CHAPTER X.
GAINING A LOVER AND KEEPING A FRIEND.
“NO bathing to-day, Mab!” laughed Georgia, meeting Mabel in her riding-habit in the hall.
“You mean that we can’t ride? Why not?”
“Now you look just like the prehistoric lady in the picture! Because there’s a dust-storm coming on. I meant to tell you before, but you rushed away from the breakfast-table so quickly. I have been hurrying Dick off, that he may get to the office before it begins.”
“But how do you know there’s going to be a dust-storm at all? I thought that before they came on the sky was copper-coloured, and the air got like an oven?”
“Well, the sky is getting black, as you can see. Dust-storms here are not confined to the hot weather, they come all the year round. It’s the merest chance that there hasn’t been one yet since you arrived.”
“How horrid that it should come just to-day!” said Mabel snappishly. “I told Mr Anstruther I was tired of riding Simorgh, and he must really bring Laili back. He said he couldn’t be sure she was cured yet, and I told him he might use a leading-rein if he liked, but that I meant to ride her. We weren’t going at all near the frontier, or anywhere in the direction of Dera Gul.”
“My beloved Mab, dust-storms don’t respect British territory, and if you had once been out in one you wouldn’t wish to repeat the experience, even if you were in a position to do it. Go and take your habit off, and when Mr Anstruther comes, I will tell him to send the horses to the stables, and wait here until the storm is over. Then you will have some one to talk to. See that the servants shut all your windows.”
But when Mabel emerged again from her darkened room into the lighted hall, the disappointment caused by the loss of her ride was mingled with a certain amount of ill-humour, due to an even more untoward occurrence. The ayah Tara had chosen this particular morning for passing in review all her mistress’s best gowns and hats, with an eye to any little repairs that might be necessary, and having taken the garments from their respective boxes and spread them out all over the room, had sat down to contemplate them for a while before setting to work. She was not accustomed to the peculiarities of the Khemistan climate, and the gathering darkness appeared to her only as the precursor of a thunderstorm. Hence, when the first gust of raging wind whirled a cloud of gritty dust through the open windows, she was as much astonished as Mabel herself, who was entering the room at the moment, and was almost knocked down. Both mistress and maid flew at once to shut the windows, but in the wind and darkness this was by no means an easy task, and before it could be accomplished the dust lay thick all over the room and its contents. Such a contretemps was enough to provoke a saint, Mabel said to herself angrily, when she had left the weeping Tara to do what she could to repair the mischief, and it would be idle to deny that she was feeling very cross indeed as she entered the drawing-room with a bundle of letters in her hand.
The shutters were closed and the lamps lighted as if it were night, and the dust pattered like hail on the verandah whenever the howling of the wind would allow any other sound to be heard. Fitz Anstruther was sitting near the fireplace, looking through an old magazine, and Mabel, rejecting his suggestion of a game of chess, seated herself at the writing-table, saying that she must finish her letters for the mail. She found it difficult to write, however, for although she would not look up, she could not help being conscious that her companion’s eyes were much oftener fixed on her than on the printed page before him. Accustomed though she was to such homage from men, this time it made her nervous, and at last she could bear it no longer.
“Wouldn’t you like something to do?” she demanded suddenly, turning round and catching him in the act of looking at her, but he was equal to the occasion.
“Something to do? Something for you, do you mean? May I really write your letters for you? I’m sure the Major has given me plenty of practice in that sort of thing, and your friends would be so surprised to find you had set up a private secretary.”
“Thanks, but I don’t seem to be in the mood for letter-writing, and certainly not for dictating.”
“Then may I hold a skein of silk for you to wind? That’s the sort of thing they set a mere man down to in books.”
“I don’t use silk of that sort. Is there nothing you would like to do?”
“Yes, awfully. I should like to talk to you.”
“I think I shall go and read to the Commissioner,” severely.
“It would only be wasting sweetness on the desert air. He’s perfectly happy at this moment, with Beardmore plotting treason in a confidential report, and about six clerks writing away for him as hard as they can write, and he wouldn’t appreciate an interruption.”
“I suppose you are judging Mr Burgrave by yourself when you say he will be happier if I keep away?”
