Banked Fires Part 19

"When did the change set in?--could no one have gone for the doctor?"

"It is a great misfortune that there was no one capable of relieving me," said the nurse looking distressed. "There was only the ayah, and she was supposed to be watching, yet allowed the patient to sit up in bed in her delirium when to lift an arm had been forbidden. All she could do was to cry aloud and remonstrate, which woke me and before I could do anything, the poor girl was--gone! Simply fell back dead. It was terrible! I fear I shall get into trouble, but the Meeks could not afford more than one nurse and Mrs. Meek and I were both worn out. I knew the ayah would blame me, as I blame her; but, humanly speaking, it would have happened in any case--even had her mother been in the room.

It was truly most unfortunate. If the doctor had only been here he might have seen the necessity for a sedative or something!"

It was the same cry: "If the doctor had only been here!" From all she could gather, Elsie had pa.s.sed a restless night and had died of heart failure in the morning. An overtaxed heart had given out by the exertion of suddenly rising in bed.

Honor doubted if Captain Dalton could have done anything by visiting his patient at night, yet his not having done so would always leave a reproach against him. She felt it and, yet, strangely enough, wanted to combat every argument that would have held him to blame.

When she was leaving the bungalow she came face to face with Captain Dalton descending from his car; and so moved was she for the moment, that she would not trust herself to do more than bow stiffly as she pa.s.sed, her face white in its repression, her eyes cold and distant. At sight of him her agony returned in force; her heart for a moment stood still. Why had he lied to them about visiting Sombari when it was Joyce Meredith he had meant to see? Joyce with her lovely face and winning, childish ways? Everyone must love Joyce because of her ingenuousness and extraordinary beauty. The doctor had nursed her in camp under intimate conditions ... and he had stolen a visit to her when duty had required him in an opposite direction.

How was it possible to feel the same friendliness towards him with that wild resentment raging at her heart? So Honor ran out to her pony, sprang nimbly into the saddle, and rode rapidly away, feeling his searching eyes upon her till she was out of sight.

CHAPTER XI

A SUNDAY OBSERVANCE

Honor Bright rode straight to the Bara Koti to tell Joyce of Elsie Meek's death, not without a grim satisfaction in the thought that the news was certain to fill her friend with self-reproach; on other accounts her feelings defied a.n.a.lysis.

Joyce was writing home-letters for the mail in her morning-room when Honor was announced, and she was arrested, in her expressions of welcome by the look on her visitor's face, which was unusually pale and her great brown eyes, always so friendly and tender, cold and grave.

"What is it?" she asked fearfully, as she searched her memory for any unconscious offence to her friend.

"I have just come from Mrs. Meek who is prostrated with grief. Elsie is dead. She died at sunrise this morning."

"Dead?--Elsie Meek?... I did not know she was so bad!" Joyce looked shocked and distressed.

"I left as Captain Dalton arrived--they are blaming him for not having gone there last night. He was expected, but"--she made a gesture of despair.

"Oh, Honor!--was it because he was here? He came to see if we were ill--I had been nervous about Baby--and when I knew that it was nothing, I kept him for music till--till quite late. Is it my fault?" The lovely face looked stricken and blanched.

"I don't know--perhaps indirectly; but _he_ knew. He should not have stayed."

"I persuaded him because I was dull--but I never knew!--I never dreamed she was so bad! Oh, Honey!" and Joyce broke into a pa.s.sion of tears. "I shall never be happy again. I shall always feel that I was responsible!"

"He should never have stayed with you!--his duty was clear," said Honor sternly. "The responsibility rests entirely with him. But didn't you know that being alone and without your husband, you were inviting criticism by allowing him to stay--at that late hour? People in these _mafasil_ stations are so censorious."

"I did not think it mattered," said Joyce without a shadow of resentment at such plain speaking. She stood with hands clasped, looking like a child in trouble, and Honor's heart began to melt. "He's only the doctor, you see, and he was so good to us in camp. Do you think I was wrong, Honey?" flinging her arms about Honor's neck and hiding her face in her bosom. Who could censure so much sweetness? So she was held in a close embrace and tenderly kissed.

"I have no right to speak--forgive me," said Honor.

"But you are privileged, because I love you," said Joyce. "Say what you please. I am so unhappy!--so miserable!"

"We must be miserable only for harm consciously done. You could never do that."

"I could not bear that you should condemn me," Joyce went on, clinging to her for consolation. "It seemed such a simple thing--it _was_."

"Yes, of course," Honor agreed against her judgment. "Only it would be hateful that you should be talked about by the people here--as Mrs. Fox is, for example."

"I should loathe it!--for I am not like her. You don't think that for a moment?"

