The Squaw Man

At the beginning of the season she was presented at court. Her youth and beauty made a sensation, and her marriage was arranged to take place within a month.

Eager to grasp the bloom of the fresh flower he had plucked, Henry would tolerate no delay. Backed by the dominant influence of his mother, who in Diana saw not only the gratification of Henry's desires, but a gracious bearer of his name, and, with the persuasion of Sir Charles, Diana acquiesced to an early marriage. She was in love with love, not with the man, and her loveliness and the purity of her fresh young soul made her idealize the best of Henry's shifting, many-sided nature.

Sir Charles dozed peacefully. Diana, with feverish cheeks and burning eyes, longed to escape from the warm room. Through the closed windows she could see that the rain had ceased. She wanted to be alone, to calm the battling emotions of the past hour. As she tiptoed to the door, it was thrown open, and the Countess of Kerhill and Lady Mabel Wynnegate were announced.

Sir Charles aroused, rose quickly from his chair to greet the visitors.

"My dear," Lady Kerhill began, as she entered the room and embraced Diana, "we are going to ask you for our tea at once if you will take pity on us. Such an afternoon! We were obliged to turn back from Ranelagh because of the storm. Fortunately we had a closed carriage, but Mabel and I were so anxious to know whether you and Henry had started before the shower sprang up" – with a quick look of surprise about the room, she exclaimed, "Why, where is Henry?"

Diana rang the bell for tea.

"I had a note from Henry, dear Lady Elizabeth, saying he was detained by some unexpected business."

Sir Charles noticed with great satisfaction Diana's superb control. Her rebellious mood, as he surmised, had been a mere whim.

For a moment a half-frightened look came into Lady Elizabeth's eyes. She was never quite sure of Henry, but even to herself she never admitted it. She had cast him for a role that he neither suggested nor attempted to play, but she never flinched before the duty of wilfully blinding herself to these truths. Her love and her belief would win, and out of it all would be created the son she so desired Henry to be – that was her unconscious prayer. She threw off the moment's anxiety.

"No doubt it is a busy week for Henry," she said. She crossed to a chair near the fire, and with the announcement of tea began to gossip with Sir Charles. Mabel moved close to Diana's side at the tea-table. She had grown into a fairy-like creature, with exquisite, youthful coloring. Very shy and utterly subordinate to her mother and brother, she lavished upon Diana a great affection in return for her sympathy. She stole shy glances at Diana's unusual color, as the latter poured the tea mechanically, but joined little in the conversation. Diana caught Mabel's eyes wonderingly fastened upon her. She could no longer endure the close room.

"I must get a breath of air. Can Mabel go with me?" she said, as she rose from her untouched tea.

Sir Charles was explaining to Lady Elizabeth some details of the previous night's rowdy conduct at the House. They both paused for a moment.

"Do take a turn with Mabel in the park," said Sir Charles. "It will refresh you."

"Remember we are due at the opera to-night," Lady Elizabeth said, as she rose. Sir Charles protested. "But it's just why I'm going myself," Lady Elizabeth confessed. "I'll send the carriage back for Mabel."

A few minutes later Diana and Mabel entered the park. The pungent smell of the damp earth filled the air. Great crimson and yellow pools of color dotted the ground; they were the battered-down blossoms of the afternoon. Some stronger plants than the others were lifting their swaying stems. The paths were covered with bruised leaves, and from the branches came the drip-drip of the gleaming rain-drops. At times under interlaced branches it seemed as though the storm still continued, so heavy was the splashing of the drenched trees. The usually crowded meeting-ground of fashion was practically deserted; even the guards had not left their corners of refuge. Here and there a stray gardener in a by-path was pityingly regarding his damaged beds.

The fresh, wet air blew against Diana's face and calmed her troubled spirit. Mabel linked her arm through Diana's: neither spoke. On and on they walked, in and out of deserted side-paths, until a turn in the road brought them opposite to the Serpentine Bridge, and they faced the public driveway of the park. A gust of wind blew across the ground a deluge of broken boughs; it caused them to hesitate on the edge of the crossing. Mabel started forward as a cab dashed towards them at a tremendous speed.

"Why, Di, there's Henry in that hansom," Mabel gasped, as she blew a tangle of loosened hair out of her eyes.