“I? Oh no; I was judging him by himself. The Kumpsioner Sahib doesn’t think ladies and affairs of state go well together, you know.”
“Indeed?” Mabel was bitterly conscious that she bore a grudge against the Commissioner for this very reason, but she had no intention of admitting the fact.
“Why, do you mean that he vouchsafes to talk shop to you alone, out of all the world of women? What an important person you are, Miss North! Think of having the run of the Commissioner’s state secrets! But of course one can see why he does it. How unfairly people are dealt with in this world! Why have I no official secrets to confide? Supposing I spy round and amass some, may I expound them to you for three or four hours a day?”
“What nonsense!” said Mabel, with some warmth. “Mr Burgrave is only teaching me to appreciate Browning.”
“And you fly to state secrets for relief in the intervals! Miss North, won’t you teach me to appreciate Browning? I’ll wire to Bombay at once for the whole twenty-nine volumes, if you will.”
“I really have no time to waste——”
“Oh, how unkind! Consider the crushing effect of your words. Do you truly think me such an idiot that teaching me would be waste of time?”
Mabel laughed in spite of herself. “You didn’t let me finish my sentence,” she said. “I was going to say that it would be only a waste of your time, too, to try to learn anything from me.”
“Never! Say the word, and I enrol myself your pupil for ever.”
“You must have a very poor opinion of me as a teacher, I’m afraid, if you think it would take a lifetime to turn you out a finished scholar.”
“How you do twist a man’s words! The fault would be on my side, of course. I was going to say the misfortune, but it would be good fortune for me,” Fitz added, in a low voice.
(“Now, if I don’t keep my head, something will happen!” said Mabel to herself, conscious that the atmosphere was becoming electric.) Aloud she remarked lightly, “Ah, you have given yourself away. Do you think I would have anything to do with a pupil who was determined not to learn?”
“Not if he has learnt all you can teach him?” demanded Fitz, rising and coming towards her. “Please understand that there is nothing more for me to learn. I want to teach you.”
“Oh, thanks! but I haven’t offered myself as a pupil,” with a nervous laugh.
“No, it’s the other way about. I want to teach you to care for me as you have made me care for you. Well, not like that, perhaps; I couldn’t expect it. But you do care for me a little, don’t you?”
“Mr Anstruther!—I am astonished—” stammered Mabel.
“Are you really? What a bad teacher I must be! I know all the other men are wild after you, of course, but I thought it was different, somehow, between you and me, as if—well, almost as if we were made for each other, as people say. I have felt something of the sort from the very first. I love you, Mabel, and I think you do like me rather, don’t you? You have been so awfully kind in letting me do things for you, and it has driven all the rest mad with envy. I believe I could make you love me in time, if you would let me try. There’s nothing in the whole world I wouldn’t do for you. If only you won’t shut your heart up against me, I think you’ll have to give in.”
He was holding her hands tightly as he spoke, and Mabel trembled under the rush of his words. Was she going to faint, or what was the meaning of that wild throbbing at her heart? Clearly she must act decisively and at once, or this tempestuous young man would think he had taken her by storm. She summoned hastily the remnants of her pride.
“Please go and sit down over there,” she said, freeing her hands from his grasp. “How can I think properly when you are towering over me like that?” Fitz did not offer to move, and by way of redressing the inequality, she rose also, supporting herself by laying a shaking hand upon the writing-table. “I am so very sorry and—and surprised about this. I had no idea——”
“None?” he asked.
“I mean I never thought it would go as far as this—that you would be so persistent—so much in earnest.”
“A new light on the matter, evidently.” As she grew more agitated, Fitz had become calmer.
“Because it’s impossible, you know.”
“Excuse me, I don’t know anything of the kind.”
“You are a great deal younger than I am, for one thing.”
“Barely three years, and it’s a fault that will mend.”
“No, it won’t. As you get older, I shall get old faster, and if there is a thing I detest, it is to see a young man with an elderly wife. I could not endure to feel that I was growing old while you were still in the prime of life. You would hate it yourself, too, and you would leave off caring for me, and we should both be miserable.”
“Try me!” said Fitz, with a light in his eyes that she could not meet.
