Captain Desmond, V.C.

In this fashion Honor reassured her friend to his complete comprehension; and while he sat listening and watching her in the half light, he fell to wondering how it came about that this girl, with her generous warmth of heart, her twofold beauty of the spirit and the flesh, should still be finding her central interest in the lives of others rather than in her own. Was the inevitable awakening over and done with? Or was it yet to come? He inclined to the latter view, and the thought of Paul sprang to his mind. Here, surely, was the one woman worthy of his friend. But then, Paul held strong views about marriage, and it was almost impossible to picture the good fellow in love.

Nevertheless, the good fellow was, at that time, more profoundly, more irrevocably in love than Desmond himself had ever been, notwithstanding the fact of his marriage. His theories had proved mere dust in the balance when weighed against his strong, simple-hearted love for Honor Meredith. Yet the passing of nine months found him no nearer to open recantation. If a man has learnt nothing else by the time he is thirty-eight, he has usually gained possession of his soul, and at no stage of his life had Paul shown the least talent for taking a situation by storm. In the attainment of Honor's friendship, this most modest of men felt himself blest beyond desert; and watch as he might for the least indication of a deeper feeling, he had hitherto watched in vain. It never occurred to him that his peculiarly reticent form of wooing – if wooing it could be called – was hardly calculated to enlighten her as to the state of his heart. He merely reined in his great longing and awaited possible developments; accepting, in all thankfulness, the certain good that was his, and determined not to risk the loss of it without some hope of greater gain.

But of all these things Desmond guessed nothing as he sat, in the dusk of that December evening, speculating on the fate of the girl whose friendship he frankly regarded as one of the goodliest gifts of life.

When at last she rose from the piano, he rose also.

"Thank you," he said with quiet emphasis. "How well you understand!"

"Don't let yourself be troubled by anything the Ollivers may say or think," she answered softly. "You are doing your simple duty, Theo, and I am sure Major Wyndham, even without knowing all the facts, will understand quite as well – as I do."

With that she left him, because the fulness of her understanding put a check upon further speech.

That night, when the little party had broken up without open warfare, and Desmond stood alone with his wife before the drawing-room fire, he told her of Wyndham's generosity.

"You'll get your week at Lahore, Ladybird," he said. "And you owe it to Paul. He wishes us to accept the trip as his Christmas present."

"Oh, Theo…!" A quick flush revealed her delight at the news, and she made a small movement towards him; but nothing came of it. Six months ago she would have nestled close to him, certain of the tender endearments which had grown strangely infrequent of late. Now an indefinable shyness checked the spontaneous caress, the eager words upon her lips. But her husband, who was looking thoughtfully into the fire, seemed serenely unaware of the fact.

"You're happy about it, aren't you?" he asked at length.

"Yes – of course – very happy."

"That's all right; and I'm glad I wasn't driven to disappoint you. Now get to bed; and sleep soundly on your rare bit of good luck. I have still a lot of work to get through."

She accepted his kindly dismissal with an altogether new docility; and on arriving in her own room gave conclusive proof of her happiness by flinging herself on the bed in a paroxysm of stifled sobbing.

"Oh, if only I had told him sooner!" she lamented through her tears. "Now I don't believe he'll ever really forgive me, or love me properly again."

And, in a measure, she was right. Trust her he might, as in duty bound; but to be as he had been before eating the bitter fruit of knowledge was, for the present at all events, out of his power.

Since their momentous talk nearly a week ago, Evelyn had felt herself imperceptibly held at arms' length, and the vagueness of the sensation increased her discomfort tenfold. No word of reproach had passed his lips, nor any further mention of Diamond or the bills; nothing so quickly breeds constraint between two people as conscious avoidance of a subject that is seldom absent from the minds of both. Yet Theo was scrupulously kind, forbearing, good-tempered – everything, in short, save the tender, lover-like husband he had been to her during the first eighteen months of marriage. And she had only herself to blame, – there lay the sharpest pang of all. Life holds no anodyne for the sorrows we bring upon ourselves.

As the days wore on she watched Theo's face anxiously, at post time, for any sign of an answer to that hateful advertisement; and before the week's end she knew that the punishment that should have been hers had fallen on her husband's shoulders.