But Diana could only see the occupant nearest to her in the cab – it was a woman with a strangely interesting foreign face.

"Nonsense," she answered, as she held firm the wind-blown hat. "Henry is in the city. You are mistaken, dear."

As she spoke the storm began afresh. The wind blew the sodden blossom leaves and broken branches into a hurricane cloud around them. Grasping Mabel by the hand, Diana made her way against the violence of the wind and finally reached the entrance to the park. In the rush of keen air and the fight against it, everything else was forgotten. They quickly reached the house, and Diana saw Mabel drive away in the shelter of the waiting carriage. A few minutes later she was in her own room.

She loosened her long, brown hair, and kneeling before the glowing fire held the wet coils to its warmth. On her bed lay a gown to be worn that night, and the light from the fire cast a delicate sheen over its folds. It flickered and blazed with merry bursts of flame, lighting up the old-fashioned chintz draperies of the quaintly furnished room. Through the closed window she could hear the faint splutter of the rain on the casement. As she leaned against the tall chair close to the fireplace, a soft, warm languor stole over her and the tension of her mind relaxed. The beauty of her present life stretched out innumerable magic wands that lulled into insensibility the frightened thoughts of the afternoon. Soothed by the warmth and comfort of the room after the fatigue of her walk against the gale in the park, she abandoned herself to pleasant, intangible dreams. A knock at the door aroused her.

It was her aunt's maid, who carried a large box of flowers. Diana opened them; they were from Henry. Again they reiterated his apologies for the afternoon's disappointment. The perfume of the gardenias filled the room as she sank into a chair before her dressing-table and buried her face in the masses of delicate blossoms. The quiet servant gathered up the tangled hair.

"Her ladyship would like you to come to her room before you leave for the opera," she said, as she drew the brush across the soft brown locks.

Diana did not reply.

Yes, she was admitting to herself she had been unreasonable, as her father said. Life was beautiful and wonderful, and she meant to gather all its sweetness and bloom.

CHAPTER III

The rain that battered down the glory of color into the soaked earth of the park had slashed and beaten black, struggling lines against the gray stone-wall of the buildings in Lincoln's Inn. The radiance of the sun never wholly penetrated the court, but to-day the old place seemed like a tomb. In one of the forbidding-looking dwellings, in his solicitor's chambers, sat Lord Kerhill. He glanced around the silent room, and aimlessly took in the array of large tin boxes, with their painted family names, piled high on the shelves encircling the walls. Conspicuous among them was his own. With the exception of a few unattractive pieces of solid mahogany and some large leather chairs, the room was almost empty. Its ugliness jarred him. As he sat there, his face in repose showed that the years had given an added touch of bitterness to his expression. He still retained his well-cut features, and their beauty of line was only a little marred by a certain heaviness that had recently developed. His dark mustache hid the weak mouth with its suggestion of sensuality; indeed, the whole man showed a strong tendency towards grossness as yet only noticeable to the careful observer.

He still had the ineffable quality of charm, when he willed to exert it, which made his selfishness seem to many only the outcome of impulsive youthfulness. In a shamefaced way he admitted to himself now that he was in the wrong and that he had stupidly involved his affairs, but he comforted himself in the same moment, with the fatuousness of self-indulgence, that everything would work out all right. To tide over this difficulty or adjust and evade for a time the demand of the hour had been his policy for so long that he could not realize that an end was possible to the long tether he so often abused.

He had come in response to an urgent summons. Opposite him, deeply absorbed in some papers, sat Johnston Petrie, the trusted solicitor of the Kerhill family since Henry's father came into the title. He was a large, powerfully built man of fifty-five, with a massive head, piercing black eyes under shaggy eyebrows, and close-cropped iron-gray curls above the shrewd face. Henry rose impatiently to go.

As he did so, Petrie lifted his glasses on their black ribbon to his eyes, and said, "I'm exceedingly sorry, your Lordship, but you must give me time to look more closely into that affair before I can venture a final opinion as to the condition of the estate. Besides, I have several other matters of the gravest importance to question you about; they pertain to some business transactions you made recently without my knowledge, while you were abroad."

