The Squaw Man
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"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.
These delirious hours passed and there followed a vague mid-air suspension of existence. Of tangible things he was no part. The years of fighting were forgotten. He was back in the Fairies' Corner with Diana, he saw the giant trees bending and whispering in the starlight. The smell of the damp earth from the sun-hidden enclosure filled the sick-room, and the vibrant, strong, compelling cry of the night-jar echoed in his dreams. Again, he and Diana listened for the flutter of the fairies' wings in the tree-tops. Gradually, even these mists cleared from his brain, and to-day he waited with impatience the surgeon, who was to decide whether he might obtain his leave.
The doctor found him sitting up in bed, his lean hands idly resting on the coverlet.
"Well, doctor," he asked, "what is the verdict? Am I to be allowed to join my regiment?"
The surgeon looked into the brave eyes. Jim was a wraith of the man who had gone into battle. The drawn cheek-bones were like high lights in the sunken face, the gauntness of the body could be discerned under the bedclothes, but the unflinching eyes held the same expression of everlasting courage. The doctor took Jim's long, meagre hand.
"We are done with you, Wynnegate. You fought a bigger battle here on this cot than you did yon day on the Hills, but you've won."
Jim only smiled.
"Your regiment is ordered home within a month, and you must go to your station to join it. Fighting will be a little out of your line for a while. I think you'll find you need England – a summer of sunshine in the open fields. Then come back later to us again." A suspicious moisture clouded his glasses. He was a man many years older than Jim, and he had seen his own boy go down at the head of his troops. Still, with the instinctive loyalty of the Englishman to his country, he concluded, "We need such men as you, my son."
The surgeon moved away. Jim closed his eyes. Presently he looked up.
He saw the long line of wounded men with here and there a wasted, propped-up figure – the quiet nurses passing and repassing. He began to feel the pulsating call of life again. For him the sick-room existence was ended; soon he would be back in the Fairies' Corner; he could hear the flutter of their wings.
The men were in the mess. Dunlap and Singleton were stretched out in long, wicker-basket chairs. Tomlinson was talking in an excited voice with several officers of the Tenth Hussars. "It means that Jim will receive a mention and a damn fine one," Tomlinson was saying, as he leaned back in his chair and gulped down his gin-and-seltzer. Singleton called to the orderly to bring a whiskey-and-soda. Dunlap leaned forward to Tomlinson as he asked:
"Is that absolutely sure? We all know that Jim has done fine work in his seven years here, but are the powers above really going to commend his last bit of pluck?"
"The powers above," thundered Tomlinson, who loathed being doubted, "not only mean to commend him, but they mean to decorate him with the bronze cross itself. I had it from Watkins."
A long whistle greeted this bit of news. Watkins was not apt to talk without positive information.
Tomlinson was fairly bursting with enthusiasm and importance. For him station life in India meant gossip – good or bad news – so long as it was news. He could work himself into a fever of enthusiasm, get all the glory out of another man's receiving a decoration, and rejoice as though it had been given to himself. He only asked that it should occur in his station. "Tommy," as he was called, had been known to incite blackballing from his club against a man whom he had never seen, because no opposition was made. It meant news, and the passing of the word from one mess to another. When the man was blackballed, Tomlinson, in a high fever of indignation, sought the downed man and became so incensed with sympathy that he threatened to resign from a club that could offer such indignities: by that time he had forgotten that he had caused it. At the moment he was basking in the glory of Jim's coming honors. He took another gin-and-seltzer.
"By George! he was down and done for when he came here from the hospital," Dunlap said. "Never saw such a goner. But he's picked up tremendously during the past month."
Singleton took his whiskey-and-potash from the orderly.
"Strange," he continued, as he sat up, glass in hand. "Wynnegate is so eager to go back: never saw anything like it. Seems as though this illness had knocked soldiering out of him, and he was such a keen one before."
"Mighty fortunate the regiment's time was up and we're ordered home. Talk about Jim's being glad – Gad! it means something to see those kiddies of mine. Wonder if the little beggars will remember me," Dunlap mused.
