Books: The Native Born

I >> I. A. R. Wylie >> The Native Born

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"You are not disturbing me," she said. "On the contrary, I--was
expecting you. Archibald told me you were coming, but I forgot to
light up. I was twilight-dreaming, if there is such a term."

She laughed with a forced cheerfulness, and he made no answer. The
little red-shaded lamp gave her some trouble, and when she looked up
she saw that he was standing opposite her, the light falling on a
broad scar across his forehead.

"How the burn shows to-night!" she exclaimed involuntarily. "Will you
never lose it?"

"Never," he answered. "I do not want to. When I am depressed, I look
at it, and remember that I have done one thing worth doing in my
life."

"I don't know," she returned. "You have done more useful things than
that."

"Not to my mind."

"Well, but to mine. There, when I have pulled the curtains and put the
lamp just at your elbow, you could almost imagine yourself back in
England, couldn't you? Imagine the street outside as a bit of London.
There could hardly be more noise. The idea may refresh you. You look
so tired."

He seated himself in the comfortable wicker chair by the table and
looked about him with a faint smile of content.

"Yes," he said, "it is homely, isn't it? The red light, and the pretty
little room, and you sitting there working. It might be a corner of
the old country--or of Marut. Your study was just like this, I
remember."

"Yes, I copied it. It made me feel less lonely. Only I flatter myself
that it is tidier here than it used to be in the old days."

He laughed, and the laughter sent the light shining in his eyes.

"Rather! When I first joined I had the chemical craze on, do you
remember? I thought I was going to discover some wonderful new
gunpowder, and we used to experiment together in your room. The
business came to an untimely end when I blew off part of the
ceiling--"

"And some of my eyebrows!" she interposed merrily.

"Yes, of course. I don't know which disaster upset Mrs. Carmichael
most, good soul. After that I forget what craze came about, but we
always had a new one on the list, hadn't we?"

She nodded, her head once more bent over her work.

"None of them lasted," she said. "Crazes never do."

There was a moment's silence. Their little burst of gay recollections
was over, and the restraint had regained its old ascendancy over them.
Unknown to her, Nicholson was watching his companion with keen,
anxious eyes.

"You look pale and tired," he said gently. "Madras is getting too much
for you. When is Travers going to take you for a change?"

"I don't know. Not just now. Besides, I am happier here. I like the
noise and bustle."

"You used not to. You were all for outdoor sports and beautiful
scenery."

"Yes, but now it is different. I could not stand the quiet. I must
have noise to distract me--I mean, I have grown so accustomed to it."

"Yes," he said slowly, "one grows accustomed to it." Then, presently,
he added, in another tone: "At any rate, my term in Madras is at an
end. I return to Marut next week."

She started. The start was almost a violent one, and her hands fell
limply in her lap.

"You are going back to Marut?" she said. "For ever?"

He smiled, but his eyes avoided hers.

"Not for ever, I hope. I am sick of pen-work, and want to get back to
the front among my men. There is a company of sepoys to be stationed
at Marut, and they have given me the command. It's a good post, though
of course I would rather be at the frontier, where there's something
doing. At any rate, I must get away from Madras as soon as possible."

"Yes," she said absently, "no doubt it is best."

She went on stitching as though nothing had happened, but her hands
trembled, and once she threw back her head as though fighting down a
strong emotion. But he had ceased to watch her. He was leaning a
little forward, one elbow resting on his knee, his eyes fixed
steadfastly in front of him.

"Can I be the bearer of any messages?" he asked at last.

"No, thank you. I write regularly. Or--yes, you might tell them that
you left me well and happy. That will please them. Will you be so
kind?"

"Will it be kind to give a message which is not quite true?--I mean,"
he added hastily, "you do not seem strong."

"Oh, I am strong enough. I do not think I shall ever be ill."

Another long and painful silence intervened. There was no sound, save
Lois' thread as it was drawn through the thick material. Nicholson
drew out his watch.

"You mustn't think me rude, Mrs. Travers," he said, with an abrupt
return to his old formality, "but I have any amount of work to do
before I leave, and among other things I wanted to see your husband on
business. He told me the other day that he had some shares in the
Marut Company going, and said if I would care for them--"

Her work dropped from her hand to the floor. She stared at him with a
face whiter than the linen she had been stitching.

"But you are not going to buy them?" she asked sharply. Something in
her tone forced him to meet her eyes.

