Captain Desmond, V.C. Part 68

"Well, Theo, since you've touched on the subject, I'd as soon you knew the truth. I--spoke to Honor last March, while you were away; and--she refused."

"Refused--_you?_"

In that flash of amazement and sympathy with his friend's pain, Desmond escaped, if only for a moment, from the tyranny of his own tormented soul. His gaze travelled back to the hills.

"I'd have given her credit for more perception," he said quietly; and Paul, regarding him with a whimsical tenderness: "Has love anything to do with that sort of thing?"

"No--no. I'm a blatant fool. But still--a man like you----!" He broke off short, and there was a moment of strained silence. But the real Desmond was awake at last, and he forced himself to add: "Women change sometimes--once they know. Have you never been tempted to try again?"

"No; and never shall be, for a very good reason. There's some one in the way--some other man----"

Desmond drew in his breath sharply.

"Good Lord!" he muttered in a low dazed voice, as if thinking aloud.

"But where the deuce _is_ he? Why hasn't he come forward? He must be a rotten sort of chap----"

Paul caressed his moustache to hide a smile. "Not necessarily Theo. I gather, from what she said that--there were difficulties----"

"Difficulties--?" Again he broke off, stunned by the coincidence, yet incapable of suspecting the truth. Then, pulling himself together, his spoke in his natural voice: "Well, anyway, Paul, _you'd_ better accept Sir John's invitation, since you can still manage to be friends with her in spite of that infernal chap in the background."

This time Paul smiled outright; but Desmond saw nothing. His chin sunk in his hand, he sat still as a rock, raging inwardly--as he had not raged for a full year--at thought of that same "infernal chap" whose difficulties might not be permanent; who might even now----

Suddenly he became aware that Paul was answering his last remark.

"Yes, Theo, I can just manage it," he was saying in a voice of grave tenderness. "It has not been easy; but the truth is that--when it came to the wrench--I hadn't the courage to let her go quite out of my life."

"You had not the _courage_!" Desmond flashed round on him, a gleam of the old fire in his eyes. "It's like you to put it that way, Paul. The real truth is that you had the courage to put mere pa.s.sion under your feet. _I_ should feel rather, in such a case, that she _must_ go quite out of my life. There's the root difference between us. I should not have the courage to accept friendship when I wanted--the other thing.

But we're not discussing my affairs--" He dismissed himself with a gesture. "The point is, you'll go to Mavins and make my excuses to Sir John."

"Yes, if you really wish it, I'll go alone, a little later on.

Only--you must furnish me with something valid in the way of excuse.

You know, as well as I do, that _you_ are first favourite with the old man. But I take it for granted you have some good reason at the back of your mind----"

"You're right there. I have--the strongest reason on earth." He paused and set his teeth, bracing himself to the final effort of confession.

"What's more--I unintentionally stated it a minute ago, in plain terms." He faced Wyndham squarely now and a dull flush mounted to his temples. "Since the ice is broken at last, there can be nothing less than absolute truth between us," he said simply; and there was no more need for the clumsy machinery of speech.

Paul's eyes, that neither judged nor questioned, rested on his friend like a benediction. In that moment he had his reward for months of silent service, of patience strained almost to breaking point, of anxiety that bordered on despair.

Minute after minute they sat silent, while the splendour in the west blazed and spread till it challenged the oncoming shadow in the north; and the near hills grown magically ethereal, stood in a shimmer of gold, like hills of dream.

Then Desmond spoke again very quietly, without looking round.

"Now perhaps you better understand--this last year?"

"Yes, Theo, I do understand," Paul answered in the same tone, and Desmond let out a great breath.

"G.o.d! The relief it is to feel square with you again!"

III.

In a third-floor sitting-room, facing east, breakfast was laid for two. Every item of the meal bespoke furnished apartments; and even the May sunshine, flooding the place, failed to beautify the shabby carpet and furniture, the inevitable oleographs and the family groups that shared the mantelpiece with pipes, pouches, and a tin of tobacco. A hanging bookcase held some military books, a couple of novels, and a volume of Browning--the property of Paul. After Bellagio--Piccadilly; and their year abroad constrained them to economy at home.

Theo Desmond sauntering in, scanned every detail with fastidious distaste. To-day, for the first time, a great longing possessed him for the airy ramshackle bungalows of the Frontier he loved, for the trumpet-call to "stables," for a sight of his squadron and the feel of a saddle between his knees.

