The Path to Honour Part 27

"You think only of Sher Singh!" cried Honour hotly. "I think of poor Charley murdered, without a finger raised to save him. I want Sher Singh punished--do you hear?" with a stamp of her foot--"and I hope Mr Charteris will do it, and not care what orders you send him!"

Sir Edmund had been looking at her as though she were a pigmy viewed from a mountain-top, so she told herself indignantly, but now his eyes flashed, and a tinge of colour crept into his sallow, haggard face.

"If, as I understand, you have some influence with Mr Charteris, I would advise you, for his sake, not to make him acquainted with your views, Miss Cinnamond," he said coldly. "The natural warmth of a young man's const.i.tution is sufficiently powerful to lead him astray, without being raised to fever-heat by the uninstructed interference of sentimental females."

"I shall certainly not attempt to influence Mr Charteris, but I hope to hear that he has acted as I would wish him without that," Honour managed to say before the lump in her throat prevented her speaking.

With her head held very high, she walked away to the end of the verandah, and finding a seat in the shadow of the creepers, hid herself there and wept silently--for Charley Cowper lying unburied outside the walls of Agpur, for Marian, bereaved of love and hope at nineteen, for the child that its father would never see, and a little for Honour Cinnamond, who had intended to do such great things, and was such a failure all round. Sir Edmund forgot her existence, as she knew he would, and walked up and down the verandah with bent head and hands clasped behind his back. Sometimes he trod firmly and even whistled in a meditative way, and then he would pull himself up suddenly and creep backwards and forwards in silence, remembering the task in which his wife was engaged. It was long before Lady Antony came out, with swollen eyes, and called softly to Honour before taking her husband's offered arm.

"I have persuaded your sister to go to bed, and it would be kinder not to disturb her again to-night. Her good old ayah is with her, and I hope she may get some rest."

"But I must go to her!" protested Honour. "She would think it so unkind."

"Better not, dear, I think. In fact, I may say she begged not to be disturbed. I did not tell her, lest something should happen to prevent it, but you will be glad to hear that the runner had orders to lay a double _dak_ for the Lady Memsahib at all the stations as he came, so I hope we shall see your dear mother here some time to-morrow."

The news was inexpressibly welcome, but Honour bade good-night to Lady Antony with distinct resentment. As though Marian would not choose to have her own sister beside her at this time of desolation instead of a servant! For a moment she thought of taking things into her own hands, and bidding the ayah go to bed while she would watch, but peeping into Marian's room she saw her lying exhausted on the bed, a tired sob breaking from her at intervals, while the old Goanese woman rubbed her mistress's feet gently, crooning a soft unintelligible song. She could not be banished, certainly, but at least Honour might share the watch, and presently she made her appearance armed with pillows and a coverlet, intending to lie down on the sofa in her sister's room. Old Anna looked at her warningly as she entered, but Marian heard the rustling of the bedclothes and glanced up sharply.

"Please go to bed properly in your own room, Honour. I want n.o.body but Nanna."

"I will only lie down here, in case you call. I won't say a word,"

said Honour, unmoved by the glitter in her sister's eyes, from which the film of weariness had vanished. Marian raised herself on her elbow.

"I will send Nanna if I want you. Please go." As Honour still hesitated, her voice rose higher. "Go, go! I don't want you here.

You never appreciated my dear Charley."

"Go, missy, go!" entreated the old woman. "Missus not know what she done say." But Honour was too deeply hurt.

"Oh, Marian, how can you say such a thing? Why, if I had not liked him for himself, I should have loved him because he was so fond of you, dear fellow!"

"You said to mamma that he was so very ordinary. I heard you through the _chiks_," persisted Marian, holding her with accusing eyes.

"I didn't mean you to hear. How could I tell you were there? And I learned to know him better afterwards--how good and kind he was."

Honour defended herself desperately.

