Devil's Wind (22 page)

CHAPTER XXIV

THE AWAKING

Over the edge of the World, away from the noise of its strife,

We walk the enchanted Woods, we wander with things that seem,

Till we come to the Garden of Eden, till we handle the Tree of Life,

And the knowledge of Good and Evil comes with the breaking of the dream.

During the days that followed, Helen was in torment. She
could not look at Richard Morton without seeing that he loved her. And Adela was not
dead a month. If he knew—when he knew. She kept her eyes from his, and walked in a
mist of pain. To him this new timidity, this withdrawal gave her the last touch of
virginal charm. She had been friend and comrade, but now she was the heart of his
dream as well.

He thought he read her mind.

He was to remember, to catch up the lost thread before he could come to the centre of the maze and find her waiting. How could she, or any other woman, say to a man:

“You loved me, and I loved you. We were to have been married, but you have forgotten.”

How she must have suffered—his proud, fine Helen. And now as he read her, it was the old lover, the old familiar love that she wanted, not this new love which was all that he had to give until he could remember. Well, he would give her her way, he would wait, and be patient for a while. These days were happy ones, and it would not be very long.

Already the darkness that had settled over his memory was beginning to be shot with light. Flashes came and went. Sometimes he was on the point of remembering. The black curtain stirred, as if about to rise. Then just as anticipation rose to its height the moment passed, and all was a blank again.

One day as they sat in the cave, and the rain poured down outside, he asked Helen:

“Where did I meet you first?”

And she answered him, without turning her head:

“At Aunt Lucy's house”; and she gave the street and the number.

“And who is Aunt Lucy?” His voice held a teasing note. “Another Disagreeable Relation?”

This was the turn of the screw, but Helen steadied herself to say the name that had been Adela's.

“Mrs. Lauriston.”

“Oh!”

He was silent for a moment, and she felt giddy with fear. Not here. Not now. Not whilst they were shut up in this narrow space, so close that they touched one another if either moved. Oh, she prayed that he might not remember now.

“That is curious,” he said at last. “That name—and I suppose I couldn't have known it very well; but when you said it—I had a sudden feeling—I thought everything was coming back to me. I do have that feeling sometimes now—but just then it was strong. It has never been quite so strong. Lauriston—Lauriston—no, it has gone again. Well, we met at Mrs. Lauriston's house? Did you live with her?”

“No, I was only staying there, after my grandmother died. I told you about my grandmother, you never saw her. Then I came out to India to my father, in the autumn.”

“Did you like the voyage?” inquired Richard conversationally.

“Very much. I love the sea.”

“Oh!”

Then he leaned over her shoulder as they sat and asked with one of his quick thrusts:

“Was I on board?”

Helen was startled into turning her head. His eyes laughed into hers, but behind the laughter they were keen.

“How did you know?” she stammered.

“I didn't,” said Richard, quite pleased with himself, “I guessed. I expect I enjoyed the voyage too, didn't I—Helen?”

Helen felt as if her heart would break.

“Dick, please, please don't,” she said, and then she wondered what he must think of her. Her mood changed. If he would only guess, would only find out. It had come to that with her now. Tell him she could not. But this daily torment. It was her punishment, but it was more than she could bear.

Richard meanwhile had drawn back, and was fitting another fragment into his mental puzzle. They must have become engaged upon the voyage. That was it. But why had they not been married?

He pursued his inquisition.

“So you came out to your father? Where was he?”

“At Mian Mir.”

“That was when I was in Peshawur. And then what happened?”

“Papa died—last autumn. I came to Urzeepore, to stay with cousins. Please, Dick, I don't want to talk about it. You'll know why some day.”

Richard Morton thought he knew now. He had got what he wanted. The father's illness must have delayed their marriage. An only daughter of Helen's type would scarcely leave her father if he were ill. And then she had come to Urzeepore to be near him. They must have been on the eve of their marriage when the mutiny broke out. They would have had to wait a few months after Colonel Wilmot's death—but not more than six, he decided.

He remembered Colonel Wilmot.