"Oh, I don't know. Why not? I'm a poor business man, and your husband
always seems to come off well in his ventures. Without being in the
least a speculator, I should be glad to make a little money." He
smiled. "I have another craze on, you see--a gun this time--and it
requires capital to complete. So I thought--"

She leaned forward. One small hand lay clenched on the table between
them, and there was a force and energy in her attitude which arrested
his startled attention.

"I think you are mistaken, Captain Nicholson," she said. "My husband
has no shares to sell."

"But yesterday he told me that he had!"

"Yes, yesterday, no doubt. But he heard to-day from the Rajah. I
think, if you do not mind waiting, he will tell you himself that what
I say is true."

For a second they looked straight at each other without speaking.
Neither was conscious of any clear thought, but both knew that in that
breathing space they had exchanged a signal from those hidden chambers
which men unlock only in brief moments of silent crisis. The crisis
had come in spite of a year's defiant struggle. It had broken down the
barrier of trivial commonplaces behind which they had always sought
shelter; it had rushed over them in a flash, like a sudden tidal wave,
scorning their painfully erected defenses, driving them helplessly
before it. It had no apparent cause, save that in that moment of alarm
she had looked at him with her soul unguarded, and he, overwhelmed by
that silent revelation, had allowed his own sternly repressed secret
to flash back its breathless message. Nicholson was the first to
regain his self-control. He bent down and, picking up her work,
restored it gently to her hands.

"You must go on with your sewing," he said. "I like seeing you work.
It completes the picture of a--home--"

"Yes," she interrupted, in a rough, broken voice. "It is a perfect
picture, is it not? Just so, as it is--only, of course--" she laughed
as he had never heard her laugh before--"of course it's only a
tableau--it isn't real."

Once more her head was bent over her work. He saw how with every
stitch she was fighting stubbornly for calm--fighting with all the
dogged desperation of a high-minded woman who sees herself trembling
at the edge of a bottomless abyss. He knew now for certain that her
apparent happiness was a sham and an heroic lie--that she knew what he
knew of Travers' outside life, and suffered with the intensity which
honor must suffer when linked with dishonor. He saw, with a soldier's
instinctive admiration, that she was holding her ground against the
fierce and unexpected attack of an overwhelming enemy, and that he,
who had his own battle to fight, must hold out to her a helping,
strengthening comrade's hand.

"Lois!" he said quietly. "Lois!"

She went on working. The name had been a test of her strength, and she
had borne it. He knew that he could go on with what he had to say.

"Lois, we had our young enthusiasms in those old days--crazes, we will
call them--and of course, like all young enthusiasms, they are gone
for ever. But there were other things. Sometimes we used to talk very
seriously about life, do you remember? I dare say we talked nonsense
for the greater part--we were very young--but we were intensely
serious. We told each other what we thought life was, and what we
intended to make of it. It was then we had the idea of the cathedral."

She looked up earnestly at him.

"The cathedral? Haven't you forgotten?"

"No. I never forgot it."

"I thought you had. It is all such a long time ago. When I read about
you in the papers, and heard of all the wonders you had done, I was
sure you must have forgotten the chatter of your fifteen-year-old
playfellow. A man who spends his day as you did, in the saddle, and
the night in long, anxious watches, does not have time for such ideas
as we cultivated in those days."

"You are wrong, Lois. The idea is everything. It is the mainspring of
a man's life. If I did anything wonderful, as you say, it was for the
sake of the cathedral. There was, for instance, one night which I
remember very well. A whole tribe had risen. Half my men were down
with fever, and I felt--well, pretty bad. I was a bit delirious, I
fancy, and in delirium very often the foundations of a man's character
come uppermost. The cathedral was always in my mind. I saw your half,
and it was getting on splendidly. That goaded me. I felt I had to go
on, too. So I pulled myself together and went ahead. We pulled through
somehow, and I have always felt that in that night I laid the chief
stone."

The burning tears sprang to her eyes.

"So all that splendid work was done for the sake of our cathedral?"

