Читать книгу Banked Fires - E. W. Savi - Страница 11

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Dalton filled the ice-bag he had brought with him and settled down to nursing with the skill of a woman; and no hands could have been gentler. Occasionally the worried husband would pay the tent a flying visit and return to listen to a pleader's lengthy oration with all the attention he could muster under the troublous circumstances. Visions of his wife's flushed face lying still on the pillow with closed eyes would haunt him with agonising fidelity to detail—especially in relation to the attentive doctor hovering near, adjusting the bag or removing it to be refilled, and administering the necessary doses of medicine. He took special notice of Dalton in his new character of nurse, and had no fault to find with his manner. He was as silent as the Sphinx and as professional as a nursing sister, and though Meredith thought it objectionable that his wife should always have to be treated in illness by a male physician—there being no lady doctor within hundreds of miles—he was obliged to take comfort in the fact that his beloved could not be in better hands.

Elsewhere, the ayah crooned lullabies to the baby who no longer needed strict watching. She fed it from the bottle and wondered, philosophically, who would be the next to be taken ill; for experience told her that it was a mild form of epidemic chill, familiar to all at the changing of the seasons.

Meals went forward with clock-like regularity, whether the sahibs were inclined for sustenance or not. The camp table in the dining-tent was laid with silver and crockery; a tight bunch of green leaves adorned a centre vase, and a gong rang at the appointed hour, while the dishes remained warm in the portable "hot case" where an open charcoal fire burned redly.

"Isn't the fever rather persistent?" Meredith asked at dinner while toying with his food.

"It's early to judge," said the doctor.

"What do you think of it?"

"Unquestionably a touch of the 'flu.'"

"It isn't enteric?" the anxious husband asked fearfully. "I have a holy horror of enteric."

"You make your mind easy, it is not going to be anything of the sort. I am afraid, however, you will have to give up all idea of Mrs. Meredith's camping for the present," he added definitely. "She and the child don't take kindly to canvas, and at this time of year we must avoid exposure to malarial conditions."

"The District is particularly free from malaria," said Meredith.

"Bengal is full of it; the many bogs and pools of stagnant water around are responsible for the anopheles mosquito."

"It's dashed inconvenient when I must put in a deuced lot of camping in the cold weather."

"Do most of it after Christmas," Dalton suggested.

"It will be just the same—they won't be able to stand it."

"Frankly, I don't think they will. Perhaps, both might be more acclimatised later on," was the diplomatic reply.

Meredith passed another night on the cane chair which he placed alongside of his wife's bed, and was conscious during periods of rest that the doctor never slept at all. He was in and out of the tent at all hours of the night looking after his patient with untiring zeal. An easy chair in the dining-tent had served as his couch, and the English newspapers entertained him during the long hours of the night.

Yet at the end of the vigil, Meredith knew Captain Dalton no better than before. He was still the silent, repellent being, with eyes of a thought-reader and a baffling smile which might have meant contempt or tolerance; he was altogether incomprehensible.

By morning, Joyce was free of fever with a temporarily lowered vitality, and showing no ill effects. All day she convalesced happily, enjoying the petting she received from the men; Captain Dalton's methods being unobtrusive, but effective; Meredith's, on the other hand, being tactlessly affectionate and blundering.

"You are a darling, Ray," she laughed, after a specially clumsy service, "but you were never born with a faculty for nursing, like Captain Dalton's. He is so capable; he never spills my mixture down my neck before I can drink it; nor does he pour out over-doses, and empty the surplus on the drugget!"

"'Comparisons are odorous,'" he returned, looking hurt.

"The tent is, if you like. It smells like a chemist's shop! Your proper place and function are in the court, and sentencing criminals to punishment."

"You want to get rid of me so that you may have the doctor all to yourself! I wonder what you find in him at all. He fairly chokes one off."

"I told you he was either an automaton or an angel; I find he is both, only he would like us to think him a bad angel."

"A man knows himself best. So you want to desert me tomorrow?" he cried reproachfully.

"Dear old thing!—you wouldn't have me stay if you knew that I should be miserable?" she coaxed, drawing down his face to be kissed.

"Miserable with the husband who adores you?"

"If you love me so much, you should be unselfish and think more of Baby."

"Must Baby always count above his Daddy?"

"Naturally he must be considered more, while he is so young and delicate."

"Where then do I come in?"

