Читать книгу Peace with Honour - Sydney C. Grier - Страница 5

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Dick went home that night in a highly unsettled state of mind. He was cherishing a vague and unreasonable feeling of resentment against his own absence from Khemistan during Georgia’s visit to the province. It would have been very pleasant to come upon that missionary camp during his own hurried expeditions from point to point in the unquiet district for which he was responsible; pleasant also to watch Miss Keeling in her dealings with the people, among whom her father’s name was a synonym for all that was just and honourable. Perhaps, if he had met her again at that time, before she had been spoilt by her medical training, things might have fallen out differently for both of them. He might even——

But this was a forbidden subject. What were such speculations to him? Long ago Miss Keeling had refused plainly enough to have anything to do with him, and now he had ceased to wish to have anything to do with her. He was a fool to be thinking so much about her, he told himself angrily. Desiring to divert his mind from such an unprofitable theme, he turned to Mabel, and inquired whether she had noticed his capture by Mrs Egerton’s stepmother. In the course of the evening, Mrs Anstruther, a cheerful, sprightly Irish lady, had manœuvred him into a corner, and then and there seized the opportunity of commending her boy solemnly to his care, having already intrusted the same precious charge to Lady Haigh and Georgia, Sir Dugald, Mr Stratford, and the doctor. Knowing this, Dick had tried to comfort her with the assurance that if a multiplicity of guardians could keep Fitz out of mischief, his safety ought to be secured.

“And that’s not all,” responded Mrs Anstruther, brightly, accepting the consolation at once, and looking across the room to the opposite corner, in which Miss Hervey’s fan was obviously shielding two faces, “for the dear boy is very old for his age. Sure an attachment to a good girl is one of the best safeguards a young man can have, and Fitz has that.”

As in duty bound, Dick applauded this sentiment, while venturing to suggest a doubt as to the permanency of such early attachments, especially in cases in which the lady’s age exceeded that of the gentleman by some five years; but Mrs Anstruther was rendered indignant by what she chose to consider as an implied aspersion on her son’s character, and retorted hotly that she hadn’t a doubt Fitz would come back from Kubbet-ul-Haj as deeply in love as ever, and she was thankful Lady Haigh and Miss Keeling were going to accompany the Mission. Women respected deep feelings of this kind, instead of sneering or joking about them, like men.

“And, of course you told her that your own experience had convinced you of the truth of that?” asked Mabel.

“Certainly not,” returned Dick, with dignity. “I merely said that I thought it depended a good deal on the woman.”

Mabel laughed with great enjoyment. “Guess where Georgie and I are going to-morrow morning?” she said.

“To your dressmaker’s, or to some sale.”

“Not a bit of it. We are going to a shooting-gallery, to try a little revolver-practice. Now, don’t look disgusted, because you know you would give anything to go with us. If you had behaved sensibly I would take you, but you have been so horrid to Georgie that I shan’t.”

“A nice sort of revolver Miss Keeling will get hold of, with no one to help her choose it!” said Dick, evading the question.

“She has got a beauty, which Sir Dugald chose for her, and Lady Haigh has one exactly like it,” said Mabel, triumphantly.

“But why doesn’t she wait to practise with it until we are at sea? It gives one something to do on board ship.”

“Oh, I daresay she will go on practising then, but she means to get over the first difficulties now. And besides, I want to see whether it’s really true that you can’t fire without shutting your eyes at the beginning. But, at any rate, I thought you and Mr Stratford were going to travel by the overland route, so that you will lose a good bit of the voyage?”

“That is something to be thankful for, in any case. I should say that the members of the Mission will not be exactly a happy family.”

“Well, if they aren’t, I shall know where to look for the disturbing element. By the bye, I ought not to have told you yesterday that Georgie would marry no one but the surgeon of some big hospital. I heard her say to-day that she respected a man for himself, and not for his profession, or something of that sort.”

“Highly interesting, no doubt, and creditable to Miss Keeling’s breadth of mind, but I don’t quite see what the information has to do with me.”

“Nor do I at the present moment. It is merely one of those valuable bits of knowledge which every one ought to treasure up, because they are sure to come in useful some day. How do I know that some time or other you will not thank me with tears in your eyes for just those few words?”

This was the last conversation that Mabel held with Dick on the subject of Miss Keeling before his departure, for she was a discerning young woman, and felt satisfied to leave to time the further growth and development of the seeds she had sown. Moreover, there was little further opportunity for initiating the elaborate preliminaries necessary to lead up to the discussion of a subject on which Dick was resolved not to enter; for the larger division of the Kubbet-ul-Haj party, consisting of Sir Dugald and Lady Haigh, Georgia, Dr Headlam, and Fitz Anstruther, left England in the course of the next week, while only three days later Dick and Mr Stratford started on their journey across Europe to the southern port at which they were to meet the ship.

As travelling companions the two suited one another admirably. They had the wholesome respect for each other’s powers which a month of successful big game shooting together in rough country is wont to engender, and they differed sufficiently in character to give their intercourse a spice of variety. Mr Stratford was a man after Sir Dugald Haigh’s own heart. He had risen rapidly in the Diplomatic Service, until, at the time when the idea of a Mission to Ethiopia was first mooted, he held a responsible position in the British Embassy at Czarigrad. It showed the importance attached to this Mission by the Government, that a man of his standing had been appointed to accompany it, but Sir Dugald, who had made his acquaintance in the East, had requested that he should be chosen. He was an excellent linguist, with all his chief’s powers of diplomacy, but with far more talent for society than Sir Dugald possessed, and with a capacity for self-effacement which seemed to Dick sometimes to amount almost to a double personality. His wild, open-air life among a wild people had not tended to teach Dick to conceal his thoughts, but he had succeeded well enough among his unruly frontiersmen, who felt greater respect for the long arm which could deal a distant and unexpected blow than for a tongue distilling all the wisdom of the ages.

It was when he was brought into contact with the more sophisticated townsmen, or with the weaker and craftier races of India, that Dick felt himself at a loss; and he observed, with vain intentions of emulating it, the way in which his friend would apparently give himself up altogether to the trivial business or wearisome pleasure of the hour without once forgetting the object he had in view. That he had never lost sight of his aim was proved by his sudden descent, just at the right moment, upon his opponents, who thought they had thrown him off his guard, but found that they were altogether mistaken. By his superiors at the Foreign Office, Mr Stratford was regarded as a thoroughly dependable man who was always to be trusted to tackle any particularly nasty piece of business, while by his contemporaries and subordinates he was abhorred as a fellow who seldom took his leave unless he saw the chance of employing it in some sort of work likely to bear upon his official duties, and whose proceedings disposed the authorities to expect far too much from other people. He was bound to be ambassador some day, they supposed, but he might allow those who did not aim so high to have the chance of a quiet life.

Dick was among the few men who knew the story that lay in the background of Mr Stratford’s life. On one occasion, when they were hunting together in Kashmir, Stratford was severely wounded by a bear, and Dick, while bandaging his friend’s left arm, discovered that under the signet he wore on his little finger, and almost concealed by it, was a wedding-ring. He learnt the story which attached to it somewhat later. Years ago, Mr Stratford had been engaged to the daughter of one of the foreign representatives at Eusebia, where he held a post in the British Legation, and all things seemed to combine to promise him happiness. But only three days before the time appointed for the wedding, the bride fell ill, and there was terror and panic in the city when the news crept about that her malady was the plague. She died on the day on which she was to have been married, and this was the end of Mr Stratford’s dream of bliss, of which there remained now only the unused wedding-ring. Dick could still recall the even voice in which he had told his tale as the two men sat by their camp-fire with the darkness of the forest around them. He heard only the bare facts, and he felt that these were merely told him to account for the presence of the ring. They were related without a sign of emotion, without a single expression of regret or of self-pity; but the story unveiled to Dick the tragedy which was hidden behind his friend’s prosperous life. Neither of them had ever referred again to that night’s confidences; but Dick felt grateful that the mask had once been lifted for his benefit. Henceforward, no one could allude to Stratford in his presence as a fellow without a heart, or hint that he was a diplomatist rather than a man, without his taking up the cudgels hotly for the absent one.

