An Unknown Lover Part 24

He frowned again, hesitating over the words.

"Honestly, I don't. I am not in a sociable mood. I look upon these few days at sea as a holiday, when there is no reason why I should exert myself against my will. I was relieved to find that there are so few military people on board, and if a man joins a ship half-way, doesn't play bridge, and abjures deck games, it's an easy matter to be left alone. I promised myself never to enter the smoke-room until we reach Bombay, or to make an unnecessary acquaintance, but naturally your friends must be the exception. Only--there's plenty of time! Don't drag me into a vortex of sociability."

Katrine laughed at that, but the laugh turned into a grimace.

"There is no vortex around _met_ It comes to this, that if you know me and my friends, you will know no one else! Mr Keith is taboo. I've explained why, and Mrs Mannering is--is--" The while she sought for words, the blood rose in her cheek. She was embarra.s.singly conscious that Bedford noticed it, and that his interest was heightened thereby.

"Is?" he queried, urging the confidence. "Is?"

"Very nice to _me_," continued Katrine desperately, "but--?"

"But?"

Again there was the same _impa.s.se_. Their eyes met, they laughed together, while Bedford hitched himself a trifle nearer her seat.

"It's--rather difficult to explain!"

"Obviously! which makes me all the more anxious to find out. Very nice to _you_, but--?"

"Prom what she said; from what I've _heard_, not always very--_nice_, herself!"

"I see!" Bedford's jaw lengthened with a gravity which was the obvious cloak of laughter. Katrine flushed still deeper, feeling countrified and raw, but it _was_ true that Mrs Mannering chummed with the fastest women on board, and that the stray fragments of their conversation which she had heard had been far from savoury. She tilted her head with a gesture of offence.

"I am afraid you think me a prig!"

The grey eyes dwelt on her face with a thoughtful scrutiny.

"Prig! Do I? I am not versed in prigs, but I hardly imagine that they would be likely to make your somewhat unconventional selection of friends!" He swung himself gently to and fro, his lips curving in a humorous smile. "So we are to be ostracised, are we,--you and I, and the Waster, and the woman who is not--nice! Left to our own devices, by this very worthy, commonplace crowd? That's good! Thank heaven for that. I think we can contrive to have a fairly agreeable time. Prom my own point of view it's a gain, but you are young, and it's your first voyage. You may regret the crowd."

Katrine considered. Certainly the voyage so far had been strikingly different from her expectations on embarking. In imagination she had seen herself the centre of merry parties on deck, dancing beneath the awnings, competing in deck sports, forming friendships with young people of her own age, but there were few young people on board, and so far there had been no dancing. The men played cricket on the sunny side of the deck, leaving the more shady regions for the loungers who did nothing; quoits and bean bags had each their votaries, but a single refusal, prompted by shyness rather than disinclination, had shut her out from their ranks, and henceforth she had been left severely alone, labelled undesirable, and mentally coupled with two of the most unpopular people on board. It had been a disappointment. Always when looking forward to a visit to India, the voyage had loomed large as one of the most exciting portions of the whole, but the first days at sea had been far from exciting. Suppose that Captain Bedford had _not_ come on board, that she had been left to the tender mercies of Vernon Keith and Mrs Mannering, knowing full well that even while they talked with her, the one was longing for the smoke-room, and the other for bridge, and spicy recollections--how long, how drearily long would have seemed the days which were yet to come! If Bedford had _not_ come on board; but he had come; he was even now sitting at her feet, scanning her face with intent eyes. In his presence disappointment became a problematical thing; she knew herself to be abundantly content.

"I am quite happy," she said simply. "I have plenty of gaiety ahead, and I can understand that you want to be quiet. It must have been-- hard, to be so ill, and to have been constantly thrown back as you were.

Feverish attacks are so exhausting."

An indefinite murmur was the only response. Katrine noted a sudden stiffening of the lines of the figure: he ceased to swing to and fro, and sat grave, almost stern, avoiding her glance.

"Miss Beverley," he said suddenly. "May I ask you a favour? I am grateful for your sympathy, but the subject is painful.--I had rather avoid it. For the moment I am well, as you see--will you humour me by forgetting anything else? It's a holiday time, you know. A few days stolen out of the year in which to laze, and be happy, and--drift!

Can't we leave it at that?"