"It was not my hearing you, but your saying it, that mattered. I could laugh at it at the time, knowing what he really was, but now--I can't bear to have you in the room with me, to-night, at any rate, when you misjudged him so."

"Oh, Marian, how can you be so unkind? If I was in trouble, I would not keep you away."

"You would not be in this kind of trouble. You couldn't be. It isn't in you." Marian hurled her shafts deliberately. "You don't understand what it is to care for any one as I care for Charley, and I believe you never will. You can let two men go on making love to you at once for more than a year, because you can't make up your mind which of them you like best."

"Is that my fault? I don't like either of them in that way."

"No, but you like knowing that they think of you, and care for you, and watch for the least crumb of kindness you are willing to throw them.

When you thought poor Charteris was dead, you luxuriated in misery with that very foolish young Gerrard, who ought to have given you the choice of taking him or leaving him there and then, and when Charteris came back, you snubbed him. And if Gerrard should be killed now, in trying to save my dear Charley, I suppose you and Charteris would mingle your tears over him. No, Charteris has more sense. He won't let himself be treated----"

Honour's eyes were bright. "Oh, do you mean that Mr Gerrard is helping Mr Charteris? Sir Edmund did not mention him."

"They are co-operating, Lady Antony told me--making forced marches in the hot weather, to avenge Charley if they can't save him. But you don't care--or if you do, it's only because you like to think you can be an inspiration to them without giving anything in return. You don't want to marry either of them, but you won't break with them so long as they are willing to dangle about you."

"I don't want to marry either of them, it is true, but if they are willing to be my friends still, why should I break with them, as you call it?"

"Because each of them thinks that you will be willing to marry him one day, and you know it. You are rather proud of their constancy, and your own firmness in not yielding to either of them. But it is not a thing to be proud of; it is a thing to be ashamed of and sorry for.

You could make far more of either of those men by coming down from your pedestal and marrying him in an ordinary everyday way than by standing up above him and giving him good advice. I know you have some delusion that it is better and higher to be as you are, but I tell you that I had rather have married my Charley and known him as he really was and--yes, and even lost him--than stood on high and given good advice to a whole army. Oh, Charley, my dear kind Charley--and I behaved so badly to you when you went away! I never kissed you!"

A fresh paroxysm of tears succeeded the angry words, and Honour yielded to the ayah's whispered entreaties, and left the room. Grief and resentment combined to give her a very disturbed night, and when Lady Cinnamond arrived, tired and travel-stained, about mid-day, after an unbroken journey from Ranjitgarh, she was shocked at her daughter's appearance. But there was no time to think of Honour, for Marian, hearing her mother's voice, had tottered to her door.

"Oh, dear mamma, I have wanted you so much! You understand, you know all about it."

Not until the evening did Honour see her mother again, and then Lady Cinnamond crept out on tiptoe into the verandah.

"Honour, love, I have been so longing to speak to you, but I could not leave poor Marian until she fell asleep. I am very anxious about papa.

He has never been alone in the hot weather before, and he is so terribly imprudent."

"You would like me to go down and take care of him? I shall be delighted, mamma. I find I must be thankful if any one will let me even stay near them."

"Dear little one, you must not think----"

"I do not think, mamma; I know. I know that Marian has begged you to send me away, and said she shall go mad if she sees me about. She said almost as much as that to me last night. I suppose I deserve it somehow, but I really don't see how."

"Onora, dear child, you must not misjudge poor Marian. She has had a fearful blow, and is hardly responsible for what she says. You know that I would never send you away from me. But I see that I must stay here with her for the present, and it makes me so unhappy to leave dear papa----"

"And you do know how I long to be of use to any one, don't you, mamma?

I wanted to comfort Marian, but she would not let me. Oh, mamma, she said such cruel, unjust things. And is it my fault if I can't--if I can't----?"