"Partly, but not in the first place. Do you remember of what use our
cathedral was to be in the world? It wasn't merely to be a monument to
our own glory--it was to be a sheltering place for others, an example
to them, an inspiration. You said once, very rightly, that if every
here and there a human being made a cathedral out of his life, other
people would soon get ashamed of their mud-huts, and pull them down.
They would try to build cathedrals on a bigger and nobler scale than
the first one, and probably would succeed. Thus the work would go on
from one generation to another. It was an idea worthy to form the
foundations of a man's ambition. I made it mine, as I knew you had
made it yours. It strengthened me to think that every decent action
was a fresh stone to the building which in the end would stand
perfect--not to my glory, but to the glory of the whole human race."
He smiled, though his eyes remained serious. "As an Englishman, I can
not help wishing that cathedrals should be most plentiful on English
soil."

"Do you really think that one small human life can make so much
difference?" she asked, rather bitterly. "I used to think so, in my
self-important days, but I am beginning to believe that our little
individual efforts are hopelessly lost in a sea of rubbish."

"Our youthful conceit is more justifiable than such self-disparagement,"
he answered. "I often think that humility--at any rate a certain kind--is
a questionable virtue. In lessening our own value, we lessen our own
responsibility, and our responsibility is tremendous. One life can make
the difference of a cathedral spire in a town of low-built huts or of a
snow mountain in an ugly plain. I am sure of it--and so are you. So is
everybody who thinks about it. But people do not think. It is sometimes
much more convenient to believe that one is too insignificant to have
any responsibility. But to my mind there is not a vagabond in the street
who is not directly helping on our national decay, and who might not be
building up the Empire." He leaned toward her, lowering his voice. "You
know I am not just talking, Lois. It is my life's principle which I lay
before you--mine and yours. How long is it since we have spoken of these
things? Ten years. Since then we have been building steadily at our
cathedral. We must go on."

"How can we?" she answered wearily. "It is not our cathedral any more.
I thought you had forgotten, and--"

"My first day in Marut I sent a message to you--a little in fun, but
with an earnest purpose. I wanted to see if you had forgotten, and I
wanted you to know that I had remembered. I told you that the
cathedral still lacked its chief spire."

"I never got the message. It was that day Archibald asked me to be his
wife. When did you send the letter?"

"It was not a letter but a verbal message, by Travers."

"That afternoon?"

"Yes, that afternoon."

She covered her face with her hand.

"He--he must have forgotten," she said at last.

"Yes, he must have forgotten," he agreed quietly.

There was a long silence. She remained motionless, but he heard her
breath being drawn in quick, painful gasps. The battle for them both
was at its height. He bent forward and took the hand that lay clenched
in her lap gently in his own.

[Illustration: He took her hand that lay clutched in her lap.]

"Dear little Lois, dear little comrade! We are like two architects,
you and I. We were very young when we set out on our great task, and
no doubt we have made many blunders. In the beginning we each hoped
secretly that the time would come when we should be able to crown our
work hand in hand. It was that I was thinking of when I sent my
message. Well, things have turned out differently--perhaps through our
own fault. But the cathedral must go on. Instead of one spire, as we
had hoped, there will be two spires. You will build yours, I mine.
They will be far apart, and so we of necessity must be apart, too. But
the cathedral will go on; and in the end--who knows?--it may be more
perfect than as we saw it in our first great plan."

"But we might have built together, Adam!"

"Yes. We might even build together now--but then it would no longer be
a cathedral. It would be a mud hovel like the rest. And that would be
wrong--wrong to the world and wrong to ourselves. Have you understood
what I mean?"

He waited patiently, his hand still clasping hers. One single piteous
tear rolled down her cheek, but that was all, and when she looked up
at him her eyes were calm and steadfast.

"I understand quite well what you mean," she said, "and I know that
you are right. God bless and help you."

"And you, Lois."

They exchanged a firm pressure. Then Nicholson rose.

"I must be going," he said. "Will you tell Travers that I shall be
around at the office to-morrow morning? If by any chance he has any
shares going, I should be obliged if he would allot them to me."

Lois rose also. Her face was turned toward the door.

"If you wait one moment, you will see him yourself," she said. "I
think I hear him coming upstairs."

She was right. The next minute the door opened quickly and Travers
entered. Evidently something unusual had happened. In one hand he held
an open telegram. His face was crimson with excitement and his lips
parted as if with a hasty announcement. But as he saw the two standing
at the table watching him, he stopped short, looking from one to the
other with a flash of amused curiosity in his eyes.

"Hullo, you both here?" he said cheerfully. "How cozy you look. See
here, Lois, I've just had a telegram from the Rajah. He wants me to
come at once. Can you be ready to start in three days?"

"For Marut?" A rush of color filled her pale cheeks.

