The Way of an Eagle Part 59

CHAPTER L

EREBUS

Not another word pa.s.sed between Daisy and Muriel upon the subject of that night's confidences. There seemed nothing further to be said.

Moreover, there was between them a closer understanding than words could compa.s.s.

The days that followed pa.s.sed very peacefully, and Daisy began to improve so marvellously in health and spirits that both her husband and her guest caught at times fleeting glimpses of the old light-hearted personality that they had loved in earlier days.

"You have done wonders for my wife," Will said one day to Muriel. And though she disclaimed all credit, she could not fail to see a very marked improvement.

She herself was feeling unaccountably happy in those days, as though somewhere deep down in her heart a bird had begun to sing. Again and again she told herself that she had no cause for gladness; but again and yet again that sweet, elusive music filled her soul.

She would have gladly stayed on with Daisy, seeing how the latter clung to her, for an indefinite period; but this was not to be.

Daisy came out on to the verandah one morning with a letter in her hand.

"My dear," she said, "I regret to say that, I must part with you.

I have had a most touching epistle from Lady Ba.s.sett, describing at length your many wasted opportunities, and urging me to return you to the fold with all speed. It seems there is to be a State Ball at the palace--an immense affair to which the Rajah is inviting all the big guns for miles around--and Lady Ba.s.sett thinks that her dear child ought not to miss such a gorgeous occasion. She seems to think that something of importance depends upon it, and hints that I should be almost criminally selfish to deprive you of such a treat as this will be."

Muriel lifted a flushed face from a letter of her own. "I have heard from Sir Reginald," she said. "Evidently she has made him write. I can't think why, for she never wants me when I am with her. I don't see why I should go, do you? After all, I am of age and independent."

A very tender smile touched Daisy's lips. "I think you had better go, darling," she said.

Muriel opened her eyes wide. "But why--"

Daisy checked the question half uttered. "I think it will be better for you. I never meant to let you stay till the rains, so it makes little more than a week's difference. It sounds as if I want to be rid of you, doesn't it? But you know it isn't that. I shall miss you horribly, but you have done what you came to do, and I shall get on all right now. So I am not going to keep you with me any longer. My reasons are not Lady Ba.s.sett's reasons, but all the same it would be selfish of me to let you stay. Later on perhaps--in the winter--you will come and make a long stay; spend Christmas with us, and we will have some real fun, shall we, Will?" turning to her husband who had just appeared.

He stared for an instant as if he thought he had not heard aright, and there was to Muriel something infinitely pathetic in the way his brown hand touched his wife's shoulder as he pa.s.sed her and made reply.

"Oh, rather!" he said. "We'll have a regular jollification with as many old friends as we can collect. Don't forget, Miss Roscoe! You are booked first and foremost, and we shall keep you to it, Daisy and I."

Two days later Muriel was on her way back to Ghawalkhand. She found the heat of the journey almost insupportable. The Plains lay under a burning pall of cloud, and at night the rolling thunder was incessant.

But no rain fell to ease the smothering oppression of the atmosphere.

She almost fainted one evening, but Will was with her and she never forgot his kindly ministrations.

A few hours' journey from Ghawalkhand Sir Reginald himself met her, and here she parted with Will with renewed promises of a future meeting towards the end of the year.

Sir Reginald fussed over her kind-heartedly, hoped she had enjoyed herself, thought she looked very thin, and declared that his wife was looking forward with much pleasure to her return. The State was still somewhat unsettled, there had been one or two outrages of late, nothing serious, of course, but the native element was restless, and he fancied Lady Ba.s.sett was nervous.

She was away at a polo-match when they arrived, and Muriel profited by her absence and went straight to bed.

She could have slept for hours had she been permitted to do so, but Lady Ba.s.sett, returning, awoke her to receive her welcome. She was charmed to have her back, she declared, though shocked to see her looking so wan, "so almost plain, dear child, if one may take the liberty of an old friend to tell you so."

Neither the crooked smile that accompanied this gentle criticism nor the decidedly grim laugh with which it was received, was of a particularly friendly nature; but these facts were not extraordinary.

There had never been the smallest hint of sympathy between them.

"I trust you will be looking much better than this two nights hence,"

Lady Ba.s.sett proceeded in her soft accents. "The Rajah's ball is to be very magnificent, quite dazzlingly so from all accounts. Mr.

Bobby Fraser is of course behind the scenes, and he tells me that the preparations in progress are simply gigantic. By the way, dear, it is to be hoped that your absence has not damaged your prospects in that quarter. I have been afraid lately that he was transferring his allegiance to the second Egerton girl. I hope earnestly that there is nothing in it, for you know how I have your happiness at heart, do you not? And it would be such an excellent thing for you, dear child, as I expect you realise. For you know, you look so much older than you actually are that you really ought not to throw away any more opportunities. Every girl thinks she must have her fling, but you, dear, should soberly think of getting settled soon. You would not like to get left, I feel sure."

