Part 18 (1/2)
”A barrier--yes, of course; but a bond, too.” This was a state of mind which Honour could thoroughly understand and appreciate. A life-long romantic friends.h.i.+p, absolutely precluded from becoming anything more, was just what appealed to her. It suggested what may be termed the Rolandseck ideal--the hero retiring from the world to an eligible hermitage, affording an extensive view of a desirably situated nunnery, where the heroine was similarly secluded--which, with its peculiar blending of religion and sentimentality, animated so many of her favourite books. ”We can never forget that we have both known him, can we? You will tell me more about him, and we will keep his memory alive when all the world has forgotten him.”
Whether the relief of unburdening his mind had served to clear her hearer's vision, or merely that the thought of the real Bob Charteris, most unsentimental of men, obtruded itself in all its incongruity with Honour's scheme for commemorating him, certain it is that instead of being grateful to her for falling in so exactly with his wishes, Gerrard was conscious of a distinct impatience. Was there no flesh and blood about the girl--no feeling, but merely sentiment? All unknown to himself, Gerrard had not been intending to suffer alone, and it was a blow to discover that what had meant to him a real and terrible renunciation was to her a mere matter of course, rather pleasurable than otherwise. He groaned as the truth forced itself upon him, and Honour looked up in alarm.
”I have done you harm--tired you,” she said anxiously. ”We must have another talk when you are better. I see my mother looking for me.”
”Honour, it is time for us to go, dear,” said Lady Cinnamond, coming in, and looking ”like other people,” as Mrs Jardine had said, in a huge halo of net and ribbon and flowers and blonde. Honour might make her mother's caps, but they had to be submitted for Sir Arthur's approbation, and as he was strongly of the opinion that there was nothing like roses for setting off a pretty face, the style was apt to incline to the decorated rather than the cla.s.sical. Lady Cinnamond spoke kindly to Gerrard, and expressed the hope that he would look in now and then, glancing the while from him to Honour as though anxious to find something in their faces that might guide her what to say, but in vain. In sheer bewilderment she appealed to her daughter when they were alone.
”Tell me, Onora, did the poor fellow plead with you again to marry him?”
Honour turned quickly. ”Oh no, mamma--how could he? Neither of us could ever think of it now.”
”That was what made you cry, then?”
”Mamma! why should it? He was telling me about poor Mr Charteris, and I realised how little I had known him. I can say it to you, mamma--it is a privilege to feel that such a man has cared for one.”
”Then if he had lived you would have married him, my poor little one?”
cried her mother in dismay.
”How can I tell, mamma? One finds out these things too late. It is always so, isn't it?”
”And the poor young man who is not dead?” there was a hint of exasperation in Lady Cinnamond's voice.
”He doesn't dream of that sort of thing now. We shall always be friends, but never anything more.”
”My dearest little foolish one, there are moments when I would gladly take you by the shoulders and shake you!” cried Lady Cinnamond in vehement Spanish. Catching her daughter's astonished eye, she calmed herself forcibly and spoke in English. ”If you had seen that poor young man's face as you left the room, as I did, Honour, you would know what nonsense you are talking. Refuse him if you must, but don't keep him in torture.”
”Dear mamma, you don't understand. Things are different now----”
”From what they were when I was a girl? I agree! And I prefer them as they used to be. There were your father and I, and his friends and my family trying to prevent our marriage. There were other men in the world, doubtless, but for me they simply did not exist. And we married, and people considered us very romantic. But to be romantic now, it seems, you must persist in remaining unmarried for the sake of a very worthy young man for whom you cared not a straw when he was alive!”
”I can't explain it, mamma. But one has one's feelings----”
”Quite so. And the poor Mr Gerrard has his also. But those you do not consider.”
Gerrard's ill-used feelings were still unhealed a week later, when Sir Edmund Antony, learning of the imminent danger of war with Agpur, descended from the hills like a whirlwind to take command of the situation, and incidentally to upset as many as possible of his brother's arrangements. Having learnt all that Gerrard could tell him of the circ.u.mstances, he took occasion, while his secretary was at work on the fresh orders he had hastily drafted to Nisbet, the political officer in charge of the negociations with Sher Singh, to speak on more personal matters.
”I am sorry to see this continued depression of spirits on your part, Gerrard. The sin of despondency is one to which I myself am so conspicuously p.r.o.ne that I dare lose no opportunity of warning others against it.”
”Forgive me, sir. Our conversation has led me to recall things so vividly----”
”True. But you feel, as you have a.s.sured me, that our friend Charteris fell in a good cause?”
”There could be no better, sir. But if only I could have died instead of him!”
Sir Edmund frowned. ”These things are not in our hands. If Charteris's work was done, no efforts of yours or mine could have saved him. If your work is not done, all the powers of h.e.l.l could not prevail to bring about your death.”
”But his work was not complete, sir. There was so much in him that no one realised--he had had no opportunity to display it. You and I, and one other person, have some faint idea of what he really was, but no one else can possibly know--the world can never know.”