The Dilemma/Chapter XLI
CHAPTER XLI.
Two hours after his note was despatched, and as the sun was getting low, Yorke, returning from a saunter through his stable, as he came to the front of his bungalow, met a lady advancing up the little avenue. She wore a thick veil, but no disguise would have concealed her from his eyes. It was Olivia. She walked slowly, as if weak; and as Yorke hurried to meet her over the few paces that separated them, he could see that she looked pale and ill. She held out her hand, which for a moment he grasped tenderly; then, looking at her wan anxious face, he dropped it, and led the way slowly up the veranda steps and into the little sitting-room. There placing a chair for her, he stood opposite, waiting for her to speak.
Olivia raised her veil, and Yorke, gazing on the face so constantly in his thoughts, saw with pain the change which anxiety and sickness had wrought in the familiar features. Each of the two great troubles she had gone through had left its traces, and yet, thought he, she is as beautiful as ever. At last she spoke. "Major Yorke, you must have guessed why I have come to you. It is because of your note to my husband. He thought — that is, I thought — that it might be of more use if I came and spoke to you myself. We are such old friends, you know," she added, with a smile meant to be cheerful, but which to the other appeared inexpressibly sad.
Yorke bowed. "Pray go on," he said; "you must know my desire to serve you in everything."
"It is about this letter which you have found. It seems that he had overlooked having written it you, and incautiously said so. And now he thinks the production of it might prejudice his case seriously; and he is sure you would not wish to do that."
"I am glad he gives me credit for so much good-feeling," replied Yorke, gravely. "I feared he had come to regard me as an enemy. God knows, I would do anything that one man may do for another to help him out of his trouble."
"Ah yes," she said. "I knew we might depend on you as a true friend. And Rupert bade me tender you his humble apologies if he had said anything in your disfavour; and he is sure you would make allowances for him, knowing how sorely he had been tried. These were his very words. And oh! Major Yorke, you know how much that means from him. You know what a proud man he is ——"
"Pray don't say a word on that score," said he, interrupting her. "I am glad, of course, to hear of his kindly feeling, but I wanted no apology. And it is about him and not me you want to speak. Pray go on, and let me know what it is I can do."
"That is what I am coming to," she said. Then, speaking with hesitation, and scanning his features anxiously, she continued —— "It is about this unfortunate letter. Rupert thinks he can clear himself of everything else, and that, as nobody knows of its existence but yourself, it would not be too late to prevent the thing going further. So he thought — I thought — that if I came myself and asked you, you would not mind — you would not mind — giving it back — to me." Making this appeal in flattering accents, she yet laid a stress on the last word, and looked at him with a pleading face.
But Yorke stood silently before her, looking down, and shook his head sadly.
"Rupert said there would be no risks," she continued; "I was to destroy the letter before you."
"Risks?" said he, interrupting her; "do you think I care about risks? It is not the risks I was thinking about; this is a matter of honour. No," he continued; "I would do anything that a man may do to serve you — or your husband either, but this is impossible."
"It is easy to make fine professions of friendship," said Olivia in a tone of pique, and turning her head aside; "but they do not come to much when put to the test."
"Olivia — Mrs. Kirke, why do you say such cruel things? You must know that they are not true. Don't you understand that the thing has gone beyond my power to stop it? I have already stated before the court of inquiry that I did receive the letter. I did it for the best, knowing nothing of the trap that was laid for him, and heaven knows I would give everything I possess to have left it unsaid. But the thing is done, and it cannot be undone."
"You mean that the suspicion might attach to you, if the letter is not produced? Yes," she added eagerly, "Rupert spoke about that. He particularly told me to say that you need not be uneasy on that score; no one would think of doubting your word. Yes, that was what he said himself — it would all be put down to some mistake; and he would give you a paper, in any form you liked, to clear you now and forever."
"How much has your husband told you about the case?" Yorke asked, sadly. "If you knew the whole case you would understand that this would not be enough to get him out of the difficulty. You would understand ——"
"I understand so much, that if Rupert is brought before the court-martial, and the letter is produced, he will be ruined. He told me so himself just now. Oh, Major Yorke, if not for him, for my sake, and in memory of old days, be merciful!" and as she made this appeal in urgent tones, Olivia, stepping forward, knelt down before him, and taking his hand, looked up beseechingly in his face.