How strange that was. To remember Colonel Wilmot—the man whom nobody particularly liked, or respected—and to forget Helen, who had been almost his wife. Why, no wonder it hurt her to talk of it. One day he would make it all up to her. One day she should forget it all—in his arms. He felt tempted to put them about her now, but, instead, he folded them across his breast and stared out into the rain. His thoughts of her were very tender.

In the middle of July there was a substantial break in the rains. Richard Morton began to go off upon long expeditions. He was often away for hours at a stretch. He told Helen that he was foraging, and sometimes he brought back a couple of doves or a little wild honey.

One day he came back with news.

Helen had come some way down the ravine to meet him, and was sitting under a dhak tree, whose large dark leaves gave a pleasant shade. The shadow lay on her black hair, and made her eyes look black too. Richard came up the bank, and threw himself down beside her.

“I didn't say anything before, because I thought you would worry,” he explained. “But I have been trying to pick up news, near the villages. There are those two, five miles apart, and I found a place where I could watch the road. I wanted to hear what was said by the passers-by. Of course as long as the paths were all slush, very few people came along, but the last two days the ground has dried up a lot, and there have been quite a number of people coming and going. Most of them talked about the weather and the crops, but to-day I saw two men meet. If one of them wasn't an old Sepoy, I'll eat what's left of my boots. Well, they sat down in the shade, quite close to where I was, and they gossiped.”

Richard paused, and laid his hand on Helen's arm. They were out in the open, with the trees about them.

“The relief had reached Cawnpore,” he said.

“Dick!”

“Too late to save any one,” said Richard.

“I didn't think—oh, Dick—was there any one left to save, after that awful day?”

“Yes, apparently there was. There were women and—and children—and they killed them all before the relief got in. My man said there was a great vengeance taken. It seemed to have put the fear of death into him anyhow, for if ever I saw a man badly scared!”

There was a pause.

Then Richard said:

“If I knew where we were!”

“I don't see how we are to find out. Don't run risks, Dick.”

“He pointed over there when he was talking about Cawnpore,” said Richard. “And then he said, ‘What is twenty kos to such shaitans? If they eat their food in Cawnpore, they will wash their hands in Lucknow. I go to my village.' So I think I know more or less, and I think that we must be moving on one of these fine days, Helen.”

“It's a great risk,” said Helen, leaning her chin on her clasped hands. Her hair fell over her left shoulder, and she shook it back again.

“My dear girl, we can't stay here for the rest of our natural lives!”

“I suppose not.”

“I believe you would like to.” His eyes rested on her, with a sudden mischief in them, and to her horror Helen felt the burning colour rise and sting her cheeks. She put up her hands and covered them.

“Why do you tease me, Dick?” she said, with a quick, desperate courage.

He laughed outright.

“And why do you tease me, Helen?” he demanded.

“I don't.”

“Yes, you do. You know it too. How long are we to play this game of make-believe?”

“I—don't—understand.”

“Don't you, Helen? I think you do. I think you understand very well, dear.”

“Dick—please—please—”

She could not control the trembling words, and now she knew that she could not control Dick either. Her command of herself was gone and her command of him with it. It was coming. She could not help it—could not keep it back.

“No, I don't please,” said Richard Morton. He had risen and stood over her, very tall, blotting out the sun.

“I don't please at all. I want to have it out. You can't say I haven't been patient. Now it's done with. We have played long enough. I knew that when I heard what I heard to-day. Anything might happen. I have waited long enough. When are you going to give me back those lost years, Helen?”

She got up, and stood before him, shaking.

“What do you mean, Dick?”

He put his hands on her shoulders.

“I mean that I can't—I daren't wait any more for what may never come back to me. If I can't remember that I loved you before, at least I love you now. Why, I guessed at once. The minute I saw you, the minute you spoke. The love was in your eyes. And you know—you know I love you.”

She could only repeat the same low question:

“What do you mean?”

“That I love you. That we have always loved each other—my heart.”

“Oh, Dick, wait.”

“No, I won't. I'm going to kiss you, this very moment. Heaven knows I've waited long enough. When did I kiss you last? Oh, my dear—my dear.” His voice fell low and changed.

