Part 32 (1/2)
”And for me too, I hope. I'm game to sleep anywhere. But I won't leave Lenox till he's fit to go into Dalhousie.”
Colonel Mayhew nodded approval; and the dismal procession set out again; O'Malley enlivening its progress with highly-coloured reminiscences of _khud_ accidents he had known, and with incidental attempts at jocularity that fizzled out like damp fireworks. It was all meant kindly enough.
But Desmond was thinking of both man and wife as he had seen them greet one another that morning; and an atmosphere of pseudo-hilarity jarred his nerves like a discord in music. For the man possessed that mingling of fort.i.tude and delicacy of feeling, which stands revealed in the lives of so many famous fighters, and may well be termed the hall-mark of heroism.
In due time they came upon the two women, still sitting--drenched and patient--on their bank of soaked fir-needles; and Desmond hurried forward to get in a word or two with Quita un.o.bserved. At sight of him--coatless, mud-bespattered, with torn clothes, and blood-stained face and hands--Honor could not repress a small sound of dismay. But Quita saw in his eyes the one thing she wanted; and may surely be forgiven if she paid small heed to his plight. Her face fell at the details of the damage done.
”Mayn't I just have a sight of him as he pa.s.ses us?” she pleaded.
”Better not,” he answered kindly, ”You have an artist's brain, remember; and I want you to sleep a little to-night. Trust me to do every mortal thing I can for him. Honor will see you home, and I'll send a runner in with news this evening. We'll pull him through between us,--never fear.”
She tried to speak her thanks; but failing, put out a hand impulsively to speak for her; and his enfolding grasp made her feel less lonely, less desperate than she had felt since the awful moment when her husband vanished into s.p.a.ce. The fact that he was in Desmond's hands seemed a guarantee that all would go well with him. There was no logic in the conclusion; and she knew it. But logic has little to do with conviction: and many who came to know Desmond fell into this same trick of depending on him to win through the thing to which he set his band. Yet his optimism had no affinity with the cheap school of philosophy, that nurses a pleasant mind without reference to disconcerting facts. It was the outcome of that supreme faith in an Ultimate Best, working undismayed through failure and pain, which lies at the root of all human achievement: and it was, in consequence, singularly infectious and convincing.
Quita's impressionable spirit readily caught a reflection from its rays: and hope revived sent a glow through all her chilled body.
”Take a stiff whisky toddy the minute you get in,” he commanded, while lifting her into the saddle. ”And try to remember that over-anxiety won't mend matters. It will only exhaust your strength. I'll come in and see you whenever I can. Ride on at once,” he added hastily, for the stretcher, with its pitiful burden, was close upon them. ”We'll catch you up.”
She obeyed with a childlike docility that touched him to the heart, and he turned quickly to his wife.
”Come on, you dear, drenched woman. You've no business to be here at all; and we mustn't keep 'em waiting.”
”But Theo, . . . your feet!” she murmured distressfully. ”Are they quite cut to bits?”
”No--not quite.” He glanced whimsically down at his dishevelled figure.
”Lord, what a scarecrow I must be! Aren't you half-ashamed of owning me?”
”Well--naturally!” she answered, beaming upon him as she set her foot in the hollow of his hand. ”I shall see something of you,--shan't I?”
”Trust me for that. See all you can of her too. She's as plucky as they make 'em: but she may need it all and more, before we're through with this, poor little soul.”
He mounted, and rode with them as far as the woodsheds, where the men branched off to the Forest bungalow, leaving the two women to ride on alone: and, in obedience to Desmond's parting injunction, they kept up a steady canter most of the way.
CHAPTER XV.
”How the light light love, he has wings to fly At suspicion of a bond.”
--Browning.
The rugged peak of Bakrota was enveloped in a grey winding-sheet, impenetrable, all-pervading; a dense ma.s.s of vapour ceaselessly rolling onward, yet never rolling past. It was as if the mountain had become entangled in the folds of a giant's robe.
The Banksia rose that climbed over the verandah of the Crow's Nest had shed its first crop of blossoms. The border below was strewn with bright petals of storm-scattered flowers; while above the dank pines dripped and drooped beneath the dead weight of universal moisture. The far-off glory of the mountains was blotted out, as though it had never been; and the doll's house, with its subsidiary group of native huts, had the aspect of a dwelling in Cloudland. From within came the plash of water falling drop by drop, suggesting a vision of zinc tubs, pails, and basins, set here, there, and everywhere, to check the too complete invasion of the saturated outer world.
Just outside the drawing-room door, heedless of the mist that hung dewdrops on her lashes, and on blown wisps of hair, Quita stood, devouring with her eyes a damp note, handed to her a minute since by one of Mrs Desmond's _jhampannis_.
”DEAR MISS MAURICE”--(it ran)--”At last I am allowed to write and say--Come. Not this afternoon, because he had quite a long outing this morning in that blessed spell of suns.h.i.+ne; and he is sound asleep after it, has been for an hour and more; or of course he would send a line with this himself. Come to dinner. Half-past seven. Then you can have a long evening together without keeping him up too late. For Theo is still high-handed with him about sleep and rest. But really he has made astonis.h.i.+ng progress since we got him over here. Dr O'Malley is quite comically elated over his recuperative power. Says he has seldom seen such a rapid and vigorous convalescence after concussion; and takes more than half the credit to himself; but I am convinced that it is you who are mainly responsible for it. He says little enough, even to Theo. Yet one can see how impatient he is to be well again, because of you; and that's half the battle. Though perhaps my prosaic zeal for concentrated food of all kinds deserves to be taken into account!
Theo, who is reading every word of this over my shoulder--in spite of my insistence on the privacy of _all_ correspondence!--wishes to point out that his own genius for nursing is really at the bottom of it.
(_N.B._--This is simply because he wants you to be extra charming to him to-night!) But apart from all my nonsense, the point remains that among us all we have done great things in less than three weeks. Come and see for yourself, and we can squabble over our laurels at leisure!
”Theo sends sympathy and _salaams_, and I think you know that I am very really 'yours,'