Captain Desmond, V.C.. Diver Maud

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СКАЧАТЬ style="font-size:15px;">      "You couldn't give a completer description of me! I hear you are to put up with them till Meredith comes back."

      "Yes. They have been quite charming about it, and I am so glad not to be driven away from the Frontier at once. I have been longing to get to it for years."

      He watched her while she spoke, his quietly observant eyes missing no detail of her face.

      "And now you have got here, I wonder how it will strike you after the imposing official circles of Simla and Lahore. You'll find none of the 'beer and skittles' of the country up here. But the Frontier has its own fascination all the same; especially when a man has the spirit of it in his blood. Desmond, for instance, wouldn't give a brass farthing for life out of sight of those hard-featured hills. Do you know him and his wife at all?"

      "I never saw him till yesterday, except in the distance at polo matches. But I have known her since she was quite a child."

      "And I have known Desmond since he was thirteen. Rather odd! You can't fail to be good friends with him Miss Meredith."

      "Are you as rabid as my brother and the Colonel because the poor man has dared to marry?" she asked, with an incurable directness which to some natures was a stumbling-block, and to others her chiefest charm. "It seems to be a part of the regimental creed."

      "It is. And I subscribe to it … as a creed. But my belief has not yet been tried in the fire. Desmond is the keenest soldier I know; yet he has seen fit to marry. I have an immense faith in him, and, whatever others may think, I prefer to reserve my judgment."

      "If only a few more of us had the wisdom to do that," the girl said softly. "How much easier life would be for every one!"

      Wyndham smiled.

      "I have a notion that life isn't meant to be easy," he said. "And the fact remains that Meredith and the Colonel are right in principle. Few men are strong enough to stand the strain of being pulled two ways at once, and marriage is bound to be a grave risk for a man whose heart is set on soldiering – Frontier soldiering above all. But then Desmond loves a risk better than anything else in life."

      And with an abrupt laugh he dismissed the subject.

      "I must be going on now," he added. "But no doubt we shall meet again soon. I am constantly over at the bungalow."

      And, saluting her again, he trotted leisurely northward to the cavalry Lines.

      His thoughts as he went hovered about the girl. The mere picture she left upon his brain was not one to be lightly set aside by a man with an ardent eye for the beautiful, and a spirit swift to discern those hidden elements which gave to Honor Meredith's beauty its distinctive quality and charm.

      Some men are born with a genius for looking on at life, a form of genius not to be despised. They are of the type from which great naturalists, great philosophers are made; men quick to perceive, slow to assert; men whose large patience rests upon freedom from the fret of personal desire. Of such was Paul Wyndham, and in his accepted rôle of onlooker he fell to pondering upon the new element in his own immediate drama.

      If only Desmond had chosen for his helpmate such a girl as Miss Meredith, how different might have been the regiment's feelings in regard to the unwelcome fact of his marriage. Yet Wyndham was aware of an instant recoil from the idea, aware that he personally preferred matters as they stood. With which conclusion he spurred his horse to a canter, as though he could thus outrun the quickened current of thought and feeling which this unlooked-for meeting had set stirring in his brain.

      Meantime Honor Meredith had fallen in with another member of her newly-adopted family: – a big, raw-boned Irishwoman, who wore her curling reddish hair cropped short, answered to the name of "Frank," and dressed chronically in a serviceable skirt and covert coat, and a man's shikarri helmet. When riding, the skirt was replaced by that of a country-made habit; and in the simplest evening gown this large-featured, large-hearted woman stood a martyr confessed. For ten years she had been the only woman in a regiment of sworn bachelors; had nursed her "brother officers" whenever need arose; had shared their interests, their hardships, their amusements; till, – in the symbolism of the India she loved, – they and the regiment had become "her father and her mother, her people and her God."

      At sight of Honor she hurried her grey country-bred across the road, and held out a square, loosely-gloved hand.

      "It's bound to be Miss Meredith!" she exclaimed, in a pronounced brogue, with a flash of white even teeth – her sole claim to beauty. "It's very welcome you are to Kohat and to the regiment. I'm Frank Olliver, … Captain Olliver's wife. I'll turn now and ride back a bit of the way with you. Then we can talk as we go. 'Tis the worst of bad luck about your brother. When'll he be leaving?"

      "In four or five days. He moves across into our bungalow this morning. It was splendid of Captain Desmond to think of it."

      "Ah, Theo's just made that way!" Then, noting a glimmer of surprise in Honor's face, her wide smile shone out once more. "Is it shocked you are because I speak of him so? Well, … truth is, I'm a privileged person since I pulled him through typhoid seven years ago, when by rights he should have died. I'm a rare hand, anyway, at dropping the formalities with them that suit me taste. Though, by the same token, I've taken no liberties with little Mrs Desmond yet. It's queer. We don't seem to get much further with her; though we'd be glad enough to do it for Theo's sake. You mustn't mind straight speech from me, Miss Meredith. Sure I must have been born with the whole truth in me mouth, for as fast as I open me lips a bit of it slips out. I'll be finding she's your half-sister, or first cousin, or some such thing!"

      Honor laughed outright. It would clearly be impossible to take amiss anything that this woman might choose to say. The kindliness of her soul shone through her plain face, like sunlight through a window-pane.

      "Her mother is a distant connection of ours," the girl admitted frankly. "And we were brought up for a time like sisters. It must have been rather a startling change for her from a country town at home to a Border station; and she is very young still, and very devoted to her husband."

      "She is that, … after a queer fashion of her own. But Theo's bound to make his mark on the Frontier, like his father before him; and you know the proverb, 'He travels the fastest who travels alone.' Tis hardly meself, though, that should be upholding such a saying as that!"

      "No, indeed! No woman ought to uphold it. And, after all," Honor added, with a very becoming touch of seriousness, "there may be better things for a man than to travel fast. He may learn more by travelling slowly, don't you think? And I should imagine that fast or slow, Captain Desmond is bound to arrive in the end – Now I must turn in here, and see if John is awake. I'll come and see you when he is gone. I can spare no time for any one else till then!"

      Frank Olliver beamed in unqualified approbation.

      "You're just a brick, Miss Meredith," she declared with ready Irish warmth. "An' 'twas a fine wind indeed that carried you up to Kohat."

      Honor found her hand enclosed in a grasp as strong as a man's; and three minutes later Mrs Olliver – whose seat on a horse was as ungainly as her hand on its mouth was perfect – had become a mere speck on the wide sunlit road.

      Honor entered the hall of her new home pondering many things. She laid aside her sun helmet, and in obedience to the promptings of her interested soul turned her steps toward the drawing-room.

      The door was ajar, and passing between the looped gold and white phulkaris, she came to a standstill; for the room was not empty.

      Captain Desmond, in undress СКАЧАТЬ