"You mustn't be jealous of your own child!" she cried reproachfully. "Think of his helplessness, his need of me!—Of course you need me, too," she said putting her palm over his mouth to stifle his eloquence on the subject of a husband's rights, "but then, there's a difference. You can manage without me, while he must not. A babe is a sacred trust to its mother."

"And when he grows older and is impressionable, there will be a mother's moral duty towards his soul to separate us. You and he at home, and I out here, alone! I know the jargon, having watched such comedies for years. Now it has come home to me. One hears that a child is a blessing from God.... I believe it is a blessing very much in disguise, for I see only the disguise at present."

"Why look so far ahead?" laughed Joyce, determined to mend his humour. "By the time he is old enough to become a 'moral' responsibility, you will probably be only too glad to get rid of me. I am such a worry as a wife."

"I wonder!" he ejaculated ruefully.

Joyce reminded him of the many week-ends he could spend at the bungalow, when they would contrive to have very happy times. "I shan't be so anxious with a doctor on the spot, so to speak; and shall be ever so much more of a wife," she promised, looking adorable in the ribbons and laces of her snowy night-dress, backed with befrilled pillows.

The prospect had compensations, he felt, but he found it hard to explain without incurring the imputation of selfishness, that, parted day after day from the light of her presence, deprived of the sight of her loveliness and the natural expression of his passion for her, he would assuredly ache unceasingly and pine himself sick. She would not understand, since she had little comprehension of the ways of mankind, so he could only sigh and capitulate.

"At least there will be many honeymoons!" he allowed, trying to hide his disappointment in satire.

"What a man you are!" she laughed. "Won't you ever get used to being married?"

Meredith returned to his files and the clamouring multitude under the trees, for the remainder of the afternoon, with the noxious odours of bare-bodied humanity, besmeared with mustard oil, assaulting his nostrils. Meanwhile Joyce cultivated the doctor with innocent feelers of friendship while he administered afternoon tea.

"I do think you are such a clever nurse," she said flatteringly, while he fed her on bread and butter. "You are like two persons in one—both doctor and nurse!"

"Necessity is a good teacher," he returned shortly. "I have never nursed any one myself; others have generally taken my orders."

"I should have imagined that you had done this all your life."

Viewed in broad daylight at close quarters, when her brain was cleared of feverish delusions, he was not at all a handsome man. Too blunt-featured and heavy in the jaws; too square in the frame and thick of neck; but his eyes, with their power of reserve, were always a splendid mystery; deep-set and provoking, yet suggestive of nothing so much as banked fires, glowing and suppressed. Frequently they dwelt on her with the same satirical amusement of the polo-field, and she would waste much of her thoughts in wondering why. It was the look of a sceptic who had no intention of expressing his unbelief, and Joyce was irritated and annoyed. But she had no fault to find with his attentions, and was invariably won to gratitude for services rendered.

She was very pretty—exceptionally so—and very simple; but, as pretty women were never simple, Dalton found entertainment in the study of her particular pose, as it seemed to him. If it were not a pose, then her husband was a short-sighted fool and he had no patience with him. The time was past for childish innocence and folly. Coquetry was very captivating, but to play with fire was dangerous, and if he mistook not, she would some day arrive at an understanding of human nature when it was too late to save her self-respect. Her beauty appealed to his artistic sense, but he had no admiration for shallow natures; hence his amused contempt.

"You remind me of nothing so much as an oyster," she laughed, picking up a dainty piece of bread and butter and putting it in her mouth.

"Why so?"

"You are living so much in your shell. Why do you do it?"

"Why not, if it pleases me?" he asked pouring out two cups of tea.

"Think of all you lose!"

"I generally manage to take what I want," he replied with an insolent smile. "I rarely suffer from loss."

"You lose love," said she wisely.

"What do you know about it?" he questioned, fixing her with his penetrating eyes.

"I love my husband——"

"—And your baby, even more. Of course your experience is immense!"

"You are sarcastic," she said reproachfully. "I love my husband and my baby in quite different ways. You have no wife or baby, so you cannot understand. Men like you go through life without knowing any of its real joys."

"That is according to your point of view," he retorted. "In any case, marriage is a great gamble and it's best to avoid risks."

"There's a girl you and I know..." Joyce put in reminiscently, seeing in mind a pleasing vision, "and the man who gets her will be the luckiest fellow in the world."

"He certainly will."

"How do you know whom I mean?"

"You mean Miss Bright of Muktiarbad."

Joyce opened wide her blue eyes which were the colour of forget-me-nots, and stared. "Are you a thought-reader?"

