Banked Fires Part 44

About this time, she received a letter from Honor telling her of Meredith being down with sunstroke, and was rudely awakened to the fact that she had been taking too much for granted where India and her husband's health were concerned.

Though Honor wrote that he was out of danger and slowly recovering,--that a nurse was expected that very day,--the little wife was beside herself with anxiety and alarm, and wanted to take the first steamer sailing for Bombay that she might be with him, to leave him no more.

"I should never have come away!" she cried inconsolably.

"I could never understand how you brought yourself to do so," said Kitty ruthlessly.

"I have been a selfish wretch, thinking only of myself, and of my anxieties for Baby!"

"Well, you've got Baby, any way."

"But if I should lose Ray, what is Baby to me!"

Kitty, who had not the heart to add to her beloved sister's agony, did her best to comfort her. "He was out of danger when Miss Bright wrote--let me see--that was about three weeks ago, or nearly, and, as you have had no cable since, it follows that he is all right by now."

"But I ought to go straight to him!"

"And they might be sending him straight home to you!"

It was not at all an unlikely possibility, so Joyce cabled to her husband to inquire his plans.

The answer came from Darjeeling that, in view of the great heat in the Red Sea at that season of the year, he was recuperating in the hills.

She was then persuaded by relatives and friends to possess her soul in patience and adhere to her original plan of returning to India in the autumn,--the best time for arriving in the East. By then she would be able to decide whether to take her baby out to India, or leave him behind in the care of the grandparents and a capable nurse.

A slight indisposition to the infant owing to the disturbances of teething, decided her to remain, and to pour out her heart to her husband in a letter telling him of her longing to be with him during his convalescence.

Somehow the written words did not adequately convey her depth of feeling, and Joyce was dissatisfied, especially with the pa.s.sage which referred to the baby's indisposition:

"If Baby were not teething and in uncertain health, I would leave immediately for India,--but I am advised to hold on till the autumn when I can better decide whether I should leave him behind, or not. I am, of course, comforted to know that you are getting better, and, perhaps, it will be as well on account of the heat in the Red Sea and of the unhealthiness of the rains if I do exercise a little patience and wait.

However, dearest, cable if you are not quite well by the time this reaches you, and I shall take my pa.s.sage at once."

"It sounds rather as if I am placing the baby before him," she said to Kitty.

"And haven't you done so all along?"

Joyce looked perplexed. "If I have, it is only because it seemed to me the wee darling needed me more than Ray did."

"I wonder!" said Kitty out of a new perception of life and the needs of love. "After all, there are many to look after Baby if you must leave him in England. If I were in your place, and if there was n.o.body to take charge of him, I'd keep him out there, somehow. There must be good places in the hills, you have such a choice of stations,--and even babies have to take their chance, same as their daddies! It must be terribly lonely for a man when his wife, whom he adores as Ray adores you, leaves him and comes away home for the sake of the child!

Personally, I couldn't do it."

Kitty's candid views carried conviction and aroused reflection.

Gradually Joyce became aware of a great longing to be again with her splendid husband and feel anew his love and devotion.

As no answering cable arrived from Darjeeling requesting her presence in India, and as the weekly letters mentioned that he was convalescing satisfactorily, Joyce was beginning to nurse a creeping fear that her husband had, perhaps, learned to do very well without her. But pride sealed her lips and her letters to him contained no reference to any such thought. His, to her, since his illness, had become erratic and brief. He would begin by expressing a great distaste for the pen, allude to a feeling of incurable la.s.situde, curse an elusive memory, and, after giving her news of little consequence to themselves, would conclude in the manner that had become a formula of late:--"Your affectionate husband, Ray."

However, Joyce was determined not to borrow trouble. When they came together again it would surely be all right. Sunstroke was a paralysing illness and recovery from its effects was slow, she was a.s.sured; so, for a while, she must expect his mind to feel lethargic. With the restoration of perfect health his old tenderness would return, for true love could never die!

