The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 50

"I'd like to stay with you, Beaty. We have always stuck together, haven't we?" She lay back with her head against Beatrice's shoulder.

"You always were so clever, Beaty. I'm sure it will be all right.

You'll see your poor mother through." The eyelids sank; she dropped into a drowse of complete mental and physical breakdown, and for a moment no one spoke. Mrs. Carmichael had s.h.i.+fted from her defiant att.i.tude, and her hard, set face expressed a grim satisfaction not unmixed with pity.

"Now, Mrs. Berry, what about you?" she said. "Captain Nicholson has wasted enough time with you women. You must make up your mind--if you've got one," she concluded, in a smothered undertone.

Mrs. Berry drew herself up from her cowering position. Her teeth were still chattering with terror, but Nicholson saw that the crisis of panic was over. There was a curious look of obstinate resolve on the usually weak and silly face.

"If all the men are remaining, I suppose my husband remains, too?" she asked.

"Yes; he is helping Colonel Carmichael with the defenses."

Wonderful indeed are the _volte-faces_ of which a character is capable! Nicholson, to whom human nature was a book of revelations, watched with a sense almost of awe this mean, petty and brainless woman, who a moment before had been whimpering with fear, smooth out her skirts and arrange her hair as though death were not sitting at her elbow.

"I am sure," she said, in a sharp voice which still trembled, "I can do what Mrs. Cary can do. I shall stay--please tell Percy so, with my love. And I should like to see him if possible before the end."

Nicholson bowed to her, and for the first time in their acquaintance the salute had a genuine significance.

"I am proud to have such countrywomen!" he said, and then added in a low tone as he pa.s.sed Lois: "The cathedral is nearly finished."

She nodded.

"It could not have been better finished," she said bravely. "And you see I was right--when there is a n.o.ble building in the midst of them, people grow ashamed of their mud-huts. They pull them down and begin their own cathedrals--even when it is too late."

His eyes wandered instinctively toward the woman on the couch.

"Yes, you were quite right." He went to the curtained doorway, where he found Mrs. Carmichael waiting for him, a quaint figure enough with her sleeves rolled back, her skirts tucked up above her ankles, the revolver stuck brigand-wise in her belt.

"I'm coming with you," she said coolly. "I can shoot as straight as most of you, and a good deal better than George. I might be of some use."

"You would be of use anywhere," he returned sincerely, "but, if I may say so, you will be of more use here. Your courage will help the others. As for us, we have fifty of my Gurkhas, and they will do all that can be done. I will let you know what is happening. At present you are safest here."

She sighed.

"Very well. And if any one is hurt, send him around. I have plenty of bandages."

"Yes, of course."

It was a merely formal offer and acceptance. Both knew that it would be scarcely worth while to bandage men already in their full health and strength marked out for death. Nicholson went out, closing the door after him, and once more an absolute stoic silence fell upon the little company. In moments of crisis, it is the strict adherence to the habits of a lifetime which keeps the mind clear and the nerve firm. Lois went on quietly preparing some sandwiches, which in all probability would never be eaten, and Mrs. Carmichael resigned martial occupation for the cutting-out of a baby's pinafore for an East-end child whom she had under her special patronage. But her mind was active and, stern, self-opinionated martinet that she was, she could not altogether crush the regrets that swarmed up in this last reckoning up of her life's activity. Better had her charity and interest been centered on the dirty little children whom she had indignantly tolerated on her compound! Better for them all would it have been had each one of them sought to win the love and respect of the subject race! Then, perhaps, they would not have been deserted in this last hour of peril.

Mrs. Carmichael glanced at Beatrice Cary with a fresh p.r.i.c.king of conscience. What, after all, had she done to deserve the chief condemnation? She had played with fire. Had they not all played with fire? She had looked upon a native as a toy fit to play with, to break and throw away. Did they not all, behind their seeming tolerance and Christian principles, hide an equal depreciation? Was she even as bad as some? How many men revealed to their syces their darkest moods, their lowest pa.s.sions? How many women were to their ayahs subjects for contemptuous Bazaar gossip. They were all to blame, and this was the harvest, the punishment for the neglect of a heavy responsibility. The thought that she had been unjust was iron through Mrs. Carmichael's soul, for above all things she prided herself on her fairness. She pushed her work away and went over to Beatrice's side. Mrs. Cary's head still rested against the aching shoulder, and Mrs. Carmichael made a sign to let her improvize a cus.h.i.+on subst.i.tute. Beatrice shook her head.