"Olivia, Olivia!" he said, mournfully. "why do you tempt me? You know how passionately I have loved you, for although you are no coquette, you must have seen how I have been ready to worship the ground you trod on any time for these three years past. I don't say you have played with my feelings, for I was a fool all along, and deserved my fate; but you must have seen through them partly, although I dare say you did not guess the depth of my love. No, you need not be afraid," he continued, quitting his grasp of her hand, as Olivia, whom by this time he had caused to rise and be seated again, looked up at him with a flushed and frightened face, as he stood over her; "there can be no harm in my telling you this now, once and for all, and getting rid of the burden on my soul, for all that is past and gone. Dearly as I used to love you, and love you still, I would not marry you now, if you were free to-morrow and would have me. It is brutal of me, is it not, to say so? and I dare say you don't understand me, but the Olivia of my fancy has passed away, and can never live for me again. But look here, Mrs. Kirke," he went on eagerly, and as he spoke it seemed to him that their relations had suddenly altered — she was no longer the goddess to be set on a pedestal and worshipped from below; his Olivia would never have asked him to do a dishonourable action for any reason — this was merely a weak woman following her husband's crooked ways, — "look here," he said; "I want you to understand that it is not a matter in which I can really save your husband. If the letter had not been found, people might have said that I had lied about it — and thought so too, and they might have been welcome to think so, if it could have saved you from pain and trouble. But what is the good," he added mournfully, "of talking about what might have been? The letter has been found. And if the court ask me if I have found it, am I to perjure myself? And if I admit having found it, and refuse to produce it, don't you see that this makes things look even worse? No, Mrs. Kirke, you will say I am offering an empty pledge when I declare that I would gladly give my life to save yours; but the thing you want me to do is impossible."
"Then I suppose," said Olivia, after a pause, rising slowly, and lowering her veil, as if to depart, and again turning away her face, "there is nothing more to be said. Offers of service are easily made, but they will not save my husband from ruin. Well, you have the satisfaction of knowing that you will succeed to the command of the regiment."
"You may reproach me as you like," said Yorke sadly; "but though I dare say you think very hardly of me, you must at least know that I am incapable of the meanness of profiting by your husband's misfortunes. Yes, Olivia," he continued, as she looked inquiringly into his face, "you misjudged me once before, and you were sorry for it afterwards. So I hope it may be again, and yet — but no: I was going to say that if it would be any consolation to you to think ill of me I should be willing to have it so, but I cannot bring myself to say that. But why trouble you with my thoughts and feelings? I see you in this terrible difficulty and distress, and am unable to help you. That is sufficient bitterness."
Olivia stepped towards him and laid her hand upon his arm. "Forgive me again," she said in a low beseeching tone which thrilled through his heart; "you have always been a true friend, and I am an ungrateful undeserving woman; but if you knew how wretched and broken-down my husband is, I am sure you would excuse my injustice. And I dare say you are right — I am so bewildered, I know not what is right or what is wrong — but it seems very hard." And she turned to go away, while the large tears started in her dark eyes, and rolled down her pale cheeks. But Yorke saw that she staggered in her walk, and was far too weak to make the journey back on foot, and insisted on her resting while his buggy was got ready for her, and he hurried out to the stable to hasten the operation, hardly daring to trust himself any longer in her presence.
This was the second time, he thought, as he helped in nervous haste to put the harness on the horse, that she has been under my roof. The first time how it set my heart dancing for joy, and how I dreamt of a second visit as being almost too great happiness! and now it has come, and in what a way! She is sitting there, and I am actually keeping out of her way. For at sight of her tears his resolution had almost failed him, and he had been asking himself whether it would indeed be so great a breach of honour to take out the fatal letter and tear it up in her presence.
He drove the carriage up to the veranda steps, and alighting, handed Olivia in and drove off, the groom hanging on behind after the fashion of his class. It was now dusk, the time affected by Anglo-Indians for taking the air, and a passer-by might have set them down for a domestic couple on their accustomed evening drive; but the road to Kirke's house lay at the back of the station, and they met no one. No words were exchanged between them; and short though was the distance, Yorke had time to ponder on the strangeness of the situation, and to reflect how once it had been the dream of his life that Olivia should be driving through Mustaphabad, a wife, and sitting by his side. Now that dream was realized, and in what a way! She was sitting in his carriage by his side, but another man's wife and the mother of another man's child!
Soon the entrance gate of Kirke's house was reached, and Yorke, pulling up the horse, broke the silence by saying, "I will leave you here; my man will lead the horse up to the door," — and got down. He stood, hat in hand, beside the carriage while the groom stepped to the horse's head, and looked up at Olivia. She held out her hand, and smiling sadly, but with something of the old look of former years, wished him good-bye. Yorke took the proffered hand in his for an instant, and then turning away walked back, unwilling to weaken the recollection of her kindly parting by another word.