To Jack, the summer months were paradise, for the beautiful environs of Wynthrop Manor gave him many opportunities for uninterrupted companions.h.i.+p with Kitty. They walked, fished, golfed, and played tennis together. He was in love in the wild tempestuous way of youth, and ready, if need be, to die for the object of his adoration.

But Kitty was not too easy to win. The more attracted she felt, the more elusive she became. She would surround herself constantly with girl friends, that Jack might have no doubts concerning his choice; clever girls, and pretty girls were invited there for tennis and tea during Jack's lengthy visit to the Manor, till he was nearly distracted with impatience. Yet he hesitated to speak from an overwhelming sense of his utter unworthiness.

Could he dare to ask her to be his wife, and allow her to believe him all that a young girl's fancy might paint him? Would she consent to marry him if she were aware of the peculiar situation in which he stood with regard to Mrs. Fox whose letters still arrived at his chambers, and to whom he still wrote, only to keep her from following him to England?

She had threatened to do so at all costs, if he neglected to keep in touch with her, and the fear of bringing about such an undesirable climax had obliged him to temporise.

Early in August, when the Great War broke out, and all England was in the turmoil of mobilisation, and the manhood of the nation was flocking to join the Colours, Jack complied with the demands of his conscience and called at the India Office for permission to resign his service that he might join the Army. But the Secretary of State flatly refused his application and he was told, instead, to hold himself in readiness for an immediate recall to his duties in the East. No civil officer of the Indian Government was eligible for a commission in His Majesty's Forces except with the sanction of that Government alone. Thereupon, Jack, deeply depressed in spirit at his impending exile, joined Joyce and Kitty at Eastbourne whither they had gone for a change.

For the time being, civil life and economic conditions were disorganised. All England was in a turmoil of preparation for the t.i.tanic struggle on the fields of France. People were becoming alive to the fact that even a democracy has its obligations to the State which guarantees it freedom; for freedom can only depend upon victory over autocracy and militarism. Private property was commandeered for the needs of the Army; public buildings became hospitals; motor cars and horses were requisitioned and carried off. Self-sacrifice became the order of the day. For weeks, no dependence could be placed upon railway time-tables, and all personal and individual concerns were forgotten in the overwhelming needs of the hour. A peace-loving people, averse to war, aware of all the horrors it entailed, yet rose to the supreme occasion, mindful of the great traditions of their forefathers, and stood ready for any sacrifice in the cause of honour, freedom, and the Right.

When Jack was asked to describe the state of London, he felt that it wanted more than words to paint its state in those historic days. The people having spent their feelings in a great outburst of loyalty and patriotism, were beginning dimly to realise the gigantic task to which the nation was pledged,--a nation, which, but for its Navy, was totally unprepared for war, and yet ready to withstand a formidable European Power that had secretly and thoroughly organised and planned for over forty years to strike a blow for world-domination. Right was in conflict with Might, and the end no man could then see; yet London was confident; but London was also very grave.

About this time, Joyce, to her great dismay, received a cable from her husband forbidding her to travel on the high seas till security thereon, for pa.s.sengers, was a.s.sured. She had not realised till she received the message, how much she had been depending for happiness on the prospect of their reunion in the autumn. If the war was to stand in the way of her return to India, it might then be years before she should see her husband again--which would be unthinkable!

In the presence of Kitty's romance she was learning to comprehend the extent of her own loss,--her deplorable lack of appreciation in the past;--and she recognised that she had only herself to blame. Ray had loved her greatly; how greatly, she was only now beginning to understand, and her very soul hungered for that love with a nostalgia that was making her ill. If, by her folly, she had sacrificed that devotion--if he had ceased to love her altogether, and had met another more responsive and appreciative than she had been, she would not want to live; for even her beloved babe would no longer suffice to fill her life.