"No, thank you," she whispered, glancing down at the flushed, sleeping face. "We have done each other so little real service that I am glad to be able to do even this much. I don't suppose it will be for long.

How quiet everything is!"

Mrs. Carmichael looked at the clock on the writing-table.

"It is not yet midnight," she said. "Probably the Rajah is keeping his promise." Her expression relaxed a little. "Don't tire yourself," she added bruskly to Mrs. Berry, who had been fanning the unconscious woman's face with an improvized paper fan. "I don't think she feels the heat."

The missionary's wife continued her good work with redoubled energy.

It was perhaps one of the few really unselfish things which she had ever done in the course of a pious but fundamentally selfish life, and it gave her pleasure and courage. The knowledge that some one was weaker than herself and needed her was new strength to her new-born heroism.

"It is so frightfully hot," she said half apologetically. "Why isn't the punkah-man at work?"

"The 'punkah-man' has bolted with the rest of them," Mrs. Carmichael answered. "I dare say I could work it, though I have never tried."

"It is hardly worth while to begin now," Beatrice observed, and this simple acknowledgment that the end was at hand received no contradiction.

Once again the silence was unbroken, save for the soft swish of the fan and Mrs. Cary's heavy, irregular breathing. Yet the five women who in the full swing of their life had been diametrically opposed to one another were now united in a common sympathy. Death, far more than a leveler of cla.s.s, is the melting-pot into which are thrown all antagonisms, all violent discords of character. The one great fact overshadows everything, and the petty stumbling-blocks of daily life are forgotten. More than that still--it is the supreme moment in man's existence when the innermost treasures or unsuspected h.e.l.ls are revealed beyond all denial. And in these five women, hidden in two cases at least beneath a ma.s.s of meanness, selfishness and indifference, there lay an unusual power of self-sacrifice and pity.

Death was drawing near to them all, and their one thought was how to make his coming easier for the other. When the silence grew unbearable, it was Mrs. Carmichael who had the courage to break it with a trivial criticism respecting the manner in which Lois was making the sandwiches.

"You should put the b.u.t.ter on before you cut them," she said tartly, "and as little as possible. I'm quite sure it has gone rancid, and then George won't touch them. He is so fussy about the b.u.t.ter."

Mrs. Berry looked up. The perspiration of physical fear stood on her cold forehead, but her roused will-power fought heroically and conquered.

"And, please, would you mind making one or two without b.u.t.ter?" she said. "Percy says all Indian b.u.t.ter is bad. Of course, it's only an idea of his, but men are such faddy creatures, don't you think?"

"They wouldn't be men if they weren't--" Mrs. Carmichael had begun, when she broke off, and the scissors that had been snipping their way steadily through the rough linen jagged and dropped on the table. She picked them up immediately and went on with an impatient exclamation at her own carelessness. But the involuntary start had coincided with a loud report from outside in the darkness, and a smothered scream.

Lois put down her knife.

"Won't you come and help me?" she said to Beatrice. "Your mother will not notice that you have gone."

Beatrice nodded, and letting the heavy head sink back among the cus.h.i.+ons, came over to Lois' side.

"How brave you are!" she said in a whisper. "You seem so cool and collected, just as though you believed your sandwiches would ever be eaten!"

"I am not braver than you are. Look how steady your hand is--much steadier than mine."

Beatrice held out her white hand and studied it thoughtfully.

"I am not afraid," she said, "but not because I am brave. There is no room for fear, that is all." She paused an instant, and then suddenly the hand fell on Lois'. The two women looked at each other. "Lois, I am so sorry."

"For me?"

"For you and every one. I have hurt so many. It has all been my fault.

I would give ten lives if I had them to see the harm undone. But that isn't possible. Oh, Lois, there is surely nothing worse than helpless remorse!"

The hand within her own tightened in its clasp.

"Is it ever helpless, though?"

"I can't give the dead life--I can't give back a man's faith, can I?"

The light of understanding deepened in Lois' eyes.

"Beatrice--I believe I know!"

"Yes, I see you do. Do you despise me? What does it matter if you do?

It has been my fear of the world and its opinion that helped to lead me wrong. Isn't it a just punishment? I have ruined both our lives.