CHAPTER III.
FELLOW-TRAVELLERS.
Dick went home that night in a highly unsettled state of mind. He was cherishing a vague and unreasonable feeling of resentment against his own absence from Khemistan during Georgia’s visit to the province. It would have been very pleasant to come upon that missionary camp during his own hurried expeditions from point to point in the unquiet district for which he was responsible; pleasant also to watch Miss Keeling in her dealings with the people, among whom her father’s name was a synonym for all that was just and honourable. Perhaps, if he had met her again at that time, before she had been spoilt by her medical training, things might have fallen out differently for both of them. He might even——
But this was a forbidden subject. What were such speculations to him? Long ago Miss Keeling had refused plainly enough to have anything to do with him, and now he had ceased to wish to have anything to do with her. He was a fool to be thinking so much about her, he told himself angrily. Desiring to divert his mind from such an unprofitable theme, he turned to Mabel, and inquired whether she had noticed his capture by Mrs Egerton’s stepmother. In the course of the evening, Mrs Anstruther, a cheerful, sprightly Irish lady, had manœuvred him into a corner, and then and there seized the opportunity of commending her boy solemnly to his care, having already intrusted the same precious charge to Lady Haigh and Georgia, Sir Dugald, Mr Stratford, and the doctor. Knowing this, Dick had tried to comfort her with the assurance that if a multiplicity of guardians could keep Fitz out of mischief, his safety ought to be secured.
“And that’s not all,” responded Mrs Anstruther, brightly, accepting the consolation at once, and looking across the room to the opposite corner, in which Miss Hervey’s fan was obviously shielding two faces, “for the dear boy is very old for his age. Sure an attachment to a good girl is one of the best safeguards a young man can have, and Fitz has that.”
As in duty bound, Dick applauded this sentiment, while venturing to suggest a doubt as to the permanency of such early attachments, especially in cases in which the lady’s age exceeded that of the gentleman by some five years; but Mrs Anstruther was rendered indignant by what she chose to consider as an implied aspersion on her son’s character, and retorted hotly that she hadn’t a doubt Fitz would come back from Kubbet-ul-Haj as deeply in love as ever, and she was thankful Lady Haigh and Miss Keeling were going to accompany the Mission. Women respected deep feelings of this kind, instead of sneering or joking about them, like men.
“And, of course you told her that your own experience had convinced you of the truth of that?” asked Mabel.
“Certainly not,” returned Dick, with dignity. “I merely said that I thought it depended a good deal on the woman.”
Mabel laughed with great enjoyment. “Guess where Georgie and I are going to-morrow morning?” she said.
“To your dressmaker’s, or to some sale.”
“Not a bit of it. We are going to a shooting-gallery, to try a little revolver-practice. Now, don’t look disgusted, because you know you would give anything to go with us. If you had behaved sensibly I would take you, but you have been so horrid to Georgie that I shan’t.”
“A nice sort of revolver Miss Keeling will get hold of, with no one to help her choose it!” said Dick, evading the question.
“She has got a beauty, which Sir Dugald chose for her, and Lady Haigh has one exactly like it,” said Mabel, triumphantly.
“But why doesn’t she wait to practise with it until we are at sea? It gives one something to do on board ship.”
“Oh, I daresay she will go on practising then, but she means to get over the first difficulties now. And besides, I want to see whether it’s really true that you can’t fire without shutting your eyes at the beginning. But, at any rate, I thought you and Mr Stratford were going to travel by the overland route, so that you will lose a good bit of the voyage?”
“That is something to be thankful for, in any case. I should say that the members of the Mission will not be exactly a happy family.”
“Well, if they aren’t, I shall know where to look for the disturbing element. By the bye, I ought not to have told you yesterday that Georgie would marry no one but the surgeon of some big hospital. I heard her say to-day that she respected a man for himself, and not for his profession, or something of that sort.”
“Highly interesting, no doubt, and creditable to Miss Keeling’s breadth of mind, but I don’t quite see what the information has to do with me.”
“Nor do I at the present moment. It is merely one of those valuable bits of knowledge which every one ought to treasure up, because they are sure to come in useful some day. How do I know that some time or other you will not thank me with tears in your eyes for just those few words?”