“And then there’s another thing,” she went on hurriedly. “I know it sounds horrid to say it, but—it’s not only that three years—you are so young for your age. I’m not a reasonable creature like Georgia; I simply long to be made to obey, whether I like it or not. I feel that I want a master, but I could make you do what I liked.”
“Could you? But perhaps I could make you do what I liked. Just look at me for a moment.”
But Mabel covered her eyes. “No, I won’t. It sounds as if I had been inviting you to master me, which wouldn’t be at all what I meant. Please understand, once for all, that I don’t care for you enough to marry you.”
“Very well. But you will one day. If I am young, there’s one good thing about it—I can wait.”
“It’s no good whatever your thinking that I shall change.”
“That is my business, please. I presume my thoughts are my own? and I feel that I shall teach you to love me yet.”
“I shouldn’t have thought,” said Mabel indignantly, “that it was like you to persecute a woman who had refused you.”
“Don’t be afraid. I shall not persecute you; I shall simply wait.”
“And try to make me miserable by looking doleful? I call that persecution, just the same. No, really, if you are going to be so disagreeable, I shall have to speak to my brother, and ask him to get you transferred somewhere else, and that would be very bad for your prospects.”
Mabel thought that this threat sounded extremely telling, but to Fitz, who had declined excellent posts in other parts of the province, rather than quit the frontier which grows to have such a strange fascination for every Khemistan man, it was less alarming.
“Don’t trouble to get protection from the Major, Miss North. I assure you it won’t be necessary.”
“But am I to be kept in perpetual dread of having to discuss this—this unpleasant subject? I think it is very unkind of you,” said Mabel, with tears in her eyes, “for I had come to like you so much as a friend, and you were always so useful, and now——”
“And now I intend to be quite as useful, and just as much your friend, I hope, as before. Let us make a bargain. You may feel quite safe. I won’t attempt to approach the unpleasant subject without your leave.”
Mabel looked at him in astonishment. “But I should never give you leave, you know,” she said.
“As you please. Then the subject will never be renewed. I am content to wait.”
“But what is the good of waiting when I have told you——”
“Come, I don’t think you can deny me that consolation, can you, when you have the whole thing in your own hands? Is it a bargain?”
“It doesn’t seem fair to let you go on hoping——”
“That’s my own lookout,” he said again. “If your friend is always at hand when you want him, surely he may be allowed to nurse his foolish hopes in private—provided that he never exhibits them?”
“Very well, then,” said Mabel reluctantly. “But I don’t feel——”
“If I am satisfied, surely you may be?”
The entrance of a servant to unbar the shutters dispensed with the need of an answer. Preoccupied as they had been during the last half-hour, neither Fitz nor Mabel had noticed that the dust had ceased to patter and the wind to howl. The storm was over, and once again there was daylight, although rain was descending in torrents.
“Mab, the Commissioner was asking for you,” said Georgia, pausing as she passed the door. “He has finished his morning’s work, and wanted to know if you were ready for some Browning.”
“Oh yes, I’ll go at once,” said Mabel, anxious only to escape from Fitz and the memory of their agitating conversation. It had shaken her a good deal, she felt, and this made her angry with him. What right had he to disturb her so rudely, and make her feel guilty, when she had done nothing? It was with distinct relief that she met Mr Burgrave’s benignant smile, and returned his morning greeting. He did not appear to notice any perturbation in her manner, and she took up the book, and turned hastily to the page where they had left off, while Mr Burgrave, pencil in hand, settled himself comfortably among his cushions, ready to call attention to any beauties she might miss in reading the lines. If he was like Fitz, in that his eyes were fixed on the fair head bent over the pages of “Pippa Passes,” he was unlike Fitz in that their gaze escaped unnoticed.
“‘You’ll love me yet!—and I can marry—’” read Mabel, totally unconscious of the havoc she was making of the poet’s words, but her auditor almost sprang from his couch.
“No, no!” he cried. “I beg your pardon, Miss North, but the storm has shaken your nerves a little, hasn’t it? Allow me,” and he took the book from her hands, and read the poem aloud in a voice so full of feeling that it went to Mabel’s heart.
“‘You’ll love me yet!—and I can tarry
Your love’s protracted growing;
June reared that bunch of flowers you carry
From seeds of April’s sowing.
