Читать книгу The Advanced-Guard - Sydney C. Grier - Страница 4

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There was a little informal gathering at the Haighs’ that evening. People often dropped in after dinner for some music, for Lady Haigh had actually brought her piano (without which no self-respecting bride then left her native land) up to Bab-us-Sahel with her. True, it had been necessary to float it ashore in its case; but it was unanimously agreed that its tone had not suffered in the very least. To-night there was the additional attraction that Lady Haigh had staying with her a handsome girl just out from home, who was understood, from the report of the other passengers on the steamer, to play the guitar and sing like an angel. Lady Haigh herself had no love for music whatever, and in these days public opinion would have forbidden her to touch an instrument; but she did her duty as hostess by rattling off one of the dashing, crashing compositions of the day, and then thankfully left her guest to bear the burden of the entertainment. The ring of eager listeners that surrounded Penelope Ross, demanding one song after another, made her feel that she was justified in so doing; and after she had seen the obnoxious Captain Ferrers enter, and satisfied herself that he perceived too late what a treasure he had lightly thrown away, she slipped out on the verandah to think over the task she had rashly set herself in her contest with her husband. How was Major Keeling, who hated women, and had merely been induced to condone Lady Haigh’s own existence because he had asked for Sir Dugald’s services without knowing he was married, to be persuaded to allow Penelope to accompany her to Alibad?

“I know he is dining at Government House to-night,” she reflected forlornly, “or I might have asked him to come in for some music. But then he would have been just as likely to send a chit to say that he disliked music. Men who hate women are such bears! And if I ask him to dinner another night, he will see through it as soon as he finds Penelope is here. And yet I must get things settled at once, or Penelope will think she is unwelcome, and Colin will persuade her to do something quixotic and detestable—marry Ferrers, or go out as a governess, or—— Why, surely——”

She ran to the edge of the verandah, and peered across the parched compound to the road. Above the feeble hedge of milk-bush she could see the head and shoulders of a horseman, of the very man with whom her thoughts were busy. The shock of black hair and short full beard made Major Keeling unmistakable at a time when beards were few, although there was no “regulation” military cut or arrangement of the hair. The fiercest-looking officer in Lady Haigh’s drawing-room at this moment, whose heavy moustache and truculent whiskers gave him the air of a swashbuckler, or at least of a member of Queen Cristina’s Foreign Legion, was a blameless Engineer of strong Evangelical principles. Lady Haigh saw at once the state of the case. The gathering at Government House had broken up at the early hour exacted by Lady Lennox, who was a vigilant guardian of her warrior’s health, and Major Keeling was whiling away the time by a moonlight ride before returning to his quarters. To summon one of the servants, and send him flying to stop the Major Sahib and ask him to come and speak to Lady Haigh, was the work of a moment; for though Major Keeling might be a woman-hater, he had never yet rebelled against the sway which his subordinate’s wife established as by right over all the men around her, for their good. Lady Haigh disliked the idea of putting her influence to the test in this way, for if Major Keeling refused to yield there could be nothing but war between them in future; but the matter was urgent.

“You wanted to speak to me, Lady Haigh?” Major Keeling had dismounted, and was coming up the steps, looking almost gigantic in the picturesque full-dress uniform of the Khemistan Horse.

“I want you to do a kindness,” she responded, rather breathlessly.

“I know what that means. I am to break a rule, or relax an order, or in some other way go against my better judgment.”

“I—I want you to let me bring a friend of mine to Alibad with me.”

Major Keeling’s brow darkened. “I knew this would come. You assured me you could stand the isolation, but I knew better. Of course you want female society; it is quite natural you should. But you professed to understand that on the frontier you couldn’t have it.”

“Not society—just this one girl,” pleaded Lady Haigh.

“Who is she? a sister of yours or Haigh’s?”

“No relation to either of us. She is Mr Ross’s sister—your old friend’s daughter—an orphan, and all alone.”

“Engaged to any one who is going with me?”

“No—o.” The negative, doubtful at first, became definite. “I won’t say a word about Ferrers, even to get him to let her come,” was Lady Haigh’s resolute determination.

“Then she can’t come.”

“Oh, Major Keeling! And if I had said she was engaged, you would have said that the man would be always wasting his time dangling round her.”

“But as she isn’t, the whole force would waste their time dangling round her,” was the crushing reply. “No, Lady Haigh, we have no use for young ladies on the frontier. It will be work, not play.”

