The Great Amulet Part 40

There was also little Mrs Peters, the only other wife in the station; a square, shapeless cushion of a woman, who would rush in for a breathless half-hour to pour tales of native cunning, and Eurasian apathy into Desmond's sympathetic ears. Being both plump and energetic, she suffered cruelly in the heat; mopped her face without shame between her sentences; and, according to Frank Olliver, lived chiefly on lime-squash, and a limitless admiration for her missionary husband,--a large, ungainly man, with the manners of a shy schoolboy, and the wrapt gaze of a seer; a man who, in an age of fanaticism, would have walked smiling to the rack. As it was, he walked with no less equanimity through the pestilential mazes of the city and bazaar. For although in this age of tolerance run to seed, a man is not called upon to die for his beliefs, he is occasionally called upon to live for them; which is not necessarily the easier of the two. But up to his lights Henry Peters achieved it. At all possible and impossible hours, his unwieldy white umbrella, pith hat, and badly-cut drill suit pervaded the dwellings of his scattered converts; while his wife, torn between pride in him and mortal dread of infection, grieved in secret over inadequate meals s.n.a.t.c.hed at odd hours; and supplemented tremulous prayers for his safety with lumps of camphor, screwed up in paper, and slipped surrept.i.tiously into the pockets of his coats.

Once or twice she dragged him in triumph to the Desmonds,--a reluctant dishevelled hero,--and 'showed him off' to that little company of well-groomed, kindly-natured soldiers, with a nave simplicity that went to Honor's heart.

"Why is it that some of us have a special licence to be so exquisitely natural?" she wondered, as she stood beside the tea-table, dispensing iced coffee, and surveying, with satisfaction, a room full of tobacco-smoke and contented men. "That's just how I feel tempted to 'show off' Theo, sometimes. And wouldn't the dear man crush me to powder if I tried!"

She glanced approvingly at him where he sat astride on a reversed chair, in dusty polo kit, reporting progress of the great 'fly campaign' to Wyndham, who had been newly promoted to a deck-lounge in the drawing-room at tea-time.

It was a larger gathering than usual; and, in spite of the fact that for three days the thermometer had recorded a hundred and twenty in the shade, spirits ran high. The subalterns--for whose exuberant fooling Honor had a very tender tolerance--had 'chorussed' themselves hoa.r.s.e and thirsty; and were receiving the reward of the public-spirited out of long misty tumblers, that fizzed and bubbled. Peters had forgotten his shyness in a discussion with Norton on the vexed question of cholera infection, and the probable futility of quarantine; while Mrs Peters, listening anxiously, made inconsequent darts into the argument, to her husband's obvious discomfiture, and Norton's equally obvious amus.e.m.e.nt.

A group of men near Honor were talking of England, tormenting themselves gratuitously by bare imagination of a feast. Captain Unwin of the Sikhs was casually unfolding a plan to elude superfluous creditors, and spend next summer 'at home.' His debts were phenomenal; and it was six years since he had sighted the funnel of a steamer. He expatiated yearningly on prospective delights. Cup Day at Ascot; a July evening on the upper reaches of the Thames; a punt in a backwater; a pipe and a cushion; just enough breeze to stir the willows; and, with any luck, a pretty woman in the bows.

"Just a shade better than a sandbank on the Indus, eh?" he wound up with a chuckle of enjoyment. "And I'll pull it through this time or perish in the attempt! Lord . . . think of jingling down Piccadilly in a hansom once again . . ."

"To dinner at the Savoy," suggested a thick-set Major on a note of relish. "Devilish good one they gave me there three years ago. Night before I sailed."