This was the last conversation that Mabel held with Dick on the subject of Miss Keeling before his departure, for she was a discerning young woman, and felt satisfied to leave to time the further growth and development of the seeds she had sown. Moreover, there was little further opportunity for initiating the elaborate preliminaries necessary to lead up to the discussion of a subject on which Dick was resolved not to enter; for the larger division of the Kubbet-ul-Haj party, consisting of Sir Dugald and Lady Haigh, Georgia, Dr Headlam, and Fitz Anstruther, left England in the course of the next week, while only three days later Dick and Mr Stratford started on their journey across Europe to the southern port at which they were to meet the ship.
As travelling companions the two suited one another admirably. They had the wholesome respect for each other’s powers which a month of successful big game shooting together in rough country is wont to engender, and they differed sufficiently in character to give their intercourse a spice of variety. Mr Stratford was a man after Sir Dugald Haigh’s own heart. He had risen rapidly in the Diplomatic Service, until, at the time when the idea of a Mission to Ethiopia was first mooted, he held a responsible position in the British Embassy at Czarigrad. It showed the importance attached to this Mission by the Government, that a man of his standing had been appointed to accompany it, but Sir Dugald, who had made his acquaintance in the East, had requested that he should be chosen. He was an excellent linguist, with all his chief’s powers of diplomacy, but with far more talent for society than Sir Dugald possessed, and with a capacity for self-effacement which seemed to Dick sometimes to amount almost to a double personality. His wild, open-air life among a wild people had not tended to teach Dick to conceal his thoughts, but he had succeeded well enough among his unruly frontiersmen, who felt greater respect for the long arm which could deal a distant and unexpected blow than for a tongue distilling all the wisdom of the ages.
It was when he was brought into contact with the more sophisticated townsmen, or with the weaker and craftier races of India, that Dick felt himself at a loss; and he observed, with vain intentions of emulating it, the way in which his friend would apparently give himself up altogether to the trivial business or wearisome pleasure of the hour without once forgetting the object he had in view. That he had never lost sight of his aim was proved by his sudden descent, just at the right moment, upon his opponents, who thought they had thrown him off his guard, but found that they were altogether mistaken. By his superiors at the Foreign Office, Mr Stratford was regarded as a thoroughly dependable man who was always to be trusted to tackle any particularly nasty piece of business, while by his contemporaries and subordinates he was abhorred as a fellow who seldom took his leave unless he saw the chance of employing it in some sort of work likely to bear upon his official duties, and whose proceedings disposed the authorities to expect far too much from other people. He was bound to be ambassador some day, they supposed, but he might allow those who did not aim so high to have the chance of a quiet life.
Dick was among the few men who knew the story that lay in the background of Mr Stratford’s life. On one occasion, when they were hunting together in Kashmir, Stratford was severely wounded by a bear, and Dick, while bandaging his friend’s left arm, discovered that under the signet he wore on his little finger, and almost concealed by it, was a wedding-ring. He learnt the story which attached to it somewhat later. Years ago, Mr Stratford had been engaged to the daughter of one of the foreign representatives at Eusebia, where he held a post in the British Legation, and all things seemed to combine to promise him happiness. But only three days before the time appointed for the wedding, the bride fell ill, and there was terror and panic in the city when the news crept about that her malady was the plague. She died on the day on which she was to have been married, and this was the end of Mr Stratford’s dream of bliss, of which there remained now only the unused wedding-ring. Dick could still recall the even voice in which he had told his tale as the two men sat by their camp-fire with the darkness of the forest around them. He heard only the bare facts, and he felt that these were merely told him to account for the presence of the ring. They were related without a sign of emotion, without a single expression of regret or of self-pity; but the story unveiled to Dick the tragedy which was hidden behind his friend’s prosperous life. Neither of them had ever referred again to that night’s confidences; but Dick felt grateful that the mask had once been lifted for his benefit. Henceforward, no one could allude to Stratford in his presence as a fellow without a heart, or hint that he was a diplomatist rather than a man, without his taking up the cudgels hotly for the absent one.
The journey across Europe was performed without delay or other mishap, and, after a few hours’ waiting at the port Stratford and Dick were able to board their vessel. The first member of their own party that they met was the doctor, who gave them a hearty welcome, and proceeded to pour his own woes into their sympathetic ears. The ship had met with fearful weather in the Bay, and, if he had known what a time was before him, he would have gone overland with them.
