Banked Fires Part 34

When Joyce made her final plea to be sent home to her people without waiting for the spring, it met with little opposition. Meredith had come to the point of almost welcoming a break in the impossible deadlock at which his domestic life had arrived. His beloved one's nerves had broken down from one cause and another, and she was drifting into the habits of a confirmed invalid. If he did not let her go, he would, perhaps, have to stand aside and watch her increasing intimacy with the doctor whom he could not challenge without creating a disgusting scandal; which would make life in Bengal intolerable for himself as well as for her. So he agreed to her departure with the child in the hope that "absence would make her heart grow fonder," and that she would come back to him, restored, when the cold season returned and made life in India not only tolerable, but pleasant.

Hurried arrangements were put through, a pa.s.sage secured, and Joyce roused herself to bid her friends a formal farewell.

At the Brights', only Honor was at home, her mother having driven to the bazaar for muslin to make new curtains. Christmas was approaching and a general "spring cleaning" was in full swing in order that everything should look fresh for the season.

"It is the greatest day in the year, and even the natives expect us to honour it. Our festival, you know," Honor explained.

"It always looks so odd to have to celebrate Christmas with a warm sun shining and all the trees in full leaf!" said Joyce. "That is why it never feels Christmas to me. I miss the home aspect,--frost and snow, and landscapes bleak and bare."

"The advantage lies with us. We can calculate on the weather with confidence, and it is so much more comfortable to feel warm. And then everything looks so bright!"

"I am glad you like it since you have to stay. I hate India more than ever."

Honor looked earnestly at her, and wonderingly. "Isn't it rather a wrench to you to leave your husband?" Joyce had grown so apathetic and cold.

For answer her friend broke down completely, and wept as though her heart would break. "We seem to be drifting apart. Oh, Honey, I love him so!"

"Then why go?"

"I must. I want to think things over and recover by myself. I am trying to forget all about that night in the ruins, and hoping for time to put things to rights. Perhaps I shall return quite soon. Perhaps, if the doctor is transferred, I shall find courage to write and tell Ray all about _it_. I am all nerves, sometimes I believe I am ill, for I can't sleep well and have all sorts of horrid dreams about cholera, and snakes, and Baby dying of convulsions! So, you see, a change is what I most need; and I am so homesick for Mother and Kitty! I cry at a word. I start at every sound, and if Baby should fall ill, it would be the last straw."

"But what is to happen when you are away, if, while you are here you feel you are drifting apart?"

"When I am away, he will forget my silly ways and remember only that I am his wife and how much he loves me. He _does_ love me, nothing can alter that; but lately I have held aloof from him for reasons I have explained to you, and he is hurt. You may not understand how desperately mean I feel, and how unfit to kiss him and receive his kisses after what has happened. For the life of me I could not keep it up without telling him all. And how could I, when Captain Dalton is convalescent and my husband will have to meet him when he is able to get about again?

Already he is talking of going round to chat with him. You see, he does not know!"

Honor was deeply perplexed. "Of course, you must do as you please, but in your place, I would tell him everything, and as he knows how dearly you love him, and only him, he will, I am certain, give up all desire for revenge. At a push, he might ask for a transfer."

Joyce shuddered. "I'd rather leave things to time. Later on, I can tell him all about it, and, perhaps, by then, Captain Dalton will have been transferred. Don't you love me, Honey?"

"Of course I love you."

Joyce flung her arms round Honor's neck and kissed her warmly. "You were looking so cold and disapproving! Take care of Ray for me, will you? and write often to me about him. I shall miss him terribly," and she sobbed unrestrainedly.

When Meredith saw her safely to Bombay, preparatory to her embarkation, he allowed himself to show something of the grief he felt at having to give up for an indefinite time what he most valued on earth. In the seclusion of their room at the hotel, he held her close in his arms and devoured her flower-like face with eyes of hungry pa.s.sion.

"So, not content with holding yourself aloof from me, you are leaving me to shift for myself, the best way I can!" he said grimly.

Joyce's lips quivered piteously and she hid her face in his shirt-front.

"Has it never occurred to you," he said, "that a man parted too long from his wife, might get used to doing without her altogether?"

Two arms clung closer in protest. "But never you!" she replied with confidence.

"Even I," he said cruelly. He wanted to hurt her since she had walked over him, metaphorically, with hobnailed boots. "India is a land of many temptations."

"But you love me!"

"G.o.d knows I do. But I am only a very ordinary human man whose wife prefers to live away from him in a distant land."

"Ray, you are saying that only to be cruel!"

"Because I am beginning to think you have no very real love for me."

"I love you, and no one else!"

"I have seen very little evidence of love, as I understand it. A great many things count with you above me. The child comes first! G.o.d knows that I have idolised you. Perhaps this is my punishment! but I worshipped you, and today you are deliberately straining the cord that binds us together. The strands will presently be so weak that they will snap altogether. Then all the splicing afterwards will never restore it to its original strength. It will be a patched-up thing--its perfection gone. Remember, a big breach between husband and wife may be mended--but never again is there restored what has been lost!" He lifted her chin and kissed her cold lips roughly. "When do you mean to return? Can't you suggest an idea of the time?"

"Whenever you can get leave to fetch me," she answered with sobbing breath.

"I swear to G.o.d I will not do so!" he broke out. "You may stay as long as you choose. I shall then understand how much I count with you. I refuse to drag back an unwilling wife."

"Oh, Ray! Don't talk like that! Won't you believe that I love you?"

"I would sell my soul to believe it ... to bank all my faith on it!"

"It is true!"

"Prove it now."

"How can I?"

"Let me cancel the pa.s.sage, and come back with me."

Her face fell. "I could not do that after all the arrangements have been made. Mother will be so disappointed--besides, people will think me mad!"

Meredith released her and turned away, a fury of jealousy at his heart.

"Ever since that night at the ruins you have become a changed being. I tried not to think so, but, by G.o.d! you have forced me to. One might almost imagine you are running away from Captain Dalton. Is there anything between you?" he asked coming back to face her, white and shaken.

Joyce burst into tears. "I don't understand what you are accusing me of!" she sobbed, panic-stricken.

"Are you in love with that man?"

This was something tangible and Joyce was roused to an outburst of honest indignation. "No!--no! A thousand times, no! How dare you think so! How dare you imply I am lying? I have said I love you, but I shall hate you if you hurt me so!"

Meredith's face lightened as he swung about the room. "It all comes back to the same thing in the end. It is good-bye, maybe, for years!"

Early the next morning, he saw his wife on board with the child and ayah, and then returned to his duties at Muktiarbad, a lonely and heavy-hearted man.

Captain Dalton recovered, was granted sick leave by the Government, and disappeared from the District for a sea trip to Ceylon.

Tommy mentioned the fact to Honor having just learned it from him on the platform of the railway station where he was awaiting the Calcutta express, surrounded with baggage and with servants in attendance. He was looking like a ghost and was in the vilest of tempers; not even having the grace to shake hands on saying good-bye!

Honor turned aside that the boy might not see the disappointment in her face. Her heart was wrung with pain. Not once had Captain Dalton made an effort to see her.

Her father had smoked a cigar with the invalid one evening when he was allowed to sit up on a lounge in his own sitting-room, and had been asked to convey thanks and grat.i.tude to Mrs. Bright for her many kindnesses to the patient in his illness; but there had been no reference to "Miss Bright"; nor did he give any sign that he remembered what had pa.s.sed between them at his bedside, the one and only time that he had seemed to recognise her and had spoken unforgettable words.