“Play! Do you think a girl with that face wants to spend her life in playing?” demanded Lady Haigh, very much in the tone with which she had once been wont to crush her family. “Look there!”

She drew him to the open window of the drawing-room and made him look through the reed curtain. The light fell full on Penelope’s face as she sang, and Lady Haigh felt that the beholder was impressed.

“What’s that she’s singing?” he growled. “‘County Guy’? Scott? There’s some good in her, at any rate.”

Lady Haigh forbore to resent the slighting imputation, and Major Keeling remained watching the singer through the curtain. Penelope’s contemporaries considered her tall and queenly, though she would now be thought decidedly under middle height. Her dark hair was dressed in a graceful old fashion which had almost gone out before the combined assault of bands and ringlets,—raised high on the head, divided in front, and slightly waved on the temples,—a style which by rights demanded an oval face and classical features as its complement. Judged by this standard, Penelope might have been found wanting, for her features were at once stronger and less regular than the classical ideal; but the grey eyes beneath the broad low brow disarmed criticism, they were so large and deep and calm, save when they were lighted, as now, by the fire of the ballad she was singing. Those were days when a white dress and coloured ribbons were considered the only evening wear for a young girl; and Penelope wore a vivid scarlet sash, with knots of scarlet catching up her airy white draperies, and a scarlet flower in her hair. As Major Keeling stood looking at her, Lady Haigh caught a murmur which at once astonished and delighted her.

“That is a woman who would help a man—not drag him back.” Then, apparently realising that he had spoken aloud, he added hastily, “Yes, yes, as you say. But who’s the man with the unlucky face?”

His finger indicated a tall thin youth who stood behind the singer. The face was a remarkable one, thin and hawklike, with a high forehead and closely compressed lips. The hair and small moustache were fair and reddish in tint, the eyes grey, with a curious look of aloofness instead of the keenness that would have seemed to accord with the rest of the features.

“That? Why, that’s Colin Ross, Penelope’s brother. What is there unlucky about him?”

“Oh, nothing—merely a look. Her brother, do you say?”

“Yes, her twin brother. But what look do you mean? Oh, you must tell me, Major Keeling, or I shall tell Penelope that you say her brother has an unlucky face.”

“You will do nothing of the kind. Hush! don’t attract their attention. I can’t explain it: I have seen it in several men—not many, fortunately—and it has always meant an early and violent death.”

“But this is pure superstition!” cried Lady Haigh. “And, after all, he is a soldier.”

“Call it superstition if you like: I only speak of what I know, and I would not have spoken if you had not compelled me. And there are worse deaths than a soldier’s. One of the men I speak of was poisoned, one was murdered in Ethiopia, one was lost in the Nuncomar. That’s how it goes. What sort of man is young Ross?”

“Very serious, I believe,” answered Lady Haigh. The word still had its cant meaning, which would now be expressed by “religious.”

“So much the better for him. I can trust you to say nothing to his sister about this?”

“Now, is it likely? But the least you can do now is to let her come with us. His twin sister! you couldn’t have the heart to separate them when he may have such dreadful things before him?”

“How would it be better if she were there?” he asked gloomily; but, as if by a sudden impulse, parted the curtain and advanced into the room. Penelope, her song ended, was toying with the knot of scarlet ribbons attached to the guitar, while her hearers were trying to decide upon the next song, when the group was divided by the abrupt entrance of a huge man, as it seemed to her, in extraordinary clothes. It struck her as remarkable that every man in the room seemed to stiffen into attention at the moment, and she rose hesitatingly, wondering whether this could possibly be Sir Henry Lennox.

“Do me the honour to present me, Lady Haigh,” said the stranger, in a deep voice which seemed to be subdued for the occasion.

“Major Keeling, Miss Ross,” said Lady Haigh promptly. She was enjoying herself.

“I hear you wish to come up to Alibad with us,” said Major Keeling abruptly. “Can you ride?”

“Yes, I am very fond of it.”

“I don’t mean trotting along an English road. Can you ride on through the sand hour after hour, so as to keep up with the column, and not complain? Complaints would mean that you would go no farther.”

“I can promise I won’t complain. If I feel I can’t stick on my horse any longer, I will get some one to tie me into the saddle.” Penelope smiled slightly. This catechism was not without its humorous side.

“Can you cut down your baggage to regulation limits? Let me see, what did I promise you, Lady Haigh? A camel? Well, half that. Can you do with a camel between you?”

“I think so.” Penelope was conscious of Lady Haigh’s face of agony.

“You must, if you come. Can you do what you are told?”

“I—I believe so. I generally do.”

“If you get orders to leave Alibad in an hour, can you forsake everything, and be ready for the march? That’s what I mean. If I find it necessary to send you down, go you must. Can you make yourself useful? Oh, I daresay you can do pretty things like most young ladies, but can you put yourself at the surgeon’s disposal after a fight, and be some good?”

“I would try,” said Penelope humbly. It was before Miss Nightingale’s days, and the suggestion sounded very strange to her. Major Keeling stood looking at her, until his black brows relaxed suddenly.

“All right, you can come,” he said. “And,” he added, as he left the room, “I’ll allow you a camel apiece after all.”

“What an interesting-looking man Major Keeling is!” said Penelope to her friend the next morning.

“Some people think so. I don’t particularly admire that kind of swarthy picturesqueness myself,” was the meditative answer. “I won’t praise him to her on any account,” said Lady Haigh to herself.

“It’s not that so much as his look and his voice. Don’t you know——”

“Why, you are as bad as the girls at Bombay. One of them told me they all perfectly doated on dear Major Keeling; he was just like a dear delightful bandit in an opera.”

“Really, Elma!” Penelope’s graceful head was lifted with dignity, and Lady Haigh, foreseeing a coolness, hastened to make amends.

“I was only in fun. We don’t doat, do we, Pen? or gush, or anything of that sort. But it was only the happiest chance his letting you come with us. If he had caught you singing Tennyson, or your dear Miss Barrett—Mrs Browning, is it? what does it signify?—there would have been no hope for you. But it happened to be Scott, and that conquered him at once. They say he knows all the poems by heart, and recites them before a battle. Dugald heard him doing it at Umarganj, at any rate. The troopers like it, because they think he is muttering spells to discomfit the enemy. Isn’t it romantic?”

“How funny!” was Penelope’s disappointing comment.

“He was very fond of Byron once, but he has given him up for conscience’ sake,” pursued Lady Haigh.

“For conscience’ sake?”

“Yes; Byron was a man of immoral life, and his works are not fit for a Christian’s reading.”

“He must be a very good man, I suppose. I shouldn’t have guessed——”

“That he was good? No; he might be mysteriously wicked, from his looks, mightn’t he? But I believe he is really good, and he has the most extraordinary influence over the natives. Dugald was telling me last night that at Alibad they seemed inclined to receive him as a saint—as if his reputation had gone before him, you know. He never drinks anything but water, for one thing; and he doesn’t dance, and he never speaks to a lady if he can help it—— Oh, Pen, were you very much astonished by the catechism he put you through last night?”

“Yes,” admitted Penelope. “He asked me such strange things, and in such a solemn voice. I should have liked time to think before answering.”

“Well, it was nothing to what he asked me. I had to promise never to keep Dugald back—or even to try to—from anything he was ordered to do. Wasn’t it barbarous? You see, in that fight at Umarganj Dugald had got his guns up just in time to take part, and they decided the battle. Major Keeling was so pleased that he said at once, ‘We must have you at Alibad,’ and of course Dugald was delighted. But when the Chief found out he was married he almost refused to take him, for he had sworn he would have no ladies on the frontier. And there was I, who had said over and over again that I would never stand between Dugald and his chances! It really looked like a romantic suicide, leaving pathetic letters to break the cruel Major’s heart, didn’t it? But Sir Henry Lennox interceded for me, and I told Major Keeling I would promise anything if he would only let us both go. And now I wake up at night dreaming that the Chief has ordered Dugald to certain death, and I mustn’t say a word, and I lie there sobbing, or shaking with terror, until Dugald hears me, and asks me why I don’t control my imagination. That’s what husbands are. What with keeping them in a good temper when they are there, and missing them when they are away, one has no peace. Don’t invest in one, Pen.”

“I have no intention of doing it—at any rate at present. But, Elma——”

“Of course I mean it all depends on your getting the right man.” Lady Haigh was uncomfortably conscious that she might one day wish to explain away her last remark. “Only find him, and he shall have you with my blessing. Pen, did you notice anything about Major Keeling’s eyes? I mean”—she went on, talking quickly to cover her sudden realisation that the transition must have appeared somewhat abrupt to Penelope—“did he seem to be able to read your mind? The natives believe that he can, and say that he can tell when a man is a spy simply by looking at him. He seems to have funny ideas, too, about being able to foretell a person’s fate from his face. He was very much struck by—at least”—she blundered on, conscious that she was getting deeper and deeper into the mire—“he said something last night about Colin’s having a very remarkable face.”