Coming into breakfast one morning, she found him studying an open letter with a deep furrow between his brows. At sight of her he started and slipped it into his pocket.

The meal was a silent one. Evelyn found the pattern of her plate curiously engrossing. Desmond, after a few hurried mouthfuls, excused himself and went out. Then Evelyn looked up; and the tears that hung on her lashes overflowed.

"He – he's gone to the stables, Honor," she said brokenly. "He got an answer this morning; – I'm sure he did. But he – he won't tell me anything now. Where's the use of being married to him if he's always going on like this? I wish – I wish he could sell —me to that man, instead of Diamond. He wouldn't mind it half as much – "

And with this tragic announcement – which, for at least five minutes, she implicitly believed – her head went down upon her hands.

Honor soothed her very tenderly, realising that she sorrowed with the despair of a child who sees the world's end in every broken toy.

"Hush – hush!" she remonstrated. "You mustn't think anything so foolish, so unjust. Theo is very magnanimous, Evelyn. He will see you are sorry, and then it will all go smoothly again."

"But there's the – the other thing," murmured the pretty sinner with a doleful shake of her head. "He won't forgive me that; and he doesn't seem to see that I'm sorry. I wanted to tell him this morning, when I saw that letter. But he somehow makes me afraid to say a word about it."

"Better not try yet awhile, dear. When a man is in trouble, there is nothing he thanks one for so heartily as for letting him alone till it is well over."

Evelyn looked up again with a misty smile.

"I can't think why you know so much about men, Honor. How do you find out those sort of things?"

"I suppose it's because I've always cared very much for men," – she made the statement quite unblushingly. "Loving people is the only sure way of understanding them in the long-run."

"Is it?.. You are clever, Honor. But it doesn't seem to help me much with Theo."

Such prompt, personal application of her philosophy of the heart was a little disconcerting. The girl could not well reply that in love there are a thousand shades, and very few are worthy of the name.

"It will help you in time," she said reassuringly. "It is one of the few things that cannot fail. And to-day, at least, you have learnt that when things are going hardly with Theo, it is kindest and wisest to leave him alone."

Evelyn understood this last, and registered a valiant resolve to that effect.

But the day's events gave her small chance of acting on her new-found knowledge. Desmond himself took the initiative: and save for a bare half-hour at tiffin, she saw him no more until the evening.

Perhaps only the man who has trained and loved a polo pony can estimate the pain and rebellion of spirit that he was combating, doggedly and in silence; or condone the passing bitterness he felt towards his uncomprehending wife.

He spent more time than usual in the stables, where Diamond nuzzled into his breast-pocket for slices of apple and sugar; and Diamond's sais lifted up his voice and wept, on receipt of an order to start for Pindi with his charge on the following day.

"There is no Sahib like my Sahib in all Hind," he protested, his turban within an inch of Desmond's riding-boot. "The Sahib is my father and my mother! How should we serve a stranger, Hazúr, – the pony and I?"

"Nevertheless, it is an order," Desmond answered not unkindly, "that thou shouldst remain with the pony, sending word from time to time that all goeth well with him. Rise up. It is enough."

Returning to the house, he hardened his heart, and accepted the unwelcome offer from Pindi.

"What a confounded fool I am!" he muttered, as he stamped and sealed the envelope. "I'd sooner shoot the little chap than part with him in this way."

But the letter was posted, nevertheless.

He excused himself from polo, and rode over to Wyndham's bungalow, where he found Paul established in the verandah with his invariable companions – a pipe, and a volume of poetry or philosophy.

"Come along, and beat me at rackets, old man," he said without dismounting. "I'm 'off' polo to-day. We can go for a canter afterwards."

Wyndham needed no further explanation. A glance at Theo's face was enough. They spent four hours together; talked of all things in heaven and earth, except the one sore subject; and parted with a smile of amused understanding.

"Quite like old times!" Paul remarked, and Desmond nodded. For it was a habit, dating from early days, that whenever the pin-pricks of life chafed Theo's impatient spirit, he would seek out his friend, spend an hour or two in his company, and tell him precisely nothing.

Thanks to Paul's good offices, dinner was a pleasanter meal than the earlier ones had been. But Evelyn looked white and woe-begone; and Honor wisely carried her off to bed, leaving Desmond to his pipe and his own discouraging thoughts.