“But you must have found it all right since you passed the Rock?” said Dick.
“Oh yes, it has been endurable. The Chief and I have been cramming Ethiopian with the interpreter, Kustendjian—a very clever fellow. We shall have the start of you there. We shall be swimming along gaily in the reading-book while you two are floundering through your alphabet. To hear that Armenian chap deferentially commending Sir Dugald for his progress is a joke! He’s a thorough courtier, and wouldn’t let your humble servant get ahead of the Chief on any account.”
“It shows Sir Dugald’s pluck that he has begun a new language at all at his age,” said Stratford. “Most men would have left everything to Kustendjian, and thrown the blame on him if things went wrong.”
“Oh, we all know that you will back up the Chief on every possible occasion,” said the doctor, irreverently. “He ought to be thankful that he has such a faithful trumpeter at hand to act as his understudy in case of need. But you mark my words, if ever I have to put the Chief on the sick-list, North and I will give you a jolly time!”
“Regularly beastly!” agreed Dick. “But you seem to have been badly off for occupation if you took to studying Ethiopian. Was there absolutely nothing to do?”
“Not much, except to watch the love affair.”
“What love affair?”
“It’s the greatest joke in the world! You remember that young idiot Anstruther, how he carried on with Miss Hervey at the Egertons’ dinner-party? Well, he saw fit to be thrown out of his berth in the gale that caught us in the Bay—got his wrist sprained and his thumb crushed, or something of the sort. The surgeon on board here and I were at our wits’ end with all the ladies who knew they were dying and insisted on the doctor’s attending them at once, besides the other knocks and injuries that really needed looking after, so we were thankful when Miss Keeling volunteered her aid. She wasn’t ill, while it was as much as I could do to stagger feebly about, holding on to things, and we thought it would be an excellent thing to hand the ladies over to her care—just temporarily, of course. But the ladies, to a woman, refused to have anything to do with her, except Lady Haigh, who wasn’t ill, and we were actually obliged to give her the surgical work, for the men who had got knocked about were too anxious to be looked after to care who did it. You needn’t put on that face”—catching sight of Dick’s look of disgust—“she did it as well as I could have done it myself. But we hadn’t bargained for the effect of her ministrations on the susceptible heart of young Anstruther. He was winged at the first shot, and the next day’s dressing of his hand finished him. Since he has been able to crawl on deck, he has done nothing but follow Miss Keeling about, and when she sits down he sits down too, and looks at her.”
“Young fool,” laughed Stratford. “How lively for Miss Keeling! But what about the other girl?”
“Miss Hervey? Oh, I taxed him with her one day, and he had his answer all ready. He compared himself to Romeo, and one or two other old Johnnies of that sort, and felt that he had quite justified his conduct.”
A shout of laughter followed, in which Dick joined, notwithstanding his disgust. It was not quite clear, even to himself, why he should object so strongly to young Anstruther’s behaviour, but he recognised that he resented it very vigorously. Georgia was nothing to him, of course; but—well, a man who had gone through it all before was sorry to see another young beggar making an ass of himself. He did not know whether to be more angry with the youth for his foolishness, or with Miss Keeling for tolerating it. She did not welcome her youthful adorer’s attentions—he was obliged to confess this when he saw her treatment of him; but why should she allow them to continue when a word to Sir Dugald would have rid her of them? And the boy was really painfully absurd, whether he was taking immediate possession of any empty chair within a radius of a dozen yards from Miss Keeling, or scowling at those who did not give him a chance of getting nearer. Georgia was a favourite on board—there was no denying it. The younger men, with the conspicuous exception of Fitz, looked askance at her, certainly, and avoided her neighbourhood, muttering something about the New Woman; but the elders declared her unanimously to be the most sensible girl on board. “A woman who knows any amount, and never parades it, but is always ready to learn from other people, and doesn’t want to talk dress or scandal, is refreshing to meet,” they said, not troubling themselves to remember that they would have fought their hardest to repress in their own daughters any approach to Georgia’s particular tastes.
