With Edged Tools Part 45

Tell me all you know from beginning to end. I am naturally--somewhat interested."

So Jocelyn told him. And what she said was only a recapitulation of facts known to such as have followed these pages to this point. But the story did not sound quite the same as that related to Millicent. It was fuller, and there were certain details touched upon lightly which had before been emphasised--details of dangers run and risks incurred. Also was it listened to in a different spirit, without shallow comment, with a deeper insight. Suddenly he broke into the narrative. He saw--keen old worldling that he was--a discrepancy.

"But," he said, "there was no one in Loango connected with the scheme who"--he paused, touching her sleeve with a bony finger--"who sent the telegram home to young Oscard--the telegram calling him out to Jack's relief?"

"Oh," she explained lightly, "I did. My brother was away, so there was no one else to do it, you see!"

"Yes--I see."

And perhaps he did.

Lady Cantourne helped them skilfully. But there came a time when Millicent would stand it no longer, and the amiable Grubb wriggled out of the room, crushed by a too obvious dismissal.

Sir John rose at once, and when Millicent reached them they were talking of the previous evening's entertainment.

Sir John took his leave. He bowed over Jocelyn's hand, and Millicent, watching them keenly, could see nothing--no gleam of a mutual understanding in the politely smiling eyes.

"Perhaps," he said, "I may have the pleasure of meeting you again?"

"I am afraid it is doubtful," she answered, with something that sounded singularly like exultation in her voice. "We are going back to Africa almost at once."

And she, also, took her leave of Lady Cantourne.

CHAPTER x.x.xI. SEED-TIME

What Fate does, let Fate answer for.

One afternoon Joseph had his wish. Moreover he had it given to him even as he desired, which does not usually happen. We are given a part, or the whole, so distorted that we fail to recognise it.

Joseph looked up from his work and saw Jocelyn coming into the bungalow garden.

He went out to meet her, putting on his coat as he went.

"How is Mr. Meredith?" she asked at once. Her eyes were very bright, and there was a sort of breathlessness in her manner which Joseph did not understand.

"He is a bit better, miss, thank you kindly. But he don't make the progress I should like. It's the weakness that follows the malarial attack that the doctor has to fight against."

"Where is he?" asked Jocelyn.

"Well, miss, at the moment he is in the drawing-room. We bring him down there for the change of air in the afternoon. Likely as not, he's asleep."

And presently Jack Meredith, lying comfortably somnolent on the outskirts of life, heard light footsteps, but hardly heeded them. He knew that some one came into the room and stood silently by his couch for some seconds. He lazily unclosed his eyelids for a moment, not in order to see who was there, but with a view of intimating that he was not asleep. But he was not wholly conscious. To men accustomed to an active, energetic life, a long illness is nothing but a period of complete rest. In his more active moments Jack Meredith sometimes thought that this rest of his was extending into a dangerously long period, but he was too weak to feel anxiety about anything.

Jocelyn moved away and busied herself noiselessly with one or two of those small duties of the sick-room which women see and men ignore. But she could not keep away. She came back and stood over him with a silent sense of possession which made that moment one of the happiest of her life. She remembered it in after years, and the complex feelings of utter happiness and complete misery that filled it.

At last a fluttering moth gave the excuse her heart longed for, and her fingers rested for a moment, light as the moth itself, on his hair. There was something in the touch which made him open his eyes--uncomprehending at first, and then filled with a sudden life.

"Ah!" he said, "you--you at last!"

He took her hand in both of his. He was weakened by illness and a great fatigue. Perhaps he was off his guard, or only half awake.

"I never should have got better if you had not come," he said. Then, suddenly, he seemed to recall himself, and rose with an effort from his rec.u.mbent position.

"I do not know," he said, with a return of his old half-humorous manner, "whether to thank you first for your hospitality or to beg your pardon for making such unscrupulous use of it."

She was looking at him closely as he stood before her, and all her knowledge of human ills as explored on the West Coast of Africa, all her experience, all her powers of observation, were on the alert. He did not look very ill. The brown of a year's sunburn such as he had gone through on the summit of an equatorial mountain where there was but little atmosphere between earth and sun, does not bleach off in a couple of months. Physically regarded, he was stronger, broader, heavier-limbed, more robust, than when she had last seen him--but her knowledge went deeper than complexion, or the pa.s.sing effort of a strong will.

"Sit down," she said quietly. "You are not strong enough to stand about."

He obeyed her with a little laugh.

"You do not know," he said, "how pleasant it is to see you--fresh and English-looking. It is like a tonic. Where is Maurice?"

"He will be here soon," she replied; "he is attending to the landing of the stores. We shall soon make you strong and well; for we have come laden with cases of delicacies for your special delectation. Your father chose them himself at Fortnum and Mason's."

He winced at the mention of his father's name, and drew in his legs in a peculiar, decisive way.

"Then you knew I was ill?" he said, almost suspiciously.

"Yes, Joseph telegraphed."

"To whom?" sharply.

"To Maurice."

Jack Meredith nodded his head. It was perhaps just as well that the communicative Joseph was not there at that moment.

"We did not expect you for another ten days," said Meredith after a little pause, as if anxious to change the subject. "Marie said that your brother's leave was not up until the week after next."

Jocelyn turned away, apparently to close the window. She hesitated. She could not tell him what had brought them back sooner--what had demanded of Maurice Gordon the sacrifice of ten days of his holiday.

"We do not always take our full term," she said vaguely.

And he never saw it. The vanity of man is a strange thing. It makes him see intentions that were never conceived; and without vanity to guide his perception man is as blind a creature as walks upon this earth.

"However," he said, as if to prove his own density, "I am selfishly very glad that you had to come back sooner. Not only on account of the delicacies--I must ask you to believe that. Did my eye brighten at the mention of Fortnum and Mason? I am afraid it did."

She laughed softly. She did not pause to think that it was to be her daily task to tend him and help to make him stronger in order that he might go away without delay. She only knew that every moment of the next few weeks was going to be full of a greater happiness than she had ever tasted. As we get deeper into the slough of life most of us learn to be thankful that the future is hidden--some of us recognise the wisdom and the mercy which decree that even the present be only partly revealed.

"As a matter of fact," she said lightly, "I suppose that you loathe all food?"

"Loathe it," he replied. He was still looking at her, as if in enjoyment of the Englishness and freshness of which he had spoken. "Simply loathe it. All Joseph's tact and patience are required to make me eat even eleven meals in the day. He would like thirteen."

At this moment Maurice came in--Maurice--hearty, eager, full of life.

He bl.u.s.tered in almost as Joseph had prophesied, kicking the furniture, throwing his own vitality into the atmosphere. Jocelyn knew that he liked Jack Meredith--and she knew more. She knew, namely, that Maurice Gordon was a different man when Jack Meredith was in Loango. From Meredith's presence he seemed to gather a sense of security and comfort even as she did--a sense which in herself she understood (for women a.n.a.lyse love), but which in her brother puzzled her.