His wandering gaze lighted on a letter near Paul's place. The address was in Honor's handwriting. He stood a moment regarding it, then turned sharply away and went over to the window. There he remained, seemingly absorbed in the varied traffic of Piccadilly, actually consumed by such jealousy as he had never suffered while he imagined that her heart was given to his friend.

For Paul's sake he could and would endure all things; but this detestable unknown who had won her and could not claim her was quite another affair. There could be no thought of standing aside on his account. It was simply a question of Honor herself. She was not the woman lightly to withdraw her love, once given. And yet--in a year--who could tell? Love, like the spirit, bloweth where it listeth; and Paul's failure did not of necessity predicate his own. For all her sudden bewildering reserves, she had drawn very near to him in those last terrible weeks at Kohat; and now--now--if he could believe there was the veriest ghost of a chance--!

The mere possibility set heart and blood in a tumult; a tumult checked ruthlessly by the thought that if Honor Meredith was not the woman to change lightly, still less was she the woman to approach with that confession which, at all hazards, he was bound to make. Speaking of it to Paul had cost him such an effort as he ached to remember. Speaking of it to her seemed a thing inconceivable. And yet--in that case--what hope of escape from this unholy tangle, from this fury of jealousy that had stabbed his manhood broad awake at last?

In Italy he fondly believed that he had fought his fight and conquered. Yet now, behold, it was all to do over again!

"Theo, my dear chap, there _is_ such a thing as breakfast!" Paul's voice brought him back to earth with a thud. "Will you have a congealed rasher or a tepid egg--or both?"

"Neither, confound you!" Desmond answered, swinging round with an abrupt laugh and strolling back to the table.

Inevitably he glanced at the perturbing envelope, open now and propped against the milk-jug, and as inevitably Paul answered his look.

"Honor is in town for a few days," he said, putting the letter near Theo's plate, "staying with Lady Meredith's sister. She hopes I can go in and see her this morning. She seems under the impression that you are too busy, just now, to be included in any invitation."

Desmond b.u.t.tered a leathery triangle of toast with elaborate precision. "You may as well encourage that notion, old chap. It simplifies things. You're going yourself, I suppose?"

"Yes."

"Lucky devil!"

He scowled at the envelope by his plate and tacitly dismissed the subject by an excursion into the _Morning Post_.

They talked politics and theatres till the unappetising meal was ended and Paul pocketed his treasure with a sigh. It was the first time Theo had ignored one of her letters; and the simple-hearted fellow--quite unaware that his mention of the other man had been a master-stroke of policy--felt almost at his wits' end. Standing by the mantelpiece mechanically filling his pipe, he watched Desmond set out his books and papers on the table near the window, intent on a morning of abnormal industry; and the pathos of it all caught at his heart. For the first time in his controlled and ordered life he felt impelled to carry a situation by storm--the result possibly of playing Providence to Theo for the s.p.a.ce of a year.

But Theo plus a woman, loving and beloved, whom he obstinately refused to meet, was a problem demanding far more of diplomacy, of intimate human experience than Paul Wyndham had been blest withal. The one obvious service required of him was easier to recognise than to achieve. By some means these two must be brought together in spite of themselves; but for all his forty years he was pathetically at a loss to know how the deuce one contrived that sort of thing. It was a woman's job. Mrs Olliver, now, could have fixed it all up in a twinkling; while he--poor clumsy fool!--could only sit there smoking and racking his brain, while his eyes perfunctorily scanned the columns of the _Morning Post_.

The doings of the world and the misdoings of those in power, earthquakes, shipwrecks, and rumours of wars--all these were as nothing to him compared with the insignificant tangle of one man and one woman among the whole seething, suffering throng. But concern brought him no nearer to the unravelling of their tangle; and when the time came to go he could think of nothing better than a direct appeal to his friend.

Desmond still sat at the table, head in hand, absorbed in the intricacies of military tactics.

Paul rose and went over to him. "I'm going now, old chap." The matter of fact statement was made with indescribable gentleness. "I'll be back in an hour or so. Wish to goodness you were coming too."

"d.a.m.ned if you can wish it more than I do," Desmond answered without looking up.

"Well then--come. Is it really--so impossible as you think?"

Desmond nodded decisively. "Can't you see it for yourself, man? Even if she _was_ quit of that other confounded fellow, how could I face telling her--the truth?"

For a moment Paul was silenced; not because he found the question unanswerable, but because of that hidden knowledge which he might not disclose, even to save his friend.

"My dear Theo," he said at last, "I know--and you know--that, sooner than lose her, you could go through any kind of fire. Besides, I have an idea she would understand----"