These proved so engrossing that he failed to hear a step in the verandah, and started when two hands came quietly down upon his shoulders.

No need to ask whose they were. Desmond put up his own and caught them in a strong grip.

"Old times again, is it?" he asked, with a short satisfied laugh. "Brought your pipe along?"

"Yes."

"Good business. There's your chair, – it always seems yours to me still. Have a 'peg'?"

Paul shook his head, and drew his chair up to the fire with deliberate satisfaction.

"Light up, then; and we'll make a night of it as we used to do in the days before we learned wisdom, and paid for it in hard cash."

"Talking of hard cash – what price d'you get?" the other asked abruptly.

"Seven-fifty."

"Will that cover everything?"

"Yes."

"Theo, – why, in Heaven's name, won't you cancel this wretched business, and take the money from me instead?"

"Too late now. And, in any case, it's out of the question, for reasons that you would be the first to appreciate – if you knew them."

"But look here – suppose I do know – "

Desmond lifted a peremptory hand.

"Whatever you think you know, for God's sake don't put it into words. I'm bound to go through with this, Paul, in the only way that seems right to me. Don't make it harder than it is already. Besides," he added, with a brisk change of tone, "this is modern history! We're pledged to old times to-night."

Evelyn's fantastic French clock struck three, in silver tones, before the two men parted.

"It's an ill wind that blows no good, after all!" Desmond remarked, as he stood in a wide splash of moonlight on the verandah steps. "I feel ten years younger since the morning. Come again soon, dear old man; it's always good to see you."

And Paul Wyndham, riding homeward under the myriad lamps of heaven, thanked God, in his simple devout fashion, for the courage and constancy of his friend's heart.

CHAPTER XV.

GOOD ENOUGH, ISN'T IT?

"One crowded hour of glorious life."

– Scott.

The dusty parade-ground of Mian Mir, Lahore's military cantonment, vibrated from end to end with a rising tide of excitement.

On all sides of the huge square eight thousand spectators, of every rank and race and colour, were wedged into a compact mass forty or fifty deep: while in the central space, eight ponies scampered, scuffled, and skidded in the wake of a bamboo-root polo-ball; theirs hoofs rattling like hailstones on the hard ground.

And close about them – as close as boundary flags and distracted native policemen would permit – pressed that solid wall of onlookers – soldiers, British and native, from thirty regiments at least; officers, in uniform and out of it; ponies and players of defeated teams, manfully resigned to the "fortune o' war," and not forgetful of the obvious fluke by which their late opponents had scored the game; official dignitaries, laying aside dignity for the occasion; drags, phaetons, landaus, and dog-carts, gay as a summer parterre in a wind, with the restless parasols and bonnets of half the women in the Punjab; scores and scores of saïses, betting freely on the match, arguing, shouting, or shampooing the legs of ponies, whose turn was yet to come; and through all the confused hubbub of laughter, cheering, and mercifully incoherent profanity, a British infantry band hammering out with insular assurance, "We'll fight and we'll conquer again and again."

It was the last day of the old year – a brilliant Punjab December day – and the last "chukker" of the final match for the Cup was in full progress. It lay between the Punjab Cavalry from Kohat and a crack Hussar team, fresh from Home and Hurlingham, mounted on priceless ponies, six to each man, and upheld by an overweening confidence that they were bound to "sweep the board." They had swept it accordingly; and although anticipating "a tough tussle with those game 'Piffer'25 chaps," were disposed to look upon the Punjab Cup as their own property for at least a year to come.

Desmond and his men – Olliver and two native officers – knew all this well enough; knew also that money means pace, and weight, and a liberal supply of fresh mounts, and frankly recognised that the odds were heavily against them. But there remained two points worth considering: – they had been trained to play in perfect unison, horse and man; and they were all in deadly earnest.

They had fought their way, inch by inch, through the tournament to this final tie; and it had been a glorious fight so far. The Hussars, whose self-assurance had led them to underrate the strength of the enemy, were playing now like men possessed. The score stood at two goals all, and electric shocks of excitement tingled through the crowd.

Theo Desmond was playing "back," as a wise captain should, to guard the goal and ensure the completest control over his team; and his mount was a chestnut Arab with three white stockings and a star upon his forehead.