To his own sore discomfort of mind, Dick surprised the same inconsistency in himself. It was one of his favourite theories that women who aped men (the term was a comprehensive one, and covered a good many things, from studying art to riding a bicycle), lost by such a course of action any right to help or special courtesy from men. And yet he found himself watching jealously for any chance of moving Miss Keeling’s deck-chair for her, or fetching her a book from the library, without even waiting to be asked. It gave him a curious feeling of gratification to catch the look of pleased surprise on her face, and to receive words of thanks from her lips—to know, in short, that he had made her indebted to him, and that she liked it. Moreover, in spite of his former unhappy experience, he seized every opportunity of conversation with her, and engaged her in endless arguments on the Woman Question—a species of mental activity which Georgia hated at all times, and which was particularly distasteful to her in this case, since only the very surface of the subject could of necessity be touched.
“It is really too bad of Major North to go on teasing Miss Keeling in this way,” said Lady Haigh to Mr Stratford one evening; “and if he only knew it, it is so silly of him, too. Georgia has had plenty of practice in arguments of this kind, for every man she meets begins his acquaintance with her by trying to convert her. She has her most telling pieces of evidence all marshalled ready for use, while Major North has nothing but a few prejudices to support him. The other men all give it up, sooner or later, and decide to accept things as they are, and be thankful, and why doesn’t he?”
“I’m sure I don’t know,” said Stratford. “Perhaps his obstinacy is stronger than theirs, or he thinks he has a right to carry matters further—as a family friend of Miss Keeling’s.”
“As if that would have any influence over her!” said Lady Haigh, scornfully. “Now, I ask you, is it likely that after going through her training as creditably as she has done, she would ever allow herself to be convinced that it had been impossible or improper for her to study medicine? And if she was convinced, do you think any woman worthy of the name would ever allow him to see it?”
“I should think it extremely improbable. But according to North himself, his intention is purely philanthropic. He told me yesterday that he considered it only charity to talk to Miss Keeling as often as he possibly could, in order to protect her from that terrible youngster.”
Lady Haigh went off into a fit of subdued laughter, which would have astonished and wounded Dick if he had known its cause, for he believed honestly in the explanation of his conduct which he had offered, quite unasked, to Stratford. If it did give him a thrill of pleasure when Miss Keeling’s dark eyes were raised to his face, in inquiry or in indignant protest, or even in mirthful contradiction, it was merely because his chivalry was receiving an incidental and wholly unlooked-for reward. He was only doing his duty in protecting a lady of his acquaintance against a youth who had shown himself disposed to take an undue advantage either of her kindness or her thoughtlessness. It did not strike him that Miss Keeling might be quite able to take care of herself under the circumstances, much less that she might prefer to do so; but Fitz Anstruther was made aware of the fact before the voyage concluded.
“At last!” he exclaimed, one evening, with a sigh of satisfaction, as he annexed the chair which Dick had just vacated. “I do believe that conceited beast North thinks you like to hear him everlastingly prosing away, Miss Keeling.”
“People are often blind to one’s real feelings in their presence,” said Georgia; but the double meaning went unperceived.
“Yes; but he might have had a little pity for me,” said Fitz, complacently, for he had an artless habit of exhibiting to the public gaze any sentiments, such as most people prefer to keep concealed in their own bosoms, that he considered did him credit. “Every one on board must know by this time that I am awfully gone on you.”
“Mr Anstruther!”
“Oh, I mean, of course, that I have admired you awfully ever since I first knew you. A fellow expects a little consideration to be shown him when he is in l—I mean—don’t you know?”
“How long have you known me, by the bye?” inquired Georgia.
“Oh, all this voyage. It’s been abominably long, don’t you think? But I don’t mean that, you know; it’s been jolly.”
“Yes; it is really a long time,” pursued Georgia, meditatively. “It is all but a fortnight, isn’t it?”
“A fortnight is as long as a year sometimes,” said Fitz. “I mean, as good,” he added, hurriedly.
“Yes; only a fortnight ago you were saying all this to Miss Hervey,” was the unexpected response.
“Oh, I say now, Miss Keeling, that’s a bit hard on a man,” cried Fitz, much wounded.
“A man?” said Georgia, inquiringly; and the youth writhed.