"Of course. Of course. I'm sorry!" cried Katrine eagerly. Her eyes were soft with tenderness and remorse, for this man's malady was of no ordinary type. She knew him to have been threatened by a fate a hundred times worse than death, and reproached herself for having touched so sore a wound. She nodded a glad agreement.

"Yes! we will. We will just take up our friendship from _now_, and be like children living in the hour. _I've_ had a bad time, too, and for the first time for years I'm free from responsibility. It's a heady feeling, and I feel capable of being as frivolous as you please.

Forward be our watchword!"

"Right oh!" he called cheerily, and stretching himself stumbled to his feet. "Then let's go for a walk! One gets cramped sitting cooped in here, and there are," he lowered his voice, "so many ears! That looks like a Bedouin camp over there! You are missing all the sights... Come and look..."

Katrine followed eagerly to the prow of the vessel, and beheld a small ferry-boat crossing the ca.n.a.l, laden with a load of vague moving shapes, which on closer investigation proved to be donkeys. On the sh.o.r.e a number of camels were already lying, their fore-legs tied together. As the vessel approached a donkey was pushed from the boat into the water, it went down head first, and emerged a limp and sorry object, which was nevertheless unwilling to go ash.o.r.e, and struggled feebly to rejoin its companions in the boat. Next moment there was consternation on board the ferry, for the wash of the great steamboat made it rock until men and donkeys had much ado to retain their places. One turbaned figure curled up suddenly at the bottom of the boat with a donkey seated on its lap; the onlookers caught the roll of dark round eyes as the ship sped past. Even in that undignified att.i.tude there was an air of composure about the figure, of placid acceptance of fate, while his companion cast never a glance at the towering ship with the throng of white faces leaning over the rail. To the travellers they themselves might be an unusual sight, but to the Easterners this pa.s.sing to and fro was an ordinary event, of infinitely less importance than the landing of donkeys!

Suez was an agreeable surprise, with its square white houses cl.u.s.tered among palm trees, the mountain in the background showing rosy red in the sunshine. The vessel came to rest in the roads, and the pa.s.sengers who were new to the scene welcomed the arrival of a raft of small boats with their various objects for sale. Bedford pointed out the crates of fresh vegetables for consumption on the voyage, which had come by train from the valley of the Nile, but Katrine had no interest to spare for such mundane articles. Her eyes had caught the gleam of sh.e.l.l and coral, and her eager gesture pointed her out as a probable prey.

"It's no use saying they are rubbish. I _like_ rubbish!" she declared, brushing aside Bedford's protest, and nodding her head eagerly in reply to an outstretched hand. "I have some money in my pocket, and I'm pining to spend it. I've lived all my life in an English village, remember, and finery goes to my head. Coral suits me, too. Do make him come!"

"Don't worry. He'll come fast enough. Do you think you could manage to stand still, and not--prance? He has doubled his prices already, and every additional prance will send them flying still higher. In pity to other buyers--"

"Prance? Who's prancing?" Katrine turned an indignant face, but suddenly discovering herself perched on the tops of her toes, abandoned the attempt at dignity, and laughed instead. "Don't preach! This is my holiday. I'm not accustomed to negroes walking up ropes with trays of mysterious gems.--I shall be as excited as ever I please!"

Meantime one of the negroes manning the small craft was deftly making his way towards the main deck. The rope grasped firmly between his great toe and the next, he walked up the halyards bearing the tray of gewgaws with an easy balance, the while the Arab trader leaned his weight on the edge of the boat nearest the ship, making it keel over until the climber could step on board. So swiftly, nimbly, and smilingly, was the feat accomplished that the onlookers had hardly time to realise the wonder of it, before the glittering trays were pushed forward, and, while the hardened traveller shook his head and made off in opposite directions, novices to the East gathered thick as flies round a honey pot.

Katrine fell in love with half a dozen baubles, but her companion noted that they were among the least costly on the tray, pretty, inexpensive bits of colour, such as would satisfy a girl in her teens; the more costly she fingered admiringly, but laid aside with the trained resignation of years. Only one article seemed to exercise a definite temptation, a dainty model of a banjo, in ivory and tortoise-sh.e.l.l, to which her fingers returned once and again.