The journey across Europe was performed without delay or other mishap, and, after a few hours’ waiting at the port Stratford and Dick were able to board their vessel. The first member of their own party that they met was the doctor, who gave them a hearty welcome, and proceeded to pour his own woes into their sympathetic ears. The ship had met with fearful weather in the Bay, and, if he had known what a time was before him, he would have gone overland with them.

“But you must have found it all right since you passed the Rock?” said Dick.

“Oh yes, it has been endurable. The Chief and I have been cramming Ethiopian with the interpreter, Kustendjian—a very clever fellow. We shall have the start of you there. We shall be swimming along gaily in the reading-book while you two are floundering through your alphabet. To hear that Armenian chap deferentially commending Sir Dugald for his progress is a joke! He’s a thorough courtier, and wouldn’t let your humble servant get ahead of the Chief on any account.”

“It shows Sir Dugald’s pluck that he has begun a new language at all at his age,” said Stratford. “Most men would have left everything to Kustendjian, and thrown the blame on him if things went wrong.”

“Oh, we all know that you will back up the Chief on every possible occasion,” said the doctor, irreverently. “He ought to be thankful that he has such a faithful trumpeter at hand to act as his understudy in case of need. But you mark my words, if ever I have to put the Chief on the sick-list, North and I will give you a jolly time!”

“Regularly beastly!” agreed Dick. “But you seem to have been badly off for occupation if you took to studying Ethiopian. Was there absolutely nothing to do?”

“Not much, except to watch the love affair.”

“What love affair?”

“It’s the greatest joke in the world! You remember that young idiot Anstruther, how he carried on with Miss Hervey at the Egertons’ dinner-party? Well, he saw fit to be thrown out of his berth in the gale that caught us in the Bay—got his wrist sprained and his thumb crushed, or something of the sort. The surgeon on board here and I were at our wits’ end with all the ladies who knew they were dying and insisted on the doctor’s attending them at once, besides the other knocks and injuries that really needed looking after, so we were thankful when Miss Keeling volunteered her aid. She wasn’t ill, while it was as much as I could do to stagger feebly about, holding on to things, and we thought it would be an excellent thing to hand the ladies over to her care—just temporarily, of course. But the ladies, to a woman, refused to have anything to do with her, except Lady Haigh, who wasn’t ill, and we were actually obliged to give her the surgical work, for the men who had got knocked about were too anxious to be looked after to care who did it. You needn’t put on that face”—catching sight of Dick’s look of disgust—“she did it as well as I could have done it myself. But we hadn’t bargained for the effect of her ministrations on the susceptible heart of young Anstruther. He was winged at the first shot, and the next day’s dressing of his hand finished him. Since he has been able to crawl on deck, he has done nothing but follow Miss Keeling about, and when she sits down he sits down too, and looks at her.”

“Young fool,” laughed Stratford. “How lively for Miss Keeling! But what about the other girl?”

“Miss Hervey? Oh, I taxed him with her one day, and he had his answer all ready. He compared himself to Romeo, and one or two other old Johnnies of that sort, and felt that he had quite justified his conduct.”

A shout of laughter followed, in which Dick joined, notwithstanding his disgust. It was not quite clear, even to himself, why he should object so strongly to young Anstruther’s behaviour, but he recognised that he resented it very vigorously. Georgia was nothing to him, of course; but—well, a man who had gone through it all before was sorry to see another young beggar making an ass of himself. He did not know whether to be more angry with the youth for his foolishness, or with Miss Keeling for tolerating it. She did not welcome her youthful adorer’s attentions—he was obliged to confess this when he saw her treatment of him; but why should she allow them to continue when a word to Sir Dugald would have rid her of them? And the boy was really painfully absurd, whether he was taking immediate possession of any empty chair within a radius of a dozen yards from Miss Keeling, or scowling at those who did not give him a chance of getting nearer. Georgia was a favourite on board—there was no denying it. The younger men, with the conspicuous exception of Fitz, looked askance at her, certainly, and avoided her neighbourhood, muttering something about the New Woman; but the elders declared her unanimously to be the most sensible girl on board. “A woman who knows any amount, and never parades it, but is always ready to learn from other people, and doesn’t want to talk dress or scandal, is refreshing to meet,” they said, not troubling themselves to remember that they would have fought their hardest to repress in their own daughters any approach to Georgia’s particular tastes.