"Yes, of course. By the bye, Nicholson, that's your destination, isn't
it? We might travel together."

"I think not," was the quiet answer. "I have orders to start next
week."

"Well, there's no great hurry for us, I expect. Our friend, Nehal, is
of an excitable disposition. I hope you haven't had to wait long for
me, Nicholson. You said you had some business you wanted to talk over
with me."

"Yes, it was about those shares. But if you are busy--"

"Oh, that's all right. It won't take more than a few minutes to
settle. How much do you want to invest? I tell you, my dear fellow,
it's a splendid thing, and--"

He was unexpectedly interrupted. He had taken out a heavy pocket-book
and was busily looking through some papers, when Lois laid her hand on
his.

"I think Captain Nicholson is under a misapprehension, Archibald," she
said, in a low voice. "He said you had some shares to sell him, but I
remembered what you said about the mine, and I told him that there
must be some mistake. I was quite right, wasn't I?"

Every word she had spoken sounded emphasized as though she were
striving to convey a double meaning, and the second in which husband
and wife looked at each other was to the puzzled witness a painful
eternity. With a strong perceptible effort, Travers turned away.

"So my wife has broken the news to you?" he said, smiling. "Yes, I'm
awfully sorry. Everything good gets snapped up so confoundedly
quickly. Better luck next time. I was quite dreading disappointing
you, but Lois, as usual, has taken my disagreeable task from me." He
patted the hand which still rested on his own. "Stay and have a little
dinner with us," he added cordially, as Nicholson prepared to take his
leave. "I'd like to make up to you with a little of my best Cliquot."

Nicholson shook his head. The impression that he stood before a veiled
and unpleasant comedy increased his desire to get away.

"Thanks, I'm afraid I can't," he said. "I have work to do. Good
night."

"Good night. To our next meeting in Marut!" The two men shook hands.

"Good night, Mrs. Travers. You will be able to be your own messenger
now," Nicholson said.

She met his glance with quiet courage.

"They will be able to see with their own eyes that things are going
well with me," she answered simply.

When the door closed upon Nicholson's tall form she went back to her
husband's side. He was busy consulting time-tables, and hardly seemed
aware of her approach. Only when she touched him on the arm did he
look up.

"Well, what is it?"

"I want to know if you are angry?"

"What about?"

"The shares--and Captain Nicholson. I felt it was wrong to deceive
him. He is not rich, and you told me that the mine was a failure."

"Of course, you have every reason, no doubt, to consider your friend
before your husband," he said with a sudden outburst which he
instantly regretted. He had encouraged--nay, forced--her intimacy
with Nicholson. With what purpose? He himself hardly knew. Perhaps
somewhere at the bottom of him he was beginning to dread the honesty
of her character as an unspoken reproach. If she were less perfect in
her conduct, his own life would have seemed less blamable. Or perhaps
his motives had been more generous. He knew he had nothing to give
her--and Nicholson was a good fellow. At any rate, it was a mistake to
have betrayed even a moment's irritation. She had shrunk back from
him, but he put his hand on her shoulder and kissed her. "There! Of
course I am not angry. You've lost me a few hundreds, but you're worth
it, and I dare say it was all for the best. Run and write a note to
the Colonel and say we are coming, there's a good little woman!"

Lois turned wearily away. He had not understood her. She considered
him more than she had considered Nicholson. She had wanted to save
him from what she felt was a mean and treacherous step. But he had not
been able to understand. Nor could she have explained. Between certain
characters all real communication is an impossibility, and words no
more than sounds.

CHAPTER II

CATASTROPHE

The tea-room, usually the most animated portion of the Marut
club-house, had lost its cheerful appearance. The comfortable chairs
had been cleared on one side and replaced by a long green baize table
littered with papers; the doors leading on to the verandah were
closed, and a stifling atmosphere bore down upon the five occupants
who were ranged about the table in various attitudes of listless
exhaustion.

"I can't think what we have been called here for," Mrs. Cary protested
loudly; "and from the way we have been locked in, we might be in a
state of siege. I know I shall faint in a minute. Beatrice, pass me my
salts, child."

Her daughter obeyed mechanically, without moving her eyes, which were
fixed in front of her. Colonel Carmichael, who was seated at the far
end of the table, opposite the Rajah, smiled good-naturedly.