After three gins-and-seltzers, it was time for Tomlinson to listen to Dunlap about his children. He had heard it all before. He had come from his own mess with the news about Jim. That was all that interested him, so he got up to go.
"Who'll play polo this evening?" he asked.
Singleton promised he would.
"I'll walk back with you," Tomlinson said.
They started to leave, but catching sight of an orderly with a mail-bag, Singleton let Tomlinson go on alone.
"See you at six for polo, Tommy; and I say, send any of our fellows in that you see. Tell them the post is in," he called as he saw Jim's long, loose-jointed stride across the road.
A blazing sun beat down on Jim as he crossed to the mess. The April weather was anticipating India's most wearing heat. But only vaguely he noted the ominous lead-colored sky, with its promise of dust storms. The green of England filled his vision. Since the days in the hospital, his thoughts had recurred incessantly to Diana. A picture in an illustrated paper, picked up in his ward, showed him Miss Diana Marjoribanks as a beautiful young girl – little Diana no longer. There was the same Madonna face, but more exquisitely fair than the child he had left had promised to be. He hardly cared to admit to himself how much the picture had stirred him.
When he entered the mess he found the men in groups, absorbed in their letters. Singleton and Dunlap both called to him.
"There are two for you, Jim."
Letters did not often come his way. When he first left England, several child's letters had come from Diana – these he had answered. He never heard from Henry, and his aunt wrote seldom.
"Dinningfold." He saw the familiar old postmark. It was from Lady Elizabeth, then. Boyishly, he fingered its ample thickness. It was good of her to write such a budget, he thought, as he tore it open. The chatter of voices about him fell unheeding on his ears as the men read their letters.
"God! Breese is dead – dropped down quite suddenly at the club," Singleton remarked as he turned a page of the letter he was reading.
His words were almost drowned by an eager, exulting cry. Half the fellows turned toward Dick Farninsby. He was usually so quiet. To-night his young, fair face was the color of a puppy.
"I've come into the money," he stammered.
Every one knew that Farninsby's uncle had been an old reprobate and that Dick had had a close pinch on his meagre allowance. They also knew that a pretty girl was waiting for him at home. A buzz of congratulations followed. But Tim took no part in them. He was reading his aunt's letter.
"… We are so sorry that you won't be home in time for the wedding. Diana and Henry are to be married. It will be a London wedding. Diana has grown into a beautiful girl and will make a worthy wife for Henry and a charming mistress of Maudsley Towers…"
As he read, the page became a dancing mass of hieroglyphics. The men were beginning to light their cigarettes and pipes as they called bits of news to one another from the English papers. He tried hard to make the strange letters shape themselves and form words. He reread them. "Diana and Henry are to be married." He turned the page. "On the 30th of April," it said. To-day was the 2d of May.
Several of the men started for the polo-fields. Some one called, "What's your news, Wynnegate?" He forgot to answer. He crushed the letter in his hand and left the mess. Mechanically he put the unopened letter from headquarters, with the news of his brilliant reward, in his pocket. Across the polo-fields he could see the heavy atmosphere gathering in great clouds. A dust-storm was nursing its imminent wrath.
It all seemed far away from the Fairies' Corner.
CHAPTER V
Since the day in his mess when Jim read the news of Diana's approaching marriage to Henry, he had been immersed in a strange dreariness of feeling and a curious indifference to the homeward-bound journey. Night after night he stood alone on the forward-deck of the Crocodile bound from Bombay for England, and heard the soldiers singing their camp-songs, their strong, rough voices growing tender as they sang their cockney ballads of home. But they roused no responsive echo in Jim; watching the Southern Cross in the sky, his thoughts often drifted back to the seven years of fighting with their sun-scorched days of fatigue and danger, full of work that drained body and brain. He almost wished that he were returning to them.