Sympathetic murmurs encouraged him to enlarge on the cherished memory!

but before he had reached the _entree_--an elaborate item--Honor was out of hearing; having crossed the room to where Lenox sat balancing a coffee-cup on one knee, watching the faces round him with keen, kindly eyes, and taking little active part in the proceedings. He still wore his arm in a sling; and his teeth held the inevitable pipe, filled from a tin of tobacco that Desmond had induced him to accept on the night of their talk. Only three times in the past week had he succ.u.mbed to the forbidden mixture. But the glow of satisfaction, which those who have never resisted unto blood, complacently couple with self-conquest, was denied him. Restlessness, lack of sleep, constant recurrence of the concussion headache,--these had been his reward; with the result that a rising temperature had forced him to put his name on the 'sick-list'

and take a few days off duty. But at Honor's approach his whole face lit up. The intimacy of everyday life had drawn them very near to each other; for Honor had all the magnetism of a woman made for tenderness; a magnetism few men can resist, and few women condone.

"You look so tired, and aloof from it all," she said gently. "I'm afraid the boys' nonsense and noisiness worries your head."

"Not a bit of it. It's good to see them enjoying themselves. You're a public benefactor, Mrs Desmond."

She laughed, and blushed.

"Nonsense. It's only so nice of them to come, when one can do so little to amuse them. Do have some more coffee."

"Thanks. It's capital stuff. d.i.c.k's very late," he added anxiously.

"I'm wondering what's come to him."

He rose, and followed her to the tea-table, where Bobby Nixon saluted with his most expansive smile; and announced that O'Flanagan, reinforced by refreshment, was once more 'willing to oblige.'

An a.s.surance that the rest were unanimously willing to listen brought the Irishman to his feet, banjo in hand; a lank, clean-shaven individual, who secreted a well-spring of humour beneath the tragi-comic solemnity of the born-low comedian. He was greeted with cries of "Fire away, old Flannel Jacket!" "Phil the Fluter's Ball!"

"An' give ut in shtyle!" He gave it in style accordingly, and in a brogue as broad as his own shoulders; the whole room spontaneously taking up the chorus.

"Wid the toot of the flute, an' the twiddle of the fiddle, Dancin' in the middle, like a herring on a griddle!

Up an' down, hands come round, cross into the wall-- Faith, hadn't we the gaietee . . ."

But at this point the door opened to admit Max Richardson. He was still in uniform; and there was that in his face which checked their hilarity, and made O'Flanagan instantly put down his banjo.

Honor went quickly towards him, holding out her hand.

"What is it?" she asked in a low tone.

"It's young Hodson. He died . . . half an hour ago."

"Not cholera?"

d.i.c.k nodded.

An inarticulate murmur went round the room; and for several seconds no one spoke. The first white man down seemed to bring the enemy within striking distance of each one of them.

Then Lenox came forward. "You'll excuse us, Mrs Desmond?" he said quietly. And the two men went out, leaving a strangely silent room behind them.

They pa.s.sed through the hall into the dining-room before Lenox took the pipe from his lips, and spoke.

"Bad business," he remarked laconically. "And, G.o.d forgive me, when he 'went sick' this morning I half thought he was malingering. Poor chap . . . he's quit of the Frontier sooner than he thought for, without any help from me. You were with him, I suppose, . . . at the last?"

"Yes; for the best part of two hours," d.i.c.k answered, absently helping himself to a cheroot. "Never saw a man take it harder. No getting him to make a fight for it. Kept on begging me to tell him if this show was fellow's only chance; and . . . I couldn't."

Lenox looked intently at his friend.

"That so?"

The other nodded; and there was a short silence. Richardson took up a photograph of old Sir John Meredith, and examined it with critical interest.

"You might have sent for Peters," Lenox said at length,

"No earthly use. He swore like a trooper when I suggested it; and I can't blame him. Professional plat.i.tudes are not the style of physic to ease a man when he's suffering h.e.l.l's own torments in his mind and body." He set down the picture abruptly, and swung round on his heel.

"I'll be going on now, for a tub, and a change of clothing. Idiotic of me, no doubt; but I feel a bit off colour after all that. How about the funeral? To-night?"