"If _you_ feel yourself justified in grumbling, what about me, Mrs.
Cary?" he said. "You at least are a share-holder, and I suppose there
are some formalities to be gone through, but what I have to do with
the business I can not imagine."

"Business!" groaned Mrs. Berry from his right. "That's the silliest
part of it all! What's the good of getting me to talk business? I
don't understand business; I never did, and never shall. Why doesn't
Mr. Travers come? I'm sure I have been waiting quite ten minutes."

"Perhaps the Rajah can give us a clue to the mystery," the Colonel
suggested. "Rajah, don't you think the ladies could be allowed their
liberty? I can not think that their presence is so essential."

Nehal Singh looked up. From the moment he had exchanged nothing more
than a brief salutation with the four Europeans, he had sat with his
head bent over some papers, reading, or pretending to read. The months
had brought a new expression to his face. Pain had cut her lines into
the broad forehead; anxiety met the Colonel's questioning gaze from
eyes which had once flashed happy confidence and enthusiasm.

"I am afraid I can give you no answer, Colonel Carmichael," he said
quietly. "Since Mr. Travers has returned to Marut all control over
affairs has passed out of my hands into his. For some reason, I have
been kept in ignorance as to the progress of events, and I wait here
to-day with you as completely in the dark as any one. No doubt he will
be here in a few minutes."

"With good news, I hope," Mrs. Cary sighed. "I also am no sort of a
business woman, but I understand enough to know that if one invests
money in an honest concern one gets interest sooner or later. And so
far the Marut Company hasn't paid me a penny piece."

Nehal Singh started slightly, and his glance wandered to the red face
of the speaker with an expression that was akin to fear.

"An honest concern!" he repeated. "Do you mean that--that it is not
honest?"

Mrs. Cary beamed with recovered equanimity.

"Good gracious! How could you suppose I should mean such a horrid
thing, dear Prince! Of course everything to which you put your hand is
hall-marked. Otherwise I should never have dreamed of investing my
money in the Marut Company."

There was a silence. The Colonel drummed with his fingers on the
table, watching the native sentry who passed stolidly backward and
forward in front of the closed windows. Mrs. Cary fanned herself and
exchanged whispered comments with Mrs. Berry on the opposite side.
Beatrice remained motionless. From the beginning of the meeting she
had once raised her eyes--on Nehal Singh's entry--and then it had been
for no more than a second. That second had been enough. She had seen
his face. She had seen--and it was not her imagination, but a real and
bitter irony--that of all the people in the room she alone had been
the object of his quiet greeting. She knew then--for her eyes had not
lost their keenness--that the eighteen months in which they had
scarcely met had made no difference to him. He still reverenced and
loved her. For him she was still "Lakshmi," the goddess of beauty and
perfection; for him she was still the ideal, the woman of goodness and
truth and purity. Her victory over him had been complete, eternal. She
had betrayed him and retained him. Of all her triumphs over men and
circumstances this was the most perfect. Yet she sat there, white and
still, not lifting her eyes from the table, and seemingly unconscious
of all that went on about her.

Presently a carriage drove up the avenue. They heard Travers' voice
giving some orders, and a moment later he himself entered, followed by
a Mr. Medway, his chief mining engineer. He closed the door and with a
grave bow took his place at the table. He seemed indifferent to or
unaware of the curious and somewhat anxious glances which were turned
toward him. There was something in his appearance which cast an
unpleasant chill over every one of the little assembly. Even the
Colonel, though an outsider, felt himself disagreeably impressed by
Travers' new bearing, and the good-natured banter which he had held in
readiness for the new arrival died away on his lips as he responded to
the cold, formal bow. For some minutes no one spoke. Travers was busy
arranging some papers which he had brought with him, and only when he
had laid these out to his satisfaction did he rise to address the
meeting. He held himself stiffly erect, his fingers resting lightly on
the table, his pale face turned toward the window as though he wished
to avoid addressing any one directly. The usual geniality was lacking
in his composed features.

"Colonel Carmichael and honorable share-holders in the Marut Diamond
Company," he began, "you are no doubt wondering why I have called this
private meeting. I do so because you are the chief partakers in the
concern, and because, as my friends, I wish to offer you an
explanation which I do not feel bound to offer to the other
share-holders within and without Marut. This excuse does not hold good
for you, Colonel Carmichael, and you must feel I am encroaching
heavily on your valuable time. Nevertheless, I assure you that your
presence will assist me considerably in my difficult task."

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