Bedford watching her smiled over the by-play, convinced that temptation would override prudence, but he discovered his mistake when, with a final sigh, she thrust the dainty morsel aside, and gathering together a few trifles took out her purse to settle the account.

"You are not going to have the banjo then?" he enquired, and she shrugged her shoulders in reply.

"No. It's absolutely useless, and unnecessary. That's why I want it, but it can't be done. These little brooches and chains will do to send home to girl friends, and the coral is for myself. I can't afford any more."

Bedford lifted the tortoise-sh.e.l.l, and turned it over daintily with his long, brown fingers.

"But it is good: well made? You consider it worth having?"

"I like it, yes! It's so pretty. I don't know if it is too expensive..."

"I was not thinking about the price." He fixing a gold piece on the tray, and for a moment Katrine held her breath. Was he about to offer her a gift of an article which she had confessed herself unable to buy?

She shrank from the disillusionment which the action would bring, but Bedford slid the tortoise-sh.e.l.l into a capacious pocket, without so much as a glance in her direction. Evidently the purchase had been made without any thought of herself. Katrine drew a sigh of relief, and than incontinently sighed again. Of whom _was_ he thinking? Single men in barracks did not indulge in such trifles for themselves, and Bedford's interest in this special trifle had been of the most detached order.

Obviously he had questioned her to find out the feminine point of view, so as to decide whether the offering were worthy of its future recipient! "Whom could it be? I'll ask Dorothea!" Katrine decided, and dismissed the matter from her mind. But it returned; a dozen times that day she found herself speculating on the personality of the fair unknown, on the exact relationship which existed between her and her own escort. They could not be definitely engaged, or some of the Indian letters would have mentioned the fact. Perhaps his health had prevented him from speaking... Perhaps now that he was stronger... She tried to recall all she had heard concerning the few girls in the station. And of course there were the married women! Bedford might wish to take back remembrances to some woman who had shown him hospitality--to Dorothea herself, for example. Katrine mentally insisted on this point, but in her heart she did not believe it. There was something in the manner in which Bedford had thrown down that coin, in the silence in which he had pocketed his purchase, which to her feminine sensibilities betrayed a deeper interest.

"I will ask Dorothea!" Katrine decided once more, but before an hour was over curiosity had mastered her, and she was questioning Bedford about every woman in the station. The result was as illuminating as such enquiries usually are, and no more so, for Bedford had a good word to say of each. When she had exhausted her list of questions, Katrine sat silent, staring before her, her face grave and set. Bedford looked at her askance, and his eyes danced, but all traces of amus.e.m.e.nt were carefully banished from his voice.

"You look very serious. What are you thinking about so deeply?"

"I was thinking of what you have said. I had no idea, from my letters, that you had so many--girls in the station! That will be very nice."

"I'm glad you are pleased," he said suavely, and Katrine incontinently blushed.

That night she lay awake once more, struggling with a depression which she a.s.sured herself was well grounded. If there were already several agreeable and fascinating girls in the station, her own arrival could not be of such moment as she had expected. Dorothea would have other friends; Bedford had apparently one in special. They would not need her, but--Jim would! Jim had declared himself to be impervious to the claims of every other woman. Poor Jim! Katrine checked herself angrily. Why _poor_? This was the first time she had applied the derogatory epithet to her unknown lover. She made haste to atone for the slip by an unusual endearment. "_Dear_ Jim!" She repeated to herself, "_Dear_ Jim!" and with a rush of loyalty and grat.i.tude her heart opened to the memory of her unknown lover's tenderness and understanding.

"Nothing can matter to me while I have Jim!" she told herself thankfully, and fell asleep holding fast to the thought.

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

Katrine's efforts to bring Bedford and Keith together seemed doomed to failure. She managed the introduction indeed, but the attempts at conversation which followed were not promising for future relationships, and for the rest of the day the two men avoided each other sedulously.

It was duty, pure and simple, which made Katrine waylay Keith after dinner, and appear to take it for granted that he would give her his society for the customary half-hour's promenade round the deck, when in reality her only longing was to escape, and enjoy a continuation of her talk with the newer friend. Keith was in a black mood also; grim, unsmiling. His haggard eyes surveyed her with a scrutiny that was the reverse of friendly.

"Still busy at your Reform Bill, I see! I had no idea you could be so persistent!"

"Don't be nasty!"