A few days later, just as all the officers who were nominated to form the court had arrived at the station — for there was not a sufficiency of officers of the needful rank in garrison at Mustaphabad, and several were summoned from a distance — and while all the residents were in a state of expectancy, and the officers of the regiment, feeling keenly the disgrace which had fallen on it, hardly showed their faces in public, an order was received from army headquarters to suspend the opening of proceedings; and the curiosity which this order evoked remained unsatisfied for two or three days, till an announcement appeared in the Gazette to the effect that Brevet-Colonel Rupert Kirke, C.B., had been permitted to retire from the service. Kirke himself, it appeared, had applied to be allowed to do so, and the application had been forwarded to government from headquarters, with a strong recommendation that it should be acceded to on the score of his distinguished service; and also that, as he had not served long enough for a pension, he should be granted the half-pay of his regimental rank of captain — half-pay as an institution being unknown to the Indian army, and each recipient requiring a special decision in his favour.
Public opinion endorsed the decision; for notwithstanding the natural disappointment felt at being balked of the expected excitement of a long court-martial on a distinguished officer, the general sentiment was one of satisfaction that so gallant a soldier should escape the ignominy of a public prosecution and sentence.
But food for local gossip in abundance was immediately afterwards afforded by the sudden disappearance of the Kirkes, who left Mustaphabadon the night following the publication of the Gazette, taking their child with them, but unattended by even a female servant. No doubt it would have been easy to trace them, had it been any one's business to do so, but public action in the matter did not go further than to amplify the story with an abundance of circumstantial details, although the popular version, to the effect that they had driven out to a place about twenty miles off on the main road to Calcutta, and hence started by "dawk" across country in palanquins, was not far from the truth.
The reason for the flight soon became apparent in the complaints, thereon loudly upraised, of baffled creditors, whose claims had in fact begun to pour in when first the court-martial was ordered to assemble. But small part of the expensive household property, it now appeared, had been paid for; there were promissory-notes of large amount overdue to various European and Arab horse-dealers for horses; the servants' wages were six months in arrear. The heaviest claim was that preferred by a native banker, but it was generally understood that his debt was more than covered by the jewels which he held in pawn — the first cause of the unfortunate officer's disgrace and ruin.
The pay of a captain commanding a native cavalry regiment is sufficient for his position with care and moderation; but as Kirke, far from having any capital in hand to start with, was already loaded with a burden of old debts, he had at no time the means of maintaining the expensive style of living adopted on his marriage, still less of paying for his extravagant outfit. Whether he had entered on this desperate course in the expectation of getting a fortune with his wife, or under some vague idea that the jewels would turn out to be of great value, could not be told; but it was plain that, apart from other difficulties, a crash must have come sooner or later.
The fugitive officer having left the army, the military small-debts court could not take cognisance of the claims; but the station magistrate put the police in charge of the deserted premises; and never before had the good people of Mustaphabad obtained such bargains as at the auction-sale of Kirke's effects, which took place soon afterwards.
Yorke guessed correctly the course of the fugitives. He felt sure Kirke would make his way across India to Bombay, by which route he would be secure from pursuit, and he would probably pass through a station on the borders of the great northern province where Sparrow was now residing as a deputy-commissioner. They would surely be in straits for money, the poor wife, meanwhile, probably only dimly conscious of the cause of their flight, and the extent of their ruin. To Sparrow, accordingly, he remitted all his available cash, the savings of two years' campaigning. It was to be given to Kirke, if he should pass that way, as a loan from an old friend still under great obligations, to be repaid at his convenience; but Sparrow was on no account to give any clue whence it came. His expectation was justified by the event. Sparrow, acknowledging the remittance, wrote that the Kirkes had arrived that very day, and were staying with him. "He wants his coming here kept quiet, of course, and is in a tremendous hurry to be off again, and his haste is fully accounted for, if what one hears be true of the rage of his creditors at his escape. His wife looks dreadfully knocked up, poor thing — and no wonder, having to nurse her baby on such a journey: but we hope to get a decent ayah for it before they start again. I have given him the money you sent and a trifle of my own; and indeed he is likely to want it all, for a dawk-journey to Bombay from here will be awfully expensive, to say nothing of the fatigue. It makes one quite sad to think that she, poor thing, should have to go through it, she looks so frail and ill. I suppose many people would not have received them under the circumstances, and it is somewhat awkward for me in my official position, beyond a doubt; but as you know, Mrs. Sparrow and Mrs. Kirke were always such great friends, and we could not think of giving them the cold shoulder in their trouble."
Trouble, indeed, thought Yorke, as he read the letter; has it then come to this, that Olivia is a suppliant for shelter to her own waiting-maid?