"No, my love, certainly not. And if you have been--well, not very wise, in what you have done and said, no one who knew you could possibly credit you with any but the best motives. And you will take care of papa, and see that he does not go out in the sun unnecessarily?

I feel that it is very cruel to send you down to Ranjitgarh again in the heat, my precious one."

"What does it signify, mamma? I am sure Marian would be rather pleased if I died. No, I ought not to have said that. I am really glad to have some idea what the hot weather is--even though I shall be in a cool house, with every comfort. They have nothing of that sort, have they--marching in the heat to punish Charley's murderers?"

"Who--those two young men? Oh, my dear child, is it always to be they, and not he?"

"I don't know; how can I tell? Oh, mamma, they are both so good, and they do everything together, and I think it is so splendid of them both to have risked everything like this. If only they were both my brothers!"

"I suppose I should have been too proud with two such sons added to those I have. One of them as a son-in-law would quite satisfy me, if it satisfied you, dearest. But that seems too much to hope for," said Lady Cinnamond despairingly.

But when Honour reached Ranjitgarh, under the escort of Sir Edmund Antony--who fell ill again the day after his arrival, and was promptly ordered back to the hills by his doctors--she found that the general opinion of Charteris's and Gerrard's conduct reflected his verdict rather than hers. Charteris was the head and front of the offending, for Gerrard's self-suppression in placing himself under his orders had had the unlooked-for effect of concentrating attention, and blame, on the man nominally responsible. Charteris had precipitated matters by his hasty action, he was driving Sher Singh to revolt, he would set all Granthistan in a blaze, and incidentally be wiped out himself--in which case he would richly deserve his fate. The confused rumours which came through of the skirmishes preceding the battle near Kardi created an atmosphere highly unfavourable to a cool consideration of his reports when they arrived. The rumours spoke of defeat, retreat, heavy loss--the reports of positions maintained and a steady pressure on the foe, and as such a measure of success, attained by unauthorised and unprecedented means, was in itself most improbable, the rumours received far greater credit. The action of Lieutenant Charteris became a public scandal, focussing Anglo-Indian attention on Granthistan to a highly undesirable extent. The newly arrived Governor-General, Lord Blairgowrie, who possessed two supreme qualifications for his high office in a total ignorance of things Indian and a splendid self-confidence, wrote several of his well-known incisive letters to the Antony brothers, reflecting upon the discipline of their subordinates. Unkindest cut of all, old Sir Henry Lennox grasped joyfully at the chance of avenging a few of the wrongs he and his Khemistan administration had suffered at the hands of Granthistan, and--with the readiness to submit official matters to public arbitrament which so curiously distinguished the men of his day--addressed to the press a series of communications reflecting with equal severity on Charteris's moral character and his military capacity.

A copy of the Bombay paper in which these letters appeared was sent to Sir Arthur Cinnamond by a friend who thought he ought to know what was being said, and it fell into Honour's hands. Sir Arthur, dozing over a cheroot in the hottest part of the day, was rudely awakened by the apparition of the tragic figure of his daughter, holding out the offending journal.

"Papa, have you read this? Do you see what they say?"

"Eh, what, my dear?" Sir Arthur groped for his gla.s.ses, and settled them on his nose. "Oh, that nonsense of Lennox's, I see--most improper interference; like his--er--er--usual impudence to meddle in our affairs."

"But the things he says about Mr Charteris, papa--that he ought to be court-martialled!"

"Well, my dear, you need not be frightened. Old Harry Lennox ain't commanding in Granthistan."

"But it's just as bad if he only deserved to be court-martialled, and we know he doesn't. As if Mr Gerrard would ever have joined him if he had been merely trying to bring himself into notoriety at the expense of disobeying orders!"

"There's no doubt that he moved without orders, my dear girl. And if you ask me, I have a shrewd idea that he was in no hurry to open his orders when they reached him, lest they should direct him to retire.

Ought to be broke, the young scamp! But hang me if I wouldn't have done the same in his place!"