Helen forgot everything but the love in it. It seemed to lap her round with healing and with peace. The pain was gone, the world was gone. In a dream she lifted her eyes to his and saw them nearer, dearer than ever before.

His arms held her close. They kissed.

And as the lightning flashes from the east to the west, tearing and searing the midnight, so recollection flashed upon the darkness of Richard Morton's brain. With his lips still on Helen's in that first kiss, the flash came. It lit the lifting tides of memory, and as he raised his head she saw remembrance flood his eyes and drown the love in them. The arms that held her grew rigid, but they did not loose her. Embraced and embracing they stood, so close that she felt his heart beat hard against her breast, stroke upon stroke, slowly, like a passing bell. And each stroke set its own deep bruise upon the spirit that shrank within.

Helen could not move or look away. No merciful faintness swept between them. The light was full.

For a time that seemed endless, Dick's eyes looked through and through her, to her very soul, whilst love changed in them to judgment and judgment into condemnation.

“Why did you do it?” he said at last, in a voice that was not like his own.

She looked at him. He judged, and he condemned. Let it be. There was nothing for her to say. She did not know what a heart-break of love and pride was in that look of hers, but Richard Morton could never forget it.

“Helen, why?” he said with a groan, and when she had still no answer, except that dear, unbearable look, he let his arms fall, and stepped back a pace.

Then Helen moved a little and leaned against a tree. Now that he had let her go, she felt as if she were going to faint, and she would rather have died than faint, or make any appeal to his pity. She was humiliated enough. She was in the very dust of death. She waited, and he sat down on a great stone and buried his face in his hands. After a very long time he lifted his head and saw her standing there.

“I must—ask you—” he began, and then broke off.

Helen tried to speak, but her lips were too stiff. After three efforts she wrenched them

apart, but no words came. When she found that she could not speak, she bowed her head.

Richard gave a sort of groan, and looked away from her.

“It is all clear—down to a certain point,” he said, breathing hard—“down to—to the river—I must ask you—what happened to her?”

Helen made another effort, and this time a dry hoarse sound came from her lips. She shuddered, and tried again.

“Dead,” she said at last.

He could not spare her.

“How?”

“She was—under the boat, you were turning to lift her in—when you—were hit. Then—a long time afterwards—I can't remember—I saw her again. I called. I did call. She ran—towards the shore. There was a man—a sowar. I saw his sword go up.”

“You saw—”

“I was—holding you—you were half in the water—slipping. Just then you went down. The boat swung round—I thought you were drowning. You went down—under the water—I—told you.”

“Yes. You told me that.”

He looked at her again. “Helen, why didn't you tell me everything? O God, why didn't you? Do you know what I thought? What I have been thinking? That we were engaged—lovers—married almost. I thought that—”

Again Helen was silent.

It was the end. There was nothing more to say. She would have been very glad to die, but Death does not come when we would be glad of his coming.

CHAPTER XXV

HOW HELEN CAME TO CAWNPORE

Love is a dream that's over,

We must part, Not as lover from lover,

Heart to heart. We have no troth nor token,

You and I, Love is a dream that's broken,

So Good-bye.

After what seemed to her a long, long time, Helen took a deep breath, and said very faintly:

“That is all, Dick. Please, let me go.”

The words were like a child's words, and the voice was the voice of a child that has been ill—weak and simple.

A curious rush of emotion came over Richard Morton. He would have given the world to have taken her in his arms, not with the passion of a while ago, but as he would have taken a child—to comfort and console. Between them there were Adela, his self-respect and hers. If he were to go to her now, neither of them would ever forget it.

He got up, looked hard at Helen's white face, then turned and walked quickly away, until he was out of sight and hearing. Helen did not move at once, but after a little while she went slowly to the cave, and sat down there with her head in her hands. A man in trouble seeks the open, but a woman has the animal's instinct to creep away into some closed-in place. She desires the dark and solitude, four walls about her, and a locked door. Helen had no door to lock, and her enclosing walls were walls of earth and stone, but she had no other place to go to, so she crouched in the cave, and let the thoughts that were in her have their way.