Kirke had managed his escape well. Had he remained at Mustaphabad, or ventured to travel home by Calcutta, he would certainly have been arrested; but between the north and west of India there stretches a wide expanse of country, which in those days divided them more completely than would an intervening ocean; and Kirke, once on this line, got to Bombay and disappeared from the country before any of his angry creditors had time to set about intercepting him.
On the day after Kirke's flight Yorke sent in his resignation of his appointment as second in command and officiating commandant of the regiment. This, however, was not at first accepted: he was offered the opportunity of reconsidering his resolution, and the great people at headquarters even went so far as to let him know that they thought such a step foolish and quixotic. No slur of any kind attached to him in the affair, it was said, and it was intimated to be the intention of the commander-in-chief to make him permanent in the command of a regiment with which he had been associated from its first formation, and with which — so the great man was pleased to say — he had performed distinguished service. But Yorke stood by his resolve. "I owe everything professionally to Kirke," he wrote to a friend on the headquarter staff. "He took me up when I was an obscure subaltern, selected me out of others, and gave me my first start in life. It is to his generous praise that I owe my promotion and my honours; I should despise myself forever if I allowed myself to step into the poor fellow's shoes." "The regiment must have a commandant of some sort," retorted his friend; "it is not your fault that there happens to be a vacancy. Surely it may as well be you, who know the regiment thoroughly, as another." "The other," replied Yorke, "will not be a personal friend of the late commandant." Then came news that the government was about to reduce several regiments; whether Kirke's Horse would be among those to be maintained, would depend probably on who might be in command. He had to consider the interest of his brother officers, therefore, and not only his own feeling. This argument came home; but he was firm in abiding by his resolve, and after a few miserable days spent in command against his will, he obtained Sir Montague Tartar's sanction to be struck off the strength of the garrison pending confirmation of his resignation, and quitted Mustaphabad. Major Egan therefore succeeded to the command of Kirke's Horse pending arrival of the new commandant an officer promoted from another regiment, whose term of office, however, was a brief one, for the famous regiment was disbanded a few weeks later, in the general reduction which followed the restoration of peace in India.
Although his well-wishers in high places were somewhat annoyed at what they termed his obstinacy in the matter, Yorke was too good an officer to remain long unemployed; and in a few months he was appointed to the divisional staff of the army and posted to a station on the frontier. The change of employment was a welcome one at first, and in the occupation of learning the duties of this new branch of his profession he sought eagerly for distraction from the depression of spirit left by Kirke's ruin, and all the miserable circumstances attending it — his own unwitting share in the catastrophe, and the unhappy fate of the woman whose memory was still so dear.
Time passed on, and no news came of the fugitives, all trace of whom had disappeared; and the event which had created such absorbing interest at the time soon began to grow dim in general recollection; but with Yorke himself there still remained an enduring scar. Until he left it, he was not aware how deeply the interest of his life had been wrapped up in the regiment with which the most important part of it had been passed, and what a blank the severance from it had made; still more how deeply he missed the presence of the one woman who, though she never could be his, was yet more to him than all the world besides. Active and assiduous in the new business of his profession, he yet found himself now more lonely and friendless than at any time since he first landed in the country; and, perversely shunning the society at his command, he yet yearned in his solitary home for the friendship and sympathy which he would not summon up the effort to seek among new faces. There came up now for the first time the home-sickness which is wont to beset the solitary exile, and at times the inclination was strong to throw up his appointment and return for a while to England. The joys of married life could not be his, but there at least a home awaited him, and the renewal of family affection. Why should not that suffice for him as for so many others? In this frame of mind, growing daily more disposed to be solitary and cynical; hardly perceiving himself how different the man was becoming from the shy but ardent lad of ten years before, who landed in the country full of hope and enthusiasm, yet grimly conscious of the folly of allowing himself to cherish a feeling of dissatisfaction with a career more successful than his wildest day-dreams used to picture; Yorke was summoned to join the Umbeyla expedition, and by no man in the army was the distraction of active service more eagerly welcomed. To a man suffering from distaste for his own life, there is no medicine so effectual as helping to take the lives of other people. In that short but very sharp campaign Yorke received his first wound, not, however, before he had done enough good service both to gain and to earn another step of brevet rank. A still greater distinction — shortly afterwards, while on sick-leave on the hills, he was offered the vacant command of a smart regiment of native cavalry; and exchanging his staff-duties with delight for his old congenial employment, he hurried down to assume his new command. But although his wound was healed at the time, he had returned to duty too soon. A sharp attack of illness followed; the wound broke out afresh; and although he would now have wished to remain a little longer in the country, to identify himself with his new regiment, he was fain to act on the doctor's advice, and set off to Calcutta as soon as he was well enough, there to appear before the medical board and start on sick-furlough for England.