Memory recalled for her torment, certain words of his at parting. He had been wounded at her determination to leave him so soon after their marriage, and being ignorant of the true cause of her nervous break-down, he had expressed little sympathy, and had accused her of failure of affection for him. "Remember, a big breach between husband and wife may be mended, but never again is there restored what has been lost!" he had said. Also: "You are straining the cord that binds us together; the strands will presently be so weak that they will snap altogether. Then all the splicing afterwards will never restore it to its original strength. It will be a patched-up thing; its perfection gone!"

Had she done this terrible thing by her own shortsightedness and folly?

Little did he guess at the time of their parting that she was suffering tortures of self-contempt and nervous dread of his scorn, were he to know all that was on her mind!

And now, after this lapse of months, she was longing to make full confession and atonement. With her in his arms and their love fully restored, he would surely forgive her her foolishness and the silence which he had mistaken for lack of affection.

But, the war!

She would not be able to go to him now, and he would continue to believe that she had failed him! Her affectionate letters had not convinced him, for actions speak louder than words. Gradually an icy atmosphere of indifference had breathed forth at her from his letters, and she had been filled with secret uneasiness and fears. He was indeed learning to do without her.

Possibly the cord that had bound them together had snapped!

Upon this, came a letter one day, from Honor Bright.

Honor had been spending the hot months at Mussoorie in the Himalayas, which the Brights had always preferred to Darjeeling; and, after the monsoons had broken, her mother had joined her there till the middle of July, when they had returned together to Muktiarbad. For months Joyce and Honor had corresponded, fitfully, so that it was no surprise to the former when the Indian mail brought her a letter in her friend's hand-writing, the contents of which were acutely disturbing. Joyce read and re-read the letter, filled with alarm and foreboding.

What was Honor hinting at? and had she any grounds for hinting at all?

Honor was evidently perturbed about something in connection with Ray, or why this strange appeal to his wife to let nothing come in the way of her returning to her place beside her husband, no matter what the difficulties? "'It is not good,' we are told, 'for a man to live alone,'

and please remember that there is no such thing as infallibility in human nature. Sometimes temptations are so strong that one needs to be superhuman to withstand them. Why expect too much of Life?" stared up at Joyce from the page.

"I would not write as I am doing, believe me, dear Joyce," the letter concluded, "if I were not so fond of you both that I feel your married happiness a personal concern. It is the biggest thing in the world; don't therefore, I implore you, gamble with it. If you will only look ahead and think a bit of the future without the love of your husband,--the grey years deprived of his tender devotion,--you will realise how lonely will be your life! Dearest, hold on to the blessed gift while it is yours and do not let it pa.s.s out of your possession. I have watched it happen before! 'That what we have we prize not to the worth whiles we enjoy it, but being lack'd and lost, why, then we rack the value, then we find the virtue that possession did not show us whiles it was ours.' This is so true also of love which, so often, is not appreciated while it is ours! And love can starve and die for want of sustenance, which is propinquity and a proper response. You see, I have kept my eyes open and am a silent student of human nature! I have come across a few devils in society; but in my experience, 'The female of the species is more deadly than the male,' and I believe the Lord's prayer is directed chiefly against her. She goes out of her way to dig pitfalls for the unwary and the best have been known to succ.u.mb. That is why a wife's place should be beside her husband throughout life, as the whole fabric of their happiness depends upon their unity. Separations make for misunderstandings and division; so, whatever happens, come out.

Men and babies want looking after, and to my mind, Man is the greater baby of the two, for he wants more than a nurse to care for his bodily wants. He needs a wife with a combination of virtues, the chief among them being _tolerance_. My mother's life has demonstrated this to me with beautiful clearness, hence my understanding.

"You might be anxious at having to travel alone at such a time, but in your place I would take any risk to be with my husband, if I loved him deeply. That is the crux of the matter. Later on, conditions may become still more difficult. Cable when you are leaving, and _don't hesitate_."