One night at Ismailia the pendulum of his emotions swung back from this indifference to the first hours of joy that he had experienced when he received the news that his regiment was ordered back. The ship had anchored there for a few hours to obtain supplies. With Dunlap and Singleton he went ashore to the little hotel with its Continental atmosphere of cheap table-d'hôte dinners and slipshod Italian waiters. It was a shaky wooden building, built around an inside court, with balconies over which clambered in exuberance pale, waxy tea-roses, while the front of the building hung over a cypress-tree garden.
The indifferently good but pretentious meal was served in the tiny court. Dunlap's and Singleton's boisterous mood jarred Jim. He found himself watching the other guests of Monsieur Carlos' hostelry. At adjacent tables parties of tourists were making merry while waiting for the P.&O. steamer to carry them from Cleopatra's land to golden Italy, and from a dance-hall came the fantastic music of the nautch women's instruments. In half an hour the hotel was empty of all the diners save Jim, who lingered until the shabby proprietor, Monsieur Carlos, informed Monsieur le Capitaine that after ten the court was closed, but the verandas were at Monsieur's disposal for his kummel and cigarettes. Jim ascended the creaking staircase to the broad veranda partly hidden from the road by its screen of blooming roses gleaming like stars against the shadowed foliage. Here and there a tight, pink-tipped bud shone like a tiny flame.
The moon had risen and illumined the entire place with an uncanny brilliance, turning the night into an unreal day. Jim sank into a chair. The air was heavy with the perfume of the rose-trees. In the distance he could hear the barbarous clash of the dancing women's cymbals. It was their trade-night with two ships in the harbor. Jim took from his pocket a leather portmonnaie and drew from it the picture of Diana that he had cut from the paper in the hospital.
He had never willingly thought of her since the day he received his aunt's letter. As he sat on the deserted veranda, with the torn page lying on his knee, he was conscious of a sudden, intangible feeling of apprehension. Diana was the tenderest memory of his boyhood. Why did he fear this marriage with Henry? Vainly he studied the picture, trying to gain from the cheap illustration some knowledge of the woman into which Diana had grown. He tried honestly to face the truth of his great anxiety concerning the marriage. He knew that through his convalescence when the longing to go home had overmastered the soldier in him, the thought of renewing his friendship with Diana had been his happiest anticipation. He sought to reassure himself that his disappointment was selfishness – that he feared to find Diana absorbed in new interests, with his place completely crowded out of her life. Then a vision of Henry, sullen and defiant as he had last seen him, flashed before him… Yet might not Henry's character have been redeemed by his love for Diana? Jim knew that the meagre fortune of Sir Charles Marjoribanks could not be a material factor in the marriage. This proved his most reassuring thought. Then his memory reverted to Diana, and he recalled the child Di, who had clung to him on the morning of his departure and begged him to return. He remembered how as a boy he had often played that he was her knight, and fought the unseen foes that were supposed to lurk in the alleyways of the giant trees. Was it a prophetic vision of the future?
He rose from his chair. Sweeping clouds were rolling over the pale moon. The desolation of the place grew more terrible.
Far out at sea he could see the black phantom ship now appearing, now disappearing. It seemed at the mercy of the heavy vapors that at times touched its topmasts. The desire to reach England again grew strong in him. He felt he had a purpose to fulfil.
A half-hour passed. Suddenly the moon swept from under a heavy cloud, shaped like the wing of a monster bird. Across the road he could see the straggling groups of travellers returning from the festivities. Their tired, excited voices reached him, and he was glad to escape from the hotel and make his way to the waiting dinghy. Dunlap and Singleton joined him, and as he leaned back in the skiff, strong and incessant as the incoming tide that beat against the boat grew the strength of his resolve. Diana should obtain happiness if he could serve her to that end.
Three weeks later the Crocodile swung into the harbor at Portsmouth. A symphony in blues and greens greeted Jim's eyes as they anchored within sight of the Victory. An English June sky with riotous blues – from the palest flaky azure to the deepest turquoise – hung in the heavens over a vivid green sea. The very atmosphere seemed floating about in nebulous clouds of pearly tinted indigo. To Jim it was like the beauty of no other land.