“Of course I was awfully gone on Miss Hervey before we started,” he said, sulkily; “but it was only because she was so pretty, and she doesn’t care for me a scrap. She told me so lots of times.”
“Is that intended as an excuse for the way in which you have been behaving lately?” asked Georgia; “because I don’t quite see the connection. Allow me to tell you, Mr Anstruther, that you have been doing your best to make both yourself and me supremely ridiculous. I can’t interfere with you if your ambition is to make every one laugh at you, though I may regret it for you own sake; but I object very strongly to your trying to render me absurd.”
“Mayn’t a—a fellow change his mind?” Fitz wished to know, in an injured tone. “If I am in love I’m not ashamed of it.”
“I hoped that your own good feeling would have led you to see by this time how foolish you have been,” said Georgia, coldly. “I could have freed myself in a moment from the annoyance you have caused me by a word to Sir Dugald”—Fitz’s face fell suddenly—“but I was sorry to lower his opinion of you at the very beginning of your work with him. Your sister is a great friend of mine, and I hoped you might be sufficiently like her not to resent advice which was offered for your good.”
“I’m awfully obliged to you for not complaining to Sir Dugald about me,” returned the culprit, with some reluctance. “I didn’t mean to behave like a cad to you, Miss Keeling, nor to make you look ridiculous. I’ll try not to bother you any more, if you really don’t like it. Only mayn’t I speak to you sometimes? It will be rather dull if I am not to say a word all the way to Kubbet-ul-Haj.”
“I am quite serious,” said Georgia, rather sharply.
“So am I, Miss Keeling, I do assure you—tremendously serious. It is a serious thing when a fellow finds himself brought up in mid-career in this way. I only want to have my orders given me. I like to be definite. We may be friends still, I hope?”
“I see that I need not have taken so much trouble to spare your feelings,” said Georgia. “If I had ever imagined, Mr Anstruther, that your conduct sprang simply from a desire to make me a laughing-stock on board, I should not have felt inclined to waste any consideration on you.”
“Oh, Miss Keeling, you are making a mistake—on my word and honour you are!” cried the youth, earnestly. “What a beast you must think me! I know I am bad enough; but it’s not quite that. I do admire you tremendously, and so I did Miss Hervey. It’s a way I have. I don’t mean any harm; but I do delight in being rotted about it by other chaps. They are all so dreadfully afraid of being suspected to be the least bit in love, that it’s a great temptation to show them how well one can go through with it.”
“Then try to conquer the temptation,” said Georgia, promptly, although she found her fan useful to conceal a smile. “You are far too young to think of being in love yet. What you call love is merely a momentary enthusiasm. Why not wax enthusiastic over some cause, for a change, or even some man—Sir Dugald, for instance?”
“I did think a lot about him at first, but he snubbed me in such a horribly cold-blooded way,” was the reply.
“Take my advice, and think all the more of him for that. You will be thankful for it yet. And perhaps you may be thankful some day for what I have said to you to-night. My lecture was not received quite in the spirit I had anticipated, but I think you must see that the form which your enthusiasms took was not calculated to do any good to any one, and might have done harm. Happily Miss Hervey and I are both a good many years older than you are, but a young girl might have thought you were sincere, and have suffered terribly when she was undeceived.”
“It is so hard to be always thinking of what might be the consequences of everything!” lamented Fitz.
“It would be harder to have to take the consequences after refusing to think of them. You will marry some day, I hope, and would you feel you were acting fairly towards your wife if you had frittered away beforehand all the affection and devotion which were her right? Keep yourself for her.”
“Thanks awfully, Miss Keeling, for saying that. No one ever spoke to me in this way before. You will let me be friends with you, won’t you? I should like you to advise me always.”
“I can promise you more advice than you will ever think is needed. In a few years,” said Georgia, with some bitterness, “you will hate the very sight of me, because of what I have said to you to-night.”
“If I was ever such a beastly cad, I hope I should be punished as I deserved!” said Fitz, fervently.
“It is only the way of the world—of men, at any rate,” returned Georgia, as lightly as she could; but when she was alone a little later, her mind recurred to the subject, and found no mirth in it.
“It is Major North’s way too,” she said to herself. “How he would have sneered if he had heard me to-night! I might be that boy’s grandmother, from the way he accepts my scoldings.”