“Oh dear, I hope he hasn’t second-sight! Colin has it sometimes, and if two of them get together they’ll encourage one another in it,” said Penelope wearily. “Colin is not quite sure about its being right, so he never tries to use it, but sometimes—— Oh, Elma, I must tell you, and I’m afraid you won’t like it at all. Colin was here before breakfast, and talked to me a long time about George Ferrers. I think they had been having a ride together.”

“Colin ought to know better than to have anything to do with Ferrers. He will get no good from him.”

“Why, Elma, he has always been so devoted to him, and George used to seem quite different when he was with us. Colin is terribly grieved about what you—I—did yesterday. He says it was very wrong to break off the engagement altogether, that I was quite right not to marry George at once, but that I ought to have put him on probation, giving him every possible hope for the future.”

“I think I see you putting Captain Ferrers on probation,” said Lady Haigh grimly, recalling her brief interview with the gentleman in question. “He would be the last person to stand it, however much he might wish to marry you——” She broke off suddenly.

“But, Elma, he does,” said Penelope piteously, understanding the “But he doesn’t” which her friend suppressed for the sake of her feelings. “That’s the worst of it. He told Colin that he was so taken aback, and felt himself so utterly unworthy, when you told him I was here, that he felt the best thing for my happiness was to break off the engagement at once. But when he came in in the evening, and saw us both again, and heard the old songs, he felt he had thrown away his only chance of doing better. Colin always seems to bring out the best in him, you know, and——”

“Do you know what happened as soon as he had said good night to you?” asked Lady Haigh coldly. “He was beating one of his servants, who had made a mistake about bringing his horse, so frightfully that Dugald had to go and interfere. He said to me when he came back that it was a comfort to think Ferrers would get a knife into him if he tried that sort of thing on the frontier.”

“But doesn’t that show what a terrible temper poor George has, and how hard it must be for him to control it?” cried Penelope. “He says he feels he should just go straight to the dogs if we took away all hope from him. I know it’s very wrong of him to say it, but I dare not take the responsibility, Elma. And Colin says he has always had such a very strong feeling that in some way or other George’s eternal welfare was bound up with him or me, or both of us, and so——”

“Now I call that profane,” was the crushing reply. “Oh, I know Colin would cheerfully sacrifice you or himself, or both of you, as you say, for the sake of saving any one, and much more George Ferrers, but it doesn’t lie with him. What if he sacrifices you and doesn’t save Ferrers? But I know it’s no good talking. Colin will take his own course in his own meek unbending way, and drag you after him. But I won’t countenance it, at any rate. What has he got you to do?”

“I know it’s my fault,” sobbed Penelope, “and I must seem dreadfully ungrateful after all your kindness. I had been so miserable about George’s silence, that when you told me about him yesterday I felt I had known it all along, and that it was really a relief the blow had fallen. And when you said he quite agreed that it was best to break off the engagement, a weight seemed to be taken off my mind. Of course I ought to have seen him myself—not shuffled off my responsibilities on you, and found out what he really felt, so as to keep him from sacrificing himself for me, and——”

“Stuff and nonsense!” ejaculated Lady Haigh, very loudly and firmly. “Penelope, will you kindly leave off reproaching yourself and me, and tell me what the state of affairs is at present between you and George Ferrers? You don’t care a rap for him; but because he says he can’t take care of himself without a woman to help him, you are afraid to tell him that he is a coward to try to thrust his burden off on you. Are you engaged?”

“No,” explained Penelope; “Colin did not wish that. It is only—only if he keeps straight, as he calls it, at Alibad, we are to be engaged again.”

“And suppose you fall in love with some one else?”

“Elma! how could I? We are practically engaged, of course.”

“Not at all,” said Lady Haigh briskly. “You are under my charge, and I refuse to recognise anything of the kind. Until you’re engaged again Ferrers is no more to you than any of the other men, and I won’t have him hanging about. Why”—reading a protest in Penelope’s face—“what good would it be putting him on probation if he had all the privileges of a fiancé? And nothing is to be said about it, Penelope. I simply will not have it.”

“I only want to do what is right,” said Penelope, subdued by her friend’s authoritative tone. “As you say, it will be a truer test for him if he does not come here often.”

“Trust me to see to that. And Master Colin shall have a good piece of my mind,” said Lady Haigh resolutely.