‘I plant a heartful now; some seed
At least is sure to strike—’”
What malign influence had brought the reading to this point just now? Fitz might have used those very words. Involuntarily Mabel rose and stood at the edge of the verandah, looking out into the rain. Her eyes were filled with tears, but she stood with her back to Mr Burgrave, and he did not see them. He read on—
“‘And yield—what you’ll not pluck indeed,
Not love, but, maybe, like.
‘You’ll look at least on love’s remains,
A grave’s one violet;
Your look?—that pays a thousand pains.
What’s death? You’ll love me yet!’”
Was the seed springing already? A tear splashed into the gritty dust that lay on the verandah-rail, and Mabel dashed her hand across her eyes in an agony of shame. Mr Burgrave must have seen; what would he think? But before she could even reach her handkerchief, the book was thrown down, and Mr Burgrave had seized his crutch, and was at her side.
“Mabel, my dear little girl!” he cried tenderly.
“Oh no, no; not you!” she gasped, horror-stricken.
“And why not, dearest? Forgive me for blundering so brutally. How could I guess that the seed I had dared to plant was blossoming already? I have watched it growing slowly day by day, so slowly that I was often afraid it had not struck at all, and now, when it is actually in full flower, I pass by without seeing it, and bruise it in this heartless way. Forgive me, dear.”
“Indeed, indeed you are making a mistake!” cried Mabel, in a panic. “It really isn’t what you think, Mr Burgrave. I don’t care for you in that way at all.”
“My dear girl must allow me to be the judge of that. I can read your heart better than you can read it for yourself, dearest. Do you think I haven’t noticed how naturally you turn to me for refuge against trouble and unkindness? It has touched me inexpressibly. Again and again you have sought sympathy from me, with the sweetest confidence.”
“It’s quite true!” groaned Mabel, seeing in a sudden mental vision all the occasions to which Mr Burgrave alluded.
“Of course it is, dear. You hadn’t realised how completely you trusted me, had you? Other people thought—no, I won’t tell you what they said—but I knew better. I was sure of you, you see.”
“What did other people say?” asked Mabel, with faint interest.
“Er—well, it was a lady in the neighbourhood.” Mabel’s thoughts flew to Mrs Hardy with natural apprehension. “She was good enough to warn me that you were—no, I will not say the word—that you were amusing yourself with me. She had noticed, naturally enough, how inevitably we drew together, but she ascribed your sweet trustfulness to such vile motives as could never enter your head. I said to her, ‘Madam, to defend Miss North against your suspicions would be to insult her. In a short time, when you realise their baselessness, you will suffer as keenly as you deserve for having entertained them.’ I could trust my little girl, you see.”
“Oh, you make me ashamed!” cried Mabel, abashed by the perfect confidence with which this stern, self-sufficient man regarded her. “Oh, Mr Burgrave, do please believe I am not good enough for you. It makes me miserable to think how disappointed you will be.”
“I should like to hear you call me Eustace,” said Mr Burgrave softly, unmoved by her protestations. It occurred to Mabel, with a dreadful sense of helplessness, that he regarded them only as deprecating properly the honour he proposed doing her.
“Well—please—Eustace—” But Mr Burgrave kissed her solemnly on the forehead, and she could stand no more.
“It’s too much! I’ll come back presently,” she gasped, and succeeded in escaping. As she fled through the hall she met Georgia.
“Perhaps you’ll be interested to know that I’m engaged to Mr Burgrave, Georgie!” she cried hysterically, rushing into her own room and locking the door.
“That wretched man!” cried Georgia. “After all Dr Tighe and I have done for his leg!”
“Didn’t know Tighe had any grievance against him about this,” grumbled Dick. He was sitting on the edge of the dressing-table, ruefully contemplating his boots, with his hands dug deep in his pockets. On ordinary occasions Georgia would have requested him, gently but firmly, to move, but now she was too much perturbed in mind to think of the furniture. Delayed in starting by the dust-storm, Dick had only returned from a hard day’s riding late at night, to find himself confronted on the threshold, so to speak, by the triumphant Commissioner, and requested to give him his sister.
“Oh, but he would be on our side, of course,” said Georgia. “Dick, I do think it is horrid of Mr Burgrave to have proposed under present circumstances. It’s as if he wanted to rob us of everything—even of Mab.”