"Never!--that is why I'll not have you misjudged," said Honor kissing her wet cheek.

"Why are people so horrid? I like Captain Dalton. He is so nice--so different from what people think him--agreeable! He took my rose, and I pinned it in his coat. He showed me how I should play the _Liebestraum_, and----"

"He--took--your rose?"

"Yes. It was in my dress ... and was so sweet--and he said I should be called 'Joy.' He is going to show me how to drive his motor-car so that I may take Ray by surprise one day. I must go out more than I do, and not worry so much about Baby for he is here to look after him. Oh! he is very kind--surely he never meant to neglect Elsie Meek?"

"He knows best about that--but, Joyce," Honor was strangely agitated and hid her telltale eyes in a cloud of Joyce's sunny hair, "you will never do anything that you cannot tell your husband?"

"How do you mean? I always tell Ray everything."

"That is all. He will advise you what it is best not to do. It is no business of mine."

"And I'll always tell you, too," the little wife said affectionately.

But Honor mentally decided it would be better for her not to hear anything more about Captain Dalton's visits. "I don't count--I am a mere outsider."

"You do. You are such a great help to me. I wish I had half your manner and self-confidence."

Their talk reverted to Elsie Meek, and Joyce learned something of the mother's grief. She was anxious to call immediately at the Mission to offer her condolences, and decided to attend the funeral which was to take place that afternoon. It was eventually settled that Mrs. Bright should call for her in the dogcart, and Honor would ride.

Consequently, when Ray Meredith motored in that afternoon, his wife was absent attending Elsie Meek's funeral, a simple ceremony at a tiny cemetery on the Mission property. The coffin, made of packing cases and covered with black calico, was carried by pastors, and the service was conducted by Mr. Meek himself, who scourged himself to perform the pathetic task as a penance to his soul.

It was dusk when Joyce returned, a subdued little person in black with a bursting heart which was relieved by a flood of tears in her husband's arms. He was very pitiful of her in her wrought-up state, and he soothed her with tender caresses.

It was very comforting to Joyce to be petted, and by degrees her weakened self-esteem was restored. Nothing was very far wrong with herself or her world while her husband loved her so, and Honor Bright remained her friend. Meredith would not allow his beloved to blame herself, though it was hardly the thing to entertain a visitor of the opposite s.e.x so late at night when her husband was in camp; but the circ.u.mstances were exceptional; his little darling was nervous and lonely, and Dalton was a gentleman. Poof! he wouldn't for a moment allow that the doctor did not know his own business best; and very likely Elsie Meek's case had been hopeless from the start. With a weak heart, anything might happen in typhoid. Anyhow, he was not going to let his little girl worry herself sick and she was to cheer up on the instant and think no more about what did not concern herself. The main thing was, he had returned for the week-end, and wanted all her love and all her smiles to reward him for his long abstinence; and Joyce obediently kissed him and beamed upon him through her tears, wondering in her childish soul why husbands were so exacting in their love--their ardour so inexhaustible. Women were so very different--but men!

"With a wife like you, what can you expect?" Meredith cried, when she had expressed her views with navete. Which was all very flattering and calculated to spoil her thoroughly, but Meredith was in a mood to spoil her thoroughly after their enforced separation.

On Sunday morning, Honor followed up the notice which had been pinned on the board at the Club concerning evensong at the Railway Inst.i.tute, by cycling round to various bungalows and exacting promises of attendance from her friends.

Muktiarbad was behind hand in the matter of a church building, the proposal having been shelved by the authorities with the usual procrastination. The Roman Catholic missionary lived in ascetic simplicity in the Station, and took his meals in native fas.h.i.+on wherever he preached the Faith.

There was no Episcopal clergyman nearer than the headquarters of the Division, eighty miles away; so it was only when his duties permitted it, that the District Chaplain paid a flying visit to Muktiarbad to minister to the spiritual welfare of his flock. Otherwise, it devolved on the Collector to officiate at Divine wors.h.i.+p, as a paternal government enjoined this duty on the leading official in the stations not provided with resident clergy.

Thus it was that on most Sunday evenings Mr. Meredith read the Church Service in the general room of the Club to a congregation consisting mostly of ladies, while Jack Darling, usually flushed and breathless after tennis and a lightning change, went through the ordeal of reading the lessons.

To make certain of a couple of unreliable members of the choir, Honor cycled last of all to a picturesque little bungalow near the Police Court, and dismounted at its tumble-down gate. From frequent removals for jumping compet.i.tions for raw ponies, it was considerably damaged and swung loosely on its hinges, swayed by every wind that blew.

The bungalow was thatched, the eaves supported by square pillars; and the verandah was screened by bamboo trellis-work up which climbed the beautiful _Gloriosa superba_.