This unlooked-for circumstance requires explanation.

A week earlier, on returning from his morning ride to the bungalow where Paul and his own party were staying, Desmond had been confronted by Diamond in a brand-new saddle-cloth marked with his initials; while Diamond's sais, with a smile that displayed every tooth in his head, salaamed to the ground.

"Well, I'm shot!" he exclaimed. "Dunni, – what's the meaning of this?"

The man held out a note in Colonel Buchanan's handwriting. Desmond dismounted, flung an arm over the Arab's neck, and opened the note with a strange quickening of his breath.

The Colonel stated, in a few friendly words, that as Diamond was too good a pony to be allowed to go out of the Regiment, he and his brother officers had decided to buy him back for the Polo Club. Major Wilkinson of the Loyal Monmouth had been uncommonly decent over the whole thing; and, as captain of the team, Desmond would naturally have the use of Diamond during the tournament, and afterwards, except when he happened to be away on leave.

It took him several minutes to grasp those half dozen lines of writing; and if the letters grew indistinct as he read, he had small cause to be ashamed of the fact.

On looking up, he found Paul watching him from the verandah; and dismissing the sais he sprang up the steps at a bound.

"Paul, – was it your notion?"

But the other smiled and shook his head.

"Brilliant inspirations are not in my line, old chap. It was Mrs Olliver. She and the Colonel did most of it between them, though we're all implicated, of course; and I don't know when I've seen the Colonel so keen about anything in his life."

"God bless you all!" Desmond muttered under his breath. "I'm bound to win the Cup for you after this."

And now, as the final "chukker" of the tournament drew to a close, it did indeed seem that the ambition of many years was on the eve of fulfilment. Excitement rose higher every minute. Cheers rang out on the smallest provocation. General sympathy was obviously with the Frontier team, and the suspense of the little contingent from Kohat had risen to a pitch beyond speech.

All the native officers and men who could get leave for the great occasion formed a picturesque group in the forefront of the crowd; Rajinder Singh towering in their midst, his face set like a mask; his eyes fierce with the lust of victory. Evelyn Desmond, installed beside Honor in a friend's dog-cart, sat with her small hands clenched, her face flushed to the temples, disjointed murmurs breaking from her at intervals. Honor sat very still and silent, gripping the iron bar of the box-seat, her whole soul centred on the game. Paul Wyndham, who had mounted the step on her side of the cart, and whose hand clasped the bar within half an inch of hers, had not spoken since the ponies last went out; and to all appearance his concentration equalled her own. But her nearness affected him as the proximity of iron affects the needle of a compass, deflecting his thoughts and eyes continually from the central point of interest.

And what of Frank Olliver?

Her effervescent spirit can only be likened to champagne just before the cork flies off. Perched upon the front seat of a drag, with Colonel Buchanan, she noted every stroke and counter-stroke, every point gained and lost, with the practised knowledge of a man, and the one-sided ardour of a woman. She had already cheered herself hoarse; but still kept up a running fire of comment, emphasised by an occasional pressure of the Colonel's coat-sleeve, to the acute discomfiture of that self-contained Scot.

"We'll not be far off the winning post now," she assured him at this juncture. "Our ponies are playing with their heads entirely, and the others are losing theirs because of the natives and the cheering. There goes the ball straight for the boundary again! – Well done, Geoff! But the long fellow's caught it – Saints alive! 'Twould have been a goal but for Theo. How's that for a fine stroke, now?"

For Desmond, with a clean, splitting smack, had sent the ball flying across three-fourths of the ground.

"Mind the goal!" he shouted to his half-back, Alla Dad Khan, as Diamond headed after the ball like a lightning streak, with three racers – maddened by whip and spur and their own delirious excitement – clattering upon his tail; and a fusilade of clapping, cheers, and yells broke out on all sides.

The ball, checked in mid career, came spinning back to them with the force of a rifle-bullet. The speed had been terrific, and the wrench of pulling up wrought dire confusion. Followed a sharp scrimmage, a bewildering jumble of horses and men, rattling of sticks and unlimited breaking of the third commandment; till the ball shot out again into the open, skimming, like a live thing, through a haze of fine white dust, Desmond close upon it, as before; the Hussar "forwards" in hot pursuit.