He motioned his lordship to a chair as though to pursue deeper the conversation, and drew several documents from a drawer. Henry Kerhill fidgeted.

"It's impossible, Petrie. Next week, after the wedding, or after we return from Scotland, I'll have leisure then to discuss these things with you, and I really mean this time to have you adjust everything and set me quite straight."

Johnston Petrie shook his head.

"Oh, I know," Henry continued, "I've been careless, but I mean to pull up. I'll start fair from next week."

Johnston Petrie looked up sharply. He knew more of his client's career than Henry cared to remember. He had known him from boyhood, and his shrewd summing up of human nature could see only pitfalls ahead for Lady Elizabeth's son. He had tried in every way to stop the reckless living of his client. From the incessant demands made on the estate for large sums of ready money he knew that Henry Wynnegate, irritated by the conservative principles of his firm, had used outside help to prevent his family adviser from obtaining knowledge of some recent speculations.

Long ago Johnston Petrie would have asked to be released from the responsibilities of the Kerhill affairs, out for a loyal devotion to his dead client, the late Earl, and a desire to protect Lady Elizabeth's fast diminishing rights. He was not in the least deceived by Henry's machinations, but wilfully allowed himself to seem blind to certain matters. He wished to be able to keep his hand at the lever, and argued with his brother that the end justified the means.

Lady Elizabeth in a recent interview had assured him that the coming marriage would be the turning-point in Henry's career. Nevertheless, he feared her judgment. Something in Henry's attitude to-day had made him more apprehensive; it had been impossible to pin him down to a serious consideration of his affairs. Petrie determined to venture a final effort, by enrolling his brother's services to strengthen his admonitions.

"Lord Kerhill," he said. "My brother is also most anxious to see you regarding some stocks you asked his advice about." He touched a bell; a clerk answered from an adjoining room.

"Ask Mr. Malcolm Petrie to come to us. Say that the Earl of Kerhill is here."

Henry chafed under the calm firmness of his solicitor. He had come in answer to an imperative note, and the discussion of his complicated affairs was extremely disagreeable. He was in no mood to continue it further. He moved to the door as Malcolm Petrie entered; a smaller counterpart of his brother, and a silent member of the firm, he took the same personal interest in the Kerhill affairs that his brother did. As he started to speak he was stopped by Henry.

"It's no use. I can wait no longer. A most important engagement demands my leaving at once. Advise me by letter – it will reach me to-morrow." And before either of the men could urge upon him the necessity of being allowed to advise him on certain negotiations, he had reached the outer door of the chambers, mounted the few steps leading to the court, and was in the square where his cab was waiting. He cursed the dreariness of the day as the rain splashed him. For a moment he hesitated. They had detained him far too long, these croaking fogies in their stuffy office. His hand fumbled in his pocket where lay a letter with a message not to be disregarded. On its arrival at his club early in the afternoon the note to Diana had been despatched.

The fury of haste that had made him so eager to escape from his business interview now deserted him. The rain drenched him in warm torrents. The driver on the box was a running stream, and from the horse came clouds of heavy steam.

Then the momentary irresolution passed as he gave his orders to the impassive cabman. He leaned back in his cab, tearing into shreds the mauve letter with its gold monogram as he muttered, "It's for the last time, by God." The hansom started with a jerk. It rattled down an alley. To Henry the damp, dismal court looked more than ever like a graveyard. He was glad when they turned into the vortex of the Strand.

That night at the opera, a new singer was to make her début in "Carmen." In Paris and America this sloe-eyed Italian had made the sensation of the half-century in her creation of the gypsy wanton. The brilliant throng in Covent Garden was alive with anticipation. The royalties were expected; indeed, the queen herself had especially commanded this reception for the gifted woman whom she had honored as her guest on the Riviera, where this singing Rachel had entranced her with the folk-songs and lullabies of her beloved country.

All that the London season could assemble of wit, beauty, and distinction was gathered in the Opera-House. The tiers of boxes were filling unusually early. Near the stage sat the Prime-Minister, a man of strong artistic perceptions and a writer of extraordinary talent. His face, with the marked cleft in the square chin, looked less dreamy than usual to-night, and the large, pale-blue eyes, amusedly surveyed the house. He seemed to have slipped off the yoke of tangled politics as he turned to his secretary, who was pointing out to him the celebrities in the stalls.

"There is the delightful American whom I met last week at Lord Blight's." As he spoke, he bowed to the new American favorite, Mrs. Hobart Chichester Chichester Jones, a radiant figure in scarlet, who found many glasses levelled at her.

"Only an American would dress so originally," the minister replied.

The American wore a gown of clinging scarlet fabric, the decidedly low-cut corsage showing the perfection of the white shoulders and arms. Around her throat she had twisted one long rope of uncut pearls and diamonds that reached below her waist, and in the soft, waving, red-gold hair she had arranged some daring scarlet geraniums. With her pale skin and great green eyes she enchanted London by her unusual type. Near her was the famous story-book Duchess, as the most popular of the younger beauties was called. "Too good to be true," Truth declared her, and indeed she seemed to have been especially created to confirm the mode of the old-fashioned romances extolling the grace and loveliness of an English Duchess. The crowd noticed the famous rubies that shone like tiny flames against the white gown.

Here and there a Dowager gleamed like a shelf in a Bond Street jeweller's shop, so promiscuous was her array of gems. The younger school of beauties with more wisdom employed their jewels differently, using them as an added tone of color or a touch of brilliance to a costume. In the stalls the art world was well represented. Painters and writers with a sprinkling of actors and actresses, who were not playing, were on hand to-night to greet the new-comer. From the gallery rail a crowd of eager, swarthy faces peered, impatiently gesticulating to one another, because of the failure of the curtain to ascend at the given time. It was known that the prima-donna was a capricious creature, often swayed by a mere whim from making her appearance. Once the death of a mocking-bird had postponed her début as Marguerite. Would she really appear?

As the royalties entered the box, the excitement was at fever-heat. Henry with his mother impatiently awaited Diana's arrival.

The overture began its sensuous, stirring appeal, and before the cigarette-girl crossed the bridge in the street scene, every seat and box was occupied.

The singer made the ill-starred Carmen a bewitching and compelling wanton. Who that saw her will ever forget her delicious cajolery as she urged the bewitched Don José to loosen the ropes that bound her? With her Habanera she eclipsed all predecessors and made the role irrevocably hers. The first act ended with a storm of bravas from the gallery and vociferous applause from the rest of the house.

It was not until the tumultuous ovation over the first act had ceased that Diana's presence was noticed by the audience. Accompanied by her father, she had arrived at the close of the overture, and had only time to slip into her place before the curtain arose. The walk in the rain had given her delicate skin a touch of color and heightened the beauty of her tender eyes, "so deeply blue that they were black," as Lord Patrick Illington described them on his first meeting at her presentation at Court. Her bands of straight hair were wound around her head; pale-green draperies encircled her lithesome body, and the gardenia blossoms in her hair gave her a fleeting likeness to the water-sprite Undine. In the horseshoe of fashionable mondaines the fragrance of her beauty was like that of a dew-sprayed rose.

Mrs. Hobart Chichester Chichester Jones, with her usual common-sense of seeing things as they were, leaned towards the man beside her.

"That is a beauty – the real thing; no chic, no gowning, no Paris wisdom of make-up, but a beauty. I'm glad I've seen it." She sank back as though philosophically preparing for a Waterloo.

From his box the Prince noticed the daughter of Sir Charles Marjoribanks whose services in diplomacy in his youth were not forgotten. Forthwith an equerry was sent to Sir Charles and Diana inviting them to visit the royal presence.

Diana was the social novelty of the season. The Prime-Minister remembered his classics as he dreamily gazed at her and murmured, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?"

From the back of the box, Henry watched Diana's impression on the house. His eyebrows were drawn into horns of suppressed temper and there was an air of brutal determination in his bearing. Gradually his expression cleared. Diana's beauty that night stirred the best in him. He tried to dismiss the events of the afternoon; he would be worthy of this child-woman. He set his shoulders square as though preparing to fight unseen forces.

"Lucky fellow, Kerhill," one man confided to another as they watched the crowd's sweeping glasses pause constantly at Diana Marjoribanks's box and saw the triumphant look on Henry's face.

