Banked Fires Part 40

Mrs. Bright was filled with admiration, and Honor with adoration. Both held themselves in readiness to be of use as necessity might demand, and were full of concern for Joyce so far away. Yet no cable was sent to tell her of her husband's state.

"From a rational point of view, it would be folly," said Mrs. Bright.

"If he should die, we can send a cable to prepare her, and follow it up with another soon afterwards. Should he recover, we will have given her a nasty fright for nothing. By the time mail day comes round, we shall have something definite to say, and a letter will do quite well." To this Honor was obliged to agree, but it seemed terrible to her loving heart that a wife should be in ignorance of her husband's peril, and thus be deprived of importuning the Almighty with prayers for his recovery. So much of good in life depended on prayer, that she felt it necessary to pray on behalf of Joyce for the life of the husband so precious to her. According to her convictions, G.o.d works through the agency of his creatures, and as no stone was being left unturned by the doctor whose whole heart was in his profession, Ray Meredith stood a good chance if G.o.d were merciful to the reckless man who had scorned the deadly rays of an Indian sun.

"I am so thankful he has you to take care of him," she once said during a private interlude, when Dalton held her in his arms under the great trees of the avenue and kissed her good-night. "Poor, poor Joyce! She would break her heart if she were to lose him--and she away! She would never forgive herself for going."

"If, in spite of all our efforts, he should not recover, you may take it that he is fated to die of this stroke. One can't kick against Fate."

"There is no such thing as Fate! If you do your best, G.o.d helping, he will recover, I am sure of it. I am praying so hard for his wife's sake.

If we keep in touch with G.o.d and do our best unremittingly, it is all that is wanted of us."

"If any one's prayers ever reach heaven, I am sure yours do!... Do you ever pray for me?"

"Always!"

"What for, specially?"

Honor hesitated for a moment, then murmured, "That we may never be parted in life, and that I may succeed in making you happy."

Dalton kissed her reverently. "Any more than that? Do you never say, 'Make him a good boy'? I need that more than anything. It is what mothers teach their kiddies to say, but it's forgotten when they grow up."

"I'll say that, too, if you wish it."

"Say it every night of your life; and also that my sins may be forgiven me. They are many!"

The evening the nurse arrived from Calcutta to take charge of the case, Meredith was improving in spite of the insupportable heat. _Punkhas_ waved unceasingly in the bungalows, and quant.i.ties of ice were consumed.

People moved about without energy, mopping their faces and yearning for the relief of a nor'wester, while a "brain-fever" bird cried its melancholy cadences with aggravating monotony, from a tree in the Collector's garden, where every leaf and twig had a thick coating of dust. A grey pall in the north-west tantalised with its suggestion of a possible thunderstorm, which, if it burst, would instantly cool the overcharged atmosphere; and anxious eyes glanced at it with longing.

Honor drove to the railway station in the Daimler to fetch the expected nurse, and was in time to meet the express as it steamed in with its long train of coaches, in which every window gaped, revealing in the third-cla.s.s compartments the spectacle of semi-nude humanity packed like sheep in pens, perspiring, and anxious for the moment of release.

When the crowd on the platform had thinned, she saw a lady in a nurse's cloak and bonnet, waiting by her trunks, the belabelled condition of which advertised the fact that the owner was a much travelled person.

She was strikingly handsome in a bold and arresting way, with dark eyes capable of expressing much, and full, red lips parted upon slightly prominent teeth. She looked as if she could be extremely fascinating, but there was something about her that did not inspire Honor with confidence,--though she freely admired her grace and aplomb,--and she thought she looked more like an actress than a nurse. Surely the stage would have better suited one of her type! She wondered.

"I have been sent to fetch you. My name is Honor Bright."

"Oh, how d'you do! How kind you are! You see, I have 'some' luggage,"

was the reply.

"It will all fit on the car," and signing to a couple of coolie porters, Honor gave them directions and led the way through the booking office to the entrance porch. After they had taken their seats and the car had started, the nurse learned all about the case, in which she showed only a pa.s.sing interest. "A married man, did you say?" she asked carelessly.

Honor had not said so, but answered in the affirmative.

"Wife at home?"

"In England; yes."

"And what's your doctor like? I always like to know for one has so much to do with the doctor, and it's just as well to understand something about him beforehand," she said, with ill-concealed eagerness.

"I should not describe Captain Dalton better than to say he is very direct and never wastes words," said Honor, smiling at her first impressions of Brian Dalton. Her secret knowledge of him thrilled her happily.

"And what of his looks? Is he as handsome as"--she bit her lips, stumbled in her sentence, and concluded, "as his pictures? I have seen his portrait in a photo group of surgeons at the Presidency General Hospital, in Calcutta."

"I have never thought about his being handsome," said Honor. "He has a strong face, and an expressive one--on occasions."

"I am told he is a hard man. How does he impress you?"

"I dare say he could be as hard as flint; but I have not experienced that side of his nature."

"It's a funny little place, this," said the nurse who had not troubled to give Honor her name. "I rather fancy it. I suppose you manage to have quite good times since everyone must know everyone else quite intimately. Like a large family!"

"I am quite fond of it, for I have many good friends."

"I could imagine putting up with it for a change; but to live here year in and year out, so far away from town and the bustle of life, would bore me stiff. However, _chacun a son gout_!"

At the house, the nurse was shown her room and left to unpack and arrange her things, and change into nursing attire. Tea was served to her in the morning-room though it was nearing the dinner hour, and Honor remained to entertain her till the doctor returned from another case; Mrs. Bright having temporary charge of the patient.

Soon afterwards, Captain Dalton arrived and Honor saw him step briskly into the room. She retired to a distant corner, herself, leaving him to confer with the nurse and acquaint her with the nature of the case, utterly unprepared for the scene that followed.

For a moment, she was paralysed at the sight of the doctor's ghastly pallor and startled eyes as they lighted upon the stranger's face.

"You?" he breathed through stiffened lips.

"Yes, Brian. I was given the chance as Nurse Grey was ill. I had to see you again!" her voice was fiercely agitated. "Won't you hear me?"

"Good G.o.d! Don't you understand that you are nothing to me?--less than nothing!" His eyes blazed.

"Yet you never divorced me! That gave me hope. Have you no forgiveness?

No pity?"

A stony silence.

"Oh, you are hard!--_hard_! It is not fair to punish any one forever for one mistake----"

"Mistake, do you call it?"

"Sin, if you will have it. Are _you_ sinless? After all, we are but human, and we forgive as we hope to be forgiven." She made a movement as if to fall at his feet, and Honor rushed blindly from the room. Her one instinct was to get away somewhere and hide--hide from the knowledge so ruthlessly thrust upon her. It was too horrible to contemplate. She shuddered from head to foot, and s.h.i.+vered as with ague. Out into the open she ran, among the dust-laden crotons and azaleas, and the florid shrubberies of the Indian garden, now bathed in soft moonlight. Scarcely heeding her footsteps, she stumbled to a bench beneath a laburnum. If it harboured reptiles, she was indifferent. Let her be bitten and die! She was crushed and bowed to the earth with a burden of grief too great to endure,--too hopeless to think upon.

What was it that he had offered her? Had he meant to insult her?

Never! He loved her too well. He would have killed himself rather than have treated her lightly.

What was it then?

Her mind refused to act. It acknowledged only one thought, and that was, severance--immediate, final--from the being she loved most on earth.

That was inevitable.

Brian Dalton was married. He had been married all the time. Joyce had misunderstood; or he had lied to her.