At first she was too numb and bruised to heed them much, but presently there came to her an instinctive knowledge, a realisation. And what she began to know, and realise, was the strength of the marriage tie. There was a power in marriage, something apart from the law, or from religion, something apart from passion, love, or romance. Romance died, passion faded, love passed, yes, even love, but there remained the intimate memories, the unforgettable impress of one life upon the other, and that strange compelling power which she felt but could not define. In some deep eternal sense, that which had once been joined could never be set asunder any more for ever.

And Helen's instinct told her that she had sinned against this union and this power. Adela was dead, but she had been Richard Morton's wife. Not all Helen's love could bring her as near to him. The thought burned, and she held it close as if to burn away the shrinking of her heart. Helen looked back, and saw Adela as a bride, with the white veil over her curls, with the smiling lips that never faltered as they took the vows. And she heard Dick promising to have and to hold from this day forth, for better and for worse. He had loved Adela then, even if he loved Helen now. And Adela was his wife. Adela had borne his child.

Helen forced the flame nearer.

The baby, the little forgotten baby which she had never seen. She had no part there. She was neither wife nor mother. She had only her love, and her love had hurt Dick more than Adela's indifference.

She pressed her hands upon her eyes, but the inner vision remained, the vision of Adela, whom she had loved, whom Dick had loved. Dick had forgotten, and she had tried to forget. Now the vision showed her only Adela—Adela with a smile, leaning against Helen, trusting her, kissing her—Adela with a frown—Adela in tears. Last of all, it was Adela with that frenzied terror on her face and the river swirling about her. Helen sat shuddering, and her cup of punishment filled drop by drop as the slow hours went by.

It was getting dark when Richard's step made her start. He came slowly up to the cave, and she had a feeling that he was waiting for the dusk, so that neither he nor she need see the other's face. When he was beside her he paused for a moment, and then spoke in his usual quiet voice:

“I have been thinking things out.” She trembled a little, but he went on: “I believe I know more or less where we are. We cannot stay here. Now that we know that there is a British force at Cawnpore we must move in that direction. As there is nothing to be gained by delay, I propose that we start in the morning, three hours before it gets light. There are risks, of course, but we incur greater risks by staying here. Once the rains slacken there will be more people about. I didn't tell you, but as a matter of fact I was seen to-day. The surprising thing is that it hasn't happened before. Of course the man may have taken me for a native—or he may not. He took to his heels at once, which is a bad sign. It's another argument for moving. Will you be ready?”

He paused for a moment, and as Helen bent her head without speaking, he added:

“Will you eat something, and then try to sleep? I will wake you when it is time to start. If the sky keeps clear, I think that we should take advantage of the starlight.”

Helen got up then, and brought a cold pigeon out of the hole in the rock which served them for a larder. They ate a strange silent meal together, and the light failed more and more, until it was quite gone.

Afterwards Helen lay down in her accustomed place, and to her surprise she fell asleep almost at once, and slept deeply until Richard Morton touched her, and she woke in the darkness, and remembered all that had passed.

They came out of the cave into a still air, and a night full of the diffused radiance of stars. There was no moon, but the sky was a clear, dark sapphire colour, and it blazed with constellations, and was powdered with the fine dust of infinitely distant suns.

Richard Morton and Helen Wilmot left the ravine without looking back, and walked fifteen miles before the dawn halted them at the edge of a wide desolate tract, that sparkled with alkaline crystals under the rising sun.

Neither upon that day nor upon the next, did they meet with any one. Folk kept close to their villages in those days. When armies were in the field, it was best and safest to stay at home. Also there was ploughing to be done, and the poor man's crop of pulse to be sown.

On the second morning Richard Morton drew a breath of relief, for he had recognised his surroundings. He altered his course a little, and pressed on, making a longer march than they had done yet, and halting in a mango grove until the third morning dawned. As soon as it was light he walked into the village upon whose outskirts the grove lay, and demanded the headman, who came salaaming, recognised Morton Sahib with joyful tears, and announced that he was the slave of the Huzoor.

“Evil times, very evil times, Sahib,” he moaned. “Here in my village we are poor men. To the Sirