being can commit is to be faultless. Poor Mrs Desmond! She will have
to subsist without our admiration."
"No need to waste pity on her, _mon ami_. I am convinced that she gets
far more admiration than is good for her as it is. She has only been
married a little over two years, I believe, and it is safe to presume
that her husband idolises her shadow. She is the sort of woman men put
on a pedestal, and worship kneeling; and women mostly detest, because,
in their secret hearts, they would like to be up there too! Personally
I have no use for pedestals. I am content to be _bon camarade_! As
for that sublime Desmond woman, I feel morally certain that she never
commits an indiscretion, or has a knot in her shoe-lace, or loses her
scissors!"
Pages:
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 | 5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
9 |
10 |
11 |
12 |
13 |
14 |
15 |
16 |
17 |
18 |
19 |
20 |
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
32 |
33