But their "back" was ready to receive the ball, and Desmond along with it. Both players struck simultaneously. Their cane-handled sticks met with a crack that was heard all over the ground. Then the ball leapt clean through the goal-posts, the head of Desmond's stick leapt after it, and the crowd scattered right and left before a thundering onrush of ponies. Cheer upon cheer, yell upon yell, went up from eight thousand throats at once. British soldiers flung their helmets in the air; the band lost its head and broke into a triumphant clash of discord; while Colonel Buchanan, forgetful of his Scottish decorum, stood up in the drag and shouted like any subaltern.

He was down in the thick of the melée, ready to greet Desmond as he rode off the battlefield, a breathless unsightly victor, covered with dust and glory.

"Stunningly played – the whole lot of you!"

"Thank you, sir. Good enough, isn't it?"

A vigorous handshake supplied the rest; and Desmond trotted forward to the dog-cart, where Evelyn greeted him with a rush of congratulation. Honor had no word, but Desmond found her eyes and smile sufficiently eloquent.

"Best fight, bar none, I ever had in my life!" he declared by way of acknowledgment. "We're all off to the B.C. Mess as soon as the L.G. has presented the Cup, and we've got some of the dust out of our throats. Come along, Paul, old man."

And he went his way in such elation of spirits as a captain may justly feel whose team has carried off the Punjab Cup in the face of overwhelming odds.

CHAPTER XVI.

SIGNED AND SEALED

"Leave the dead moments to bury their dead;Let us kiss, and break the spell."– Owen Meredith.

The Fancy Ball, given on Old Year's night by the Punjab Commission, was, in Evelyn's eyes, the supreme event of the week; and when Desmond, after a mad gallop from the Bengal Cavalry Mess, threw open his bedroom door, he was arrested by a vision altogether unexpected, and altogether satisfying to his fastidious taste.

A transformed Evelyn stood before the long glass, wrapt in happy contemplation of her own image. From the fillet across her forehead, with its tremulous wire antennæ, to the sandalled slipper that showed beneath her silken draperies, all was gold. Two shimmering wings of gauze sprang from her shoulders; her hair, glittering with gold dust, waved to her waist; and a single row of topaz gleamed on the pearl tint of her throat like drops of wine.

"By Jove, Ladybird, – how lovely you look!"

She started, and turned upon him a face of radiance.

"I'm the Golden Butterfly. Do you like me, Theo, really?"

"I do; – no question. Where on earth did you get it all?"

"At Simla, last year. Muriel Walter invented it for me." Her colour deepened, and she lowered her eyes. "I didn't show it to you before, – because – "

"Yes, yes, – I know what you mean. Don't distress yourself over that. You'll have your triumph to-night, Ladybird! Remember my dances, please, when you're besieged by the other fellows! Upon my word, you look such a perfect butterfly that I shall hardly dare lay a hand on you!"

"You may dare, though," she said softly. "I won't break in pieces if you do."

Shy invitation lurked in her look and tone; but apparently her husband failed to perceive it.

"I'll put you to the test later on," he said, with an amused laugh. "I must go now, and translate myself into Charles Surface, or I'll be late."

Left alone again, she turned back to her looking-glass and sighed; but a single glance at it comforted her surprisingly.

"He was in a hurry," she reflected, by way of further consolation, "and I've got four dances with him after all."

Theo Desmond inscribed few names on his programme beyond those of his wife, Mrs Olliver, and Honor Meredith.

"You must let me have a good few dances, Honor," he said to her, "and hang Mrs Grundy! We are outsiders here, and you and I understand one another."

She surrendered her programme with smiling submission. "Do you always order people to give you dances in that imperative fashion?"

"Only when I'm set on having them, and daren't risk refusal! I'll go one better than Paul, if I may. I didn't know he had it in him to be so grasping."

And he returned the card on which the initials P. W. appeared four times in Wyndham's neat handwriting.

Never, in all his days had Paul asked a woman to give him four dances; and as he claimed Honor for the first of them, he wondered whether his new-found boldness would carry him farther still. Her beauty and graciousness, her enthusiasm over the afternoon's triumph, exalted him from the sober levels of patience and modesty to unscaled heights of aspiration. But not until their second valse together did an opening for speech present itself.