At this point Muriel sat up suddenly, her dark eyes very bright, and in brief tones announced that so far as she was concerned the second Egerton girl was more than welcome to Mr. Fraser and she hoped, if she wanted him, she would manage to keep him.

It was crudely expressed, as Lady Ba.s.sett pointed out with a sigh for her waywardness; but Muriel always was crude when her deeper feelings were disturbed, and physical fatigue had made her irritable.

She wished ardently that Lady Ba.s.sett would leave her, but Lady Ba.s.sett had not quite done. She lingered to ask for news of poor little Daisy Musgrave. Had she yet fully recovered from the shock of her cousin's tragic death? Could she bear to speak of him? She, Lady Ba.s.sett, had always suspected the existence of an unfortunate attachment between them.

Muriel had no information to bestow upon the subject. She hoped and believed that Daisy was getting stronger, and had promised, all being well, to spend Christmas with her.

Lady Ba.s.sett shook her head over this declaration. The dear child was so headlong. Much might happen before Christmas. And what of Mr. Ratcliffe--this was on her way to the door--had she heard the extraordinary, the really astounding news concerning him that had just reached Lady Ba.s.sett's ears? She asked because he and Mrs. Musgrave used to be such friends, though to be sure Mr. Ratcliffe seemed to have thrown off all his old friends of late. Had Muriel actually not heard?

"Heard! Heard what?" Muriel forced out the question from between lips that were white and stiff. She was suddenly afraid--horribly, unspeakably afraid. But she kept her eyes unflinchingly upon Lady Ba.s.sett's face. She would sooner die than quail in her presence.

Lady Ba.s.sett, holding the door-handle, looked back at her, faintly smiling. "I wonder you have not heard, dear. I thought you were in correspondence with his people. But perhaps they also are in the dark.

It is a most unheard-of thing--quite irrevocable I am told. But I always felt that he was a man to do unusual things. There was always to my mind something uncanny, abnormal, something almost superhuman, about him."

"But what has happened to him?" Muriel did not know how she uttered the words; they seemed to come without her own volition. She was conscious of a choking sensation within her as though iron bands were tightening about her heart. It beat in leaps and bounds like a tortured thing striving to escape. But through it all she sat quite motionless, her eyes fixed upon Lady Ba.s.sett's face, noting its faint, wry smile, as the eyes of a prisoner on the rack might note the grim lines on the face of the torturer.

"My dear," Lady Ba.s.sett said, "he has gone into a Buddhist monastery in Tibet."

Calmly the words fell through smiling lips. Only words! Only words!

But with how deadly a thrust they pierced the heart of the woman who heard them none but herself would ever know. She gave no sign of suffering. She only stared wide-eyed before her as an image, devoid of expression, inanimate, sphinx-like, while that awful constriction grew straiter round her heart.

Lady Ba.s.sett was already turning to go when the deep voice arrested her.

"Who told you this?"

She looked back, holding the open door. "I scarcely know who first mentioned it. I have heard it from so many people,--in fact the news is general property--Captain Gresham of the Guides told me for one. He has just gone back to Peshawur. The news reached him, I believe, from there. Then there was Colonel Cathcart for another. He was talking of it only this afternoon at the Club, saying what a deplorable example it was for an Englishman to set. He and Mr. Bobby Fraser had quite a hot argument about it. Mr. Fraser has such advanced ideas, but I must admit that I rather admire the staunch way in which he defends them.

There, dear child! You must not keep me gossiping any longer. You look positively haggard. I earnestly hope a good sleep will restore you, for I cannot possibly take that wan face to the Rajah's ball'."

Lady Ba.s.sett departed with the words, shaking her head tolerantly and still smiling.

But for long after she had gone, Muriel remained with fixed eyes and tense muscles, watching, watching, dumbly, immovably, despairingly, at the locked door of her paradise.

So this was the key to his silence--the reason that her message had gone unanswered. She had stretched out her hands to him too late--too late.

And ever through the barren desert of her vigil a man's voice, vital and pa.s.sionate, rang and echoed in a maddening, perpetual refrain.

"All your life you will remember that I was once yours to take or to throw away. And--you wanted me, yet--you chose to throw me away."

It was a refrain she had heard often and often before; but it had never tortured her as it tortured her now,--now when her last hope was finally quenched--now when at last she fully realised what it was that had once been hers, and that in her tragic blindness she had wantonly cast away.