"It was easy reading, for there is only one girl we mutually know who fits your description entirely, and she is Miss Honor Bright. She has been reared to live up to her name."

"And you found that out though you hardly ever speak to her?"

"It is rather wonderful, isn't it?" he asked with his crooked smile.

"Then—why—?" There were limits to curiosity, but her expressive eyes spoke the rest of her question direct to his.

"Why don't I cultivate Miss Bright? The answer is simple. I am not seeking a wife, and I have no interest in friendships."

"How rude!" she cried reproachfully.

Dalton laughed disagreeably and offered her more tea which she accepted, not knowing whether he was not after all the most churlish being she had ever met.

"I wish I could understand you, Doctor, but I never shall," she sighed hopelessly, as she endeavoured to make herself comfortable among the tumbled bed-clothes. "I give you up as a difficult riddle."

"You want your bed re-made," he returned changing the subject. "Shall I do it for you?"

"You?—I can't fancy your bed-making!"

"I'll show you that I can do that as well as most other things. But you'll have to move out."

The cane lounge had been put out of the way and was not within easy walking distance for a shaky invalid; nevertheless Joyce was determined to try. While he transferred the cushions, she rolled herself in a shawl and made a brave effort to walk across, only to be overcome by giddiness.

Dalton was in time to save her from falling and she was carried clinging in her panic to the column of his neck. "You shouldn't have attempted it," he scolded.

"But I liked the way you swung me off my feet!" she said contentedly.

"It is not one of my duties to wait hand and foot on my patients, I would have you understand," he said grimly with a lurking twinkle in his eye, wondering, the while, whether the giddiness was another pose. "It seems you like being fussed over," he remarked before laying her down among the cushions.

"I love it!" she cooed ingenuously. "It's the only reason I don't mind being sick, to have Ray fuss and carry me about."

He put her down immediately with the familiar expression of indulgent satire in his eyes. "You'll probably get plenty of fussing from everyone; but, in the case of the boys, remember to be merciful."

"What on earth do you mean?"

"There are some young fools who might, if encouraged, lose their heads, you know."

"But there'd be no excuse, for I never flirt."

"Pardon me, you flirt like an artist."

Joyce thought it was horrid of him to say so, and wondered if she should snub him for his impertinence; only she did not quite know how. He had been so kind—perhaps he was only teasing? However she was reduced to offended silence while he made her bed with skill and expedition. He was not anxious that her husband arrive and find him so employed, and was glad to restore Mrs. Meredith to her nest of pillows without interruptions from without. Her utter lack of concern, either way, was illuminating, so that he had to revise his estimate of her once again, while his smile lost its satire.

"Sure you are comfy?" he asked before leaving her.

"Yes, thank you," she answered stiffly.

"Haughtiness does not become you, dear lady. What have I done?" he asked coolly.

"You said I was a flirt!" she pouted.

"I'll take it back," he returned smiling broadly, thinking that she certainly flirted delightfully. But shallow natures always flirted just so.

"I have never been accused of that—in my life."

"It would be such a libel!" he conceded.

"Thank you," she said graciously as she shot him a forgiving glance both radiant and alluring. "Do you know, I like you tremendously, though I began by thinking you hateful."

"First impressions are often correct," he returned grimly, and retired.

By and by, when she was alone with her husband and childishly about to recount the events of the afternoon with fidelity as to detail, she was diverted by his grave distress at the coming parting. It was cruel to inflict grief, and she wished he would be more reasonable.

"Old thing!" she said affectionately, rubbing her soft cheek against his rough one; "think how much I, too, shall miss you! It won't be only on your side!"

"Will you really miss me?" he asked infatuatedly.

"All the time. I love having you about, and if I am lonely at nights, I have only to creep into your bed in the next room to be comforted. What ever shall I do when that bed lies empty?"

It was heavenly to Meredith to hear this intimate revelation from her lips, always so shy of expressing her need of him. It was a great advance in the right direction, and his skies cleared as by magic. If absence truly made the heart grow fonder, he would have no cause of complaint against this short parting. It was the greater one in the spring, the shadow of which was already darkening his horizon, that he dared not contemplate.

However, there was plenty of time yet, and no earthly good was to be gained by crossing bridges in anticipation.

The following day saw an exodus from the camp. Meredith took his wife and child to Muktiarbad station, and saw them comfortably established in the Collector's bungalow, known as the Bara Koti,[8] then returned to his duties in the rural parts of his District, resolved to support his deprivations with cheerful resignation.