"No. First thing to-morrow. I'll arrange it with Peters before he leaves; and get Courtenay to let me off the sick-list, if I can." Then grasping the younger man's shoulder with rough kindliness, he added: "Good old d.i.c.k. Pull yourself together, and come back here for dinner.

It may be my turn . . . or yours, before we're through. And if it is . . . we don't go out like snuffed candles, remember. You may take my word for it."

"Hope to G.o.d you're right," the other answered between his teeth, and was gone.

Next morning, in a flaming dawn, all that remained of Tom Hodson was consigned, with military honours, to the dust of that Frontier he had grown to hate, because it demands so much of a man, and offers so little in return; and every house within earshot of the cemetery vibrated to the three parting volleys fired over the open grave.

Lenox was present at the service; and at the gun practice that followed shortly after it. Thirty grains of phenacetin and several forbidden pipes, had ensured him six hours' sleep, and a cooler skin; with the result that he had successfully induced an amused medical officer to report him 'fit for duty.' But Nature is relentless; and Lenox, driving back from 'orderly room' through a white-hot glare, and a haze of pungent dust, found himself speculating vaguely--as though the question concerned some unknown ent.i.ty in another world--how he was going to drag a protesting body and brain through the rest of the day's work.

"Got to be done somehow, though. That's flat," was his final verdict as he pa.s.sed into the twilight of the hall.

Every door in the house was shut against the furnace without; had been shut since seven of the morning; and would so remain till after sunset.

Yet, the mercury hovered between ninety-seven and a hundred all day, and most of the night. In India the thermometer supersedes the barometer; and in the hot weather it becomes an obsession. There is always a mild satisfaction in knowing exactly what one has endured.

Desmond was not yet back, and the study was empty; a friendly-looking room, its simple haphazard furniture unified by the rich colour harmonies of Indian carpets and curtains; while a liberal supply of books, unusual for the country, proclaimed it the room of a soldier who found time for study and thought.

Too weary to get out of uniform, Lenox laid aside his helmet and accoutrements; shouted to the punkah coolie, sleeping in the verandah, chin on chest; sorted his geographical papers, and sat down to the table. Then he took out his pipe, eyed it thoughtfully, and flung it aside with a curse. Each relapse resulted in a renewed access of self-distrust; and this morning the cloud upon his spirit fell heavier than ever, because he foresaw that if the work ahead of him were to be pulled through, in the teeth of the grinding headaches consequent on his fall, last night's programme must be repeated, not once, but many times, And at that rate, what was to be the end of it? The degradation of submitting to the drug itself? A thousand times, no. The soldier in him sprang to arms at the mere suggestion. Like all men capable of greatness, he believed, not in the mastery of circ.u.mstance, but in the mastery of will. Yet, unhappily, the will, like all spiritual forces, is ignominiously dependent on bodily conditions. Pain, sheer pitiless pain, will have its way with the bravest of us.

The man was ill without realising it. The nerves in his head throbbed to a devil's hornpipe of their own, and mental effort was beyond him.

In vain he contracted his heavy brows, and tried to gather up the threads of the chapter he had been working at. Black depression overpowered him, obliterating rational thought. The morning's service haunted him with unnatural persistence, and the half-hour he had spent with d.i.c.k in the dead boy's bungalow, looking through his papers--a chaos of bills, mostly unpaid; racing notes; old programmes; and half a dozen envelopes addressed in a girl's unformed hand. On the open blotter, an unfinished letter to a friend in Simla had announced his hope of a speedy exchange down country! his determination not to spend another hot weather 'on this G.o.d-forsaken Frontier . . .'

"Poor misguided chap," Lenox mused, not without a tinge of his old contempt. "Now if only _I_ could have gone in his place, it would have simplified matters all round."

But he thrust away the thought as morbid and cowardly; and by way of curative drew Quita's last letter out of his breast-pocket. The fact of her love for him still remained a miracle incompletely realised; and she had been right in her belief that he had yet to discover its intensity and depth.

The great noontide silence had already fallen upon house and compound.