Towards evening Jim reached London. The town was alive with the roar and rush of hansoms and crowded 'buses carrying the day's workers to their homes. His cab turned from St. James's Park into the Mall towards his club. How he loved the gray, majestic beauty of the place!
The expected arrival of the Crocodile had been duly noticed by the papers, and his part in the brilliant work of his regiment warmly commended. At the club he found letters of welcome awaiting him. Among them was one from Diana, urging him to come to them at once. It seemed the letter of a woman calm in her established womanhood. "Henry and I," it said, "will be so happy to see you to-morrow at luncheon at two o'clock. Do come." The letter further told him that Lady Elizabeth and Mabel were staying at the Towers. "Henry wanted a town-house, so we are settled at Pont Street for the season."
Late that night Jim sat alone in his club, and wrote an answer to Diana's letter. He spoke of his pleasure in being able to go to them on the morrow, but its phrases gave no sign of his intense feeling and his great desire for her happiness. He left the club and walked to the pillar-box opposite. He slipped the letter into the slit of the box, and slowly retraced his steps. A slight haze was beginning to creep over the city, and in the distance it looked as though a gauze theatre-drop was shutting off the scene from the spectators.
Jim was loath to leave the streets. There was an enchantment for him in the smoky atmosphere that intoxicated him. The call of London was in his blood. As he crossed the quiet Square near the Mall, he stretched out his arms, and youth and the joy of life rang out in one great cry – Oh, it was good to be home!
CHAPTER VI
Jim slept but little that night. In the morning his first thought was to reach the War Office, which he did almost before that dignified machine was prepared to receive him. A rumor was afloat that the Tenth Hussars might have to start shortly for South Africa, but he found that the gossip had been greatly exaggerated. Even if troops were sent out, he was assured that the Tenth Hussars were immune from active service for a long period. He rejoiced at the news, for he was tired of foreign service. His long illness had left him shaken and requiring a much-needed rest for recuperation.
At the War Office he learned that Henry had resigned his regiment and was at the head of the Surrey Yeomanry, with headquarters near the Towers. This argued well, he told himself; it meant work and responsibility for Henry that would engage his interest and surely win him away from his old, reckless way of living.
The morning slipped away with its many demands on his first day in town. His hansom turned into Sloane Street only as a clock near by struck two. In a few minutes the door of the Pont Street house was opened to him, and he was ushered into the library.
He dropped lightly into an arm-chair near a table heaped with books. Suddenly a door opened as though at the end of a corridor. He distinctly heard voices raised in strong argument behind the hangings; one sounded like Henry's; a half-suppressed oath followed.
"It's no use," the voice went on. "You must do as I say. Don't preach." He could not hear the words that followed. Jim wished it were possible to make known his presence in the room. He crossed to the farther window to avoid hearing the remainder of the conversation, but the clear and incisive words of the first speaker – this time Jim knew it was Henry – again struck his ears sharply.
"I must have the money, Petrie; make what explanation you like, but send it to me within a week. It's useless arguing. I've lost heavily in speculation. Here are the papers." The opening and slamming of several drawers followed. To Jim the words that he had just heard were like a knell to his hopes of the past week for Diana's happiness. So this was the truth! Another mortgage! He knew enough of the involved condition of the estate to dread the possibilities of that word.
As Jim sat in the window-seat facing the street, he was so absorbed in his reflections that he did not hear the door open. With a start he felt a pair of hands clasped over his eyes.
"Guess!" the low voice said.
He answered, quickly, "Di!"
"Yes, it's Di, Jim; and such a happy Di to see you again."
As he turned he half expected to see the tiny child as he had last seen her, with the puppy in her arms calling, "It's Di, Jim." For a moment they stood holding each other's hands and only the eyes of the two spoke. The thoughts of both involuntarily went back to their last meeting. They realized that unconsciously they had taken up their childhood manner. Slowly their hands unclasped and Diana was the first to speak.