“No, he’s doing us an honour. He all but told me so. But he really is absolutely gone on Mab. His whole face changes when he speaks of her. Fact is, Georgie, if the man didn’t come rooting about on our very own frontier, I couldn’t help having a sneaking liking for him. His belief in his own greatness is perfectly sincere, and he cherishes no animosity against us for opposing his plans. He told me that he hoped political differences would make no break in our friendly intercourse—Hang it! this thing’s giving way. Why in the world don’t you have stronger tables?”
“Sit here,” said Georgia, pointing to the wicker sofa. “Well, Dick?”
“Well? It’s coming, old girl, coming fast, and he’s mercifully trying to soften the blow to us.”
Georgia looked round with a shiver. The shabby bungalow with its makeshift furniture was the outward and visible sign of the life-work which she and her husband had inherited from her father, and it was to be taken from them by the action of the man who hoped that his arbitrary decree would be no obstacle to their continuing to regard him as a friend.
“And what I think is,” Dick went on, “that they had better be married as soon as possible, before Burgrave goes down to the river again, and the blow falls.”
“But, Dick,” Georgia almost screamed, “you’re giving her no time to repent.”
“Repent? I’m not proposing to kill her. Surely it would be better for her to be married from this house than from a Bombay hotel? Besides, we should have no further anxiety about her——”
“No further anxiety? Dick, if she marries him I shall never know another happy moment. She doesn’t care a straw for him—it’s a kind of fascination, that’s all, a sort of deadly terror. I can’t tell you what it’s been like all day. She couldn’t bear me to leave them alone a moment, and there was he beaming at her, and not seeing it a bit. He thinks it’s all right for her to be shy and tongue-tied, and not dare to meet his eye—the pompous idiot! Mab shy—and with a man! She’s miserable—in fear of her life.”
“No, no, Georgie, that’s a little too thick. Mab is not a school-girl, to let herself be coerced into an engagement, and it won’t do to stir her up to break it off. You mustn’t go and abuse him to her. Be satisfied with relieving your feelings to me.”
“Now, Dick, is it likely? Am I the person to give her an extra reason for sticking to him? If I abused him she would feel bound to defend him, and might even end by caring for him. I can’t pretend to congratulate her on her choice, but she shall have every facility for seeing as much of him as she can possibly want.”
“Vengeful creature!”
“No, that’s not it. I have no patience with her.”
“Ah, she has proved you a false prophet, hasn’t she? That’s unpardonable.”
“She has done worse; I’m perfectly convinced that she refused the right man before accepting the wrong one. And though she doesn’t deserve it, I think she ought to have time to get things put right, if she can.”
“Very well. Then the deluge will come first, that’s all.”
“How soon do you expect it?”
“Well, I gather from what the Commissioner says that his report is nearly drawn up. As it’s only a pretext for a predetermined move, they won’t take long to consider it. The decision will be intimated to me, and I shall submit my resignation in return.”
“And then we shall fold our tents like the Arabs, and silently steal away?”
“Not quite at once. We must stick on until they send up a man to replace me, and carry out the new policy. The worst of it will be that Ashraf Ali will know why I am resigning, and unless I can get him to keep quiet, he will think himself free to break the treaty before our side does. If Bahram Khan once gets to know what’s on hand, it’s all up, for nothing will persuade the Sardars that we are not repudiating the treaty as the first step to an invasion and the annexation of Nalapur, and he will be there to lead them, if the Amir won’t. I hope to goodness that Burgrave will have removed the light of his countenance from us before then, but I suppose that’s sure to be all right. He would hardly like to look as if he was hounding his intended brother-in-law out of the province. Unfortunately it’s pretty certain that rumours of my impending departure will begin to get about in some mysterious manner as soon as his unfavourable report goes up, for his plans seem doomed to leak out into the bazaar. I’m inclined to think he has a spy about him somewhere. By-the-bye, Georgie, who is the sweetseller you’ve allowed to hang about the place lately?”
“I, Dick? He told me you had said he might come.”
“Something fishy there, evidently. But he must have an accomplice inside.”
“One of the Commissioner’s Hindu clerks, perhaps.”
“Possibly. Well, we’ll deal with him to-morrow.”