The sinuous, commanding Carmen had reached her triumphant entry with the toreador when the mad Don José's dagger drew the purple stain on the gold-embroidered gown. Over the house a spell-bound silence reigned. As from an animal wounded to the death, low sounds of agonized pain came from the great actress – she forgot to sing, and the house forgot that she was a singer in an opera comique. For the moment it faced the realistic truth of a grim tragedy.

Excited and intoxicated by the sensuous music, Diana was hardly conscious that the opera was over. She was like a child with the world for a great, colored balloon. As she came down the winding staircase she was almost happy, and turned to smile at Henry, who was by her side. As she did so she saw him frown. They reached the foot of the staircase, and found their way half-barred by a dark, foreign-looking woman robed in a spun-gold gown. Diana noticed the insolent, amused expression on her handsome face, but at that moment her attention was diverted by some one who spoke to her, and she only vaguely noticed Henry's constrained bow, and the sudden brutal flame in his eyes.

Only later, as she sleepily looked over at the park in the dim light, did she remember that the woman in cloth of gold at the bottom of the staircase was strangely like the vivid, foreign-looking woman who had flashed past her in the park as the storm broke.

The wedding took place at St. George's, Hanover Square. It was the first brilliant wedding of the season and royalty honored it, not by sending a deputy, but by its personal presence. Diana passed through the gay pageant and heard the conventional words of well-wishers like one in a dream. She remembered being changed into a going-away frock – the curious street crowd gathering around her as she left the reception at the Park Lane house. Then as she entered the brougham she was conscious of Henry's face drawn close to hers, and the old frightened instincts that her father only a week ago had soothed and quelled again took possession of her. A great wall of fear closed in about her.

At last the carriage reached the station.

Diana leaned back in their compartment in the train northbound for Scotland. The bustle of the outgoing crowds was holding Henry's attention as she glanced over the afternoon paper, which gave a prominent position to the brilliant wedding that had taken place at St. George's only a few hours ago.

Suddenly she espied a name that made her heart leap. A brief paragraph told of the reward to be conferred on Captain James Wynnegate, but a longer account followed, giving details of his gallant work in the Northwestern Hills.

A great longing to see the friend of her childhood came over her. She was ashamed that she had forgotten him so long.

Henry entered the compartment, the guard closed the door, and the train started on its journey. Her husband spoke to her and she answered him in an absent manner. The sudden remembrance of her old playmate grew vividly and seemed to blot out all else, as, following on her self-reproach for forgetting him, came the thought, growing more poignant; "Did Jim remember her?"

CHAPTER IV

Jim lay in the hospital ward convalescing. Of the march back to the nearest hospital post, after the fight which has taken place three months before in the Northwestern Hills, when his name had been flashed over Europe in praise of his magnificent service to his flag, his mind held no memory.

Night after night in his delirium he lived again through the scenes of the fight that had brought glory to his name. Now it was the evening before the battle, when, acting upon information brought by the spy Rham-shi, he and his men kept their long vigil, sitting silently in their saddles the entire night awaiting the onslaught of the fanatical natives across the hill. Again it was early dawn, and in his fever-tossed dreams he heard the roar of the voices as the assault began; again he climbed to the summit of the hill and saw the dreaded gun of the enemy that was riddling his men. On – on he mounted. He felt the warm blood ooze down his body, the mists swim before his eyes, and the stinging pain pierce his side. In despair that he might not reach the monster in time to prevent it from completing its deadly work, his cry of agony often rang out in the silent room.

"Oh, God, God, my men – my splendid men – give me courage!"

Then his thoughts would wander to the hours when he lay on the ground with the blood dripping from his wound, and with the loaded carbine snatched from a fallen trooper he brought down a tribesman at the enemy's gun. As he fell, another sprang forward – there was another shot and still another as the tribesmen went down before his sure aim. There was but one thought in his brain – to prevent the firing of the gun, the devastation of his men. Difficult and more difficult it grew to lift the weakening arm. He could feel as he tossed on his couch the gurgle of the blood that glued him to the ground. He made an effort to rise to his knees. Another devil was about to load the gun. He must catch this one again – he must. It was his last cartridge. He stretched out his stiffening arm feebly; he tried to pull the trigger, but his strength failed him. Then – one supreme effort, and a report flashed through the air. The rest was a blank, but he had carried the day.