"Oh, Jim, I should hardly know you. You are so big, so strong, and yet – you look as though you had been very ill; have you?"
She studied Jim's face closely, gaunt and drawn, but with the eyes still like gray pools of suppressed fire. Jim forgot the troubled thoughts that Henry's words had aroused. He only knew that Diana stood before him, young and beautiful. He threw back his head and laughed; it was the ringing, joyous laugh of a boy.
"And I almost thought, as I turned, that I could see my little Di," he said.
The memory of the delicate child faded into the tall, strong figure before him. Quickly he noted the complexities of her face; its newly acquired look of womanhood seemed curiously incongruous with the rest of her personality. He saw in her eyes a haunting expression of marked patience. The new acquaintance of the grown man and woman had adjusted itself.
"Oh, Jim, I'm so proud of you," Diana said, gravely. "You have really done something with your life that is worth while."
"Which means, I suppose, that the rest of us have not," a voice said.
Jim and Diana turned as Henry spoke. He was standing in the doorway. Jim noticed with satisfaction that his eyes rested on Diana in unquestionable gratification. Perhaps, after all, Henry's love for Diana was real. He remembered that his aunt, in her letter, had written of her great faith in this marriage for Henry's happiness – indeed, he well remembered that the letter seemed to insist upon the benefits Henry would derive from the marriage. He wondered what it had meant for Diana.
"Welcome to the hero," Henry chaffingly said, as he crossed to Jim's side.
An underlying nervous excitement, at once apparent to Jim, clung to Henry's manner. Otherwise his greeting was more than reassuring.
"Did you finish your business interview?" Diana questioned. A shade of displeasure showed on Henry's face as he answered:
"Yes, yes, I had more than enough of it."
"We postponed luncheon," Diana explained to Jim, "because Henry found his solicitor wished to see him about some repairs needed on the estate. The request was urgent, Henry said, and I knew you would not mind the delay."
For a moment Jim felt as if Henry must read the thoughts that blazed so fiercely in his mind. So this was Henry's way of deceiving Diana. He tried to control his face so that it might give no sign of the disgust he felt. Henry had turned away; Jim could see him nervously twisting his mustache; Diana was smiling tenderly on Henry as though in approval of his morning's benevolent work. Jim, reading between the lines, saw Henry wince at the dishonestly gained approbation; and decided that Henry was vulnerable where his desire to gain her respect was concerned. This was so much in his favor, at all events.
An hour later, as they sat over their coffee, Henry began explaining to Jim his work with the Yeomanry. If Jim stayed at home he wanted him to join in this splendid service to England.
"We shall need these men later, mark me. The situation in Africa is threatening." Then followed a discussion of their plans.
Henry's career as a soldier, Jim remembered, had promised well, but he also remembered certain periods of riotous living that had brought him for a time under the ban of the authorities.
As Henry elaborated his scheme to perfect the Yeomanry in their county, Jim acknowledged that there was no question of his undoubted ability to be in command. He succumbed to the strong personal charm of his cousin. Surely Henry would control himself and make a worthy showing of his life yet. In Jim's heart was the silent prayer that it might be so, and that perhaps he could help him to attain this result.
Diana, listening, was happy in the apparent new bond between the cousins. She had been so eager for this: that Jim should be with them as he had been when he was a boy. Since her marriage, her life had been full of pleasant days, with only here and there the pin-prick of the old, frightened instincts. It usually occurred when Henry was in one of his black moods. Up to the present he had tried to avoid her on these occasions. She strangely rebelled when she came to realize that it was her beauty which gave him his greatest pleasure. That it was primarily her youth and loveliness that delighted him, he made no effort to conceal. At times she admitted to herself that she wished it were not so flagrant – this frank, pagan joy of the senses which she invoked in him. But, she reasoned, if she allowed these thoughts to frighten her, she was catching at shadows. Of tangible facts there was none; indeed, she found it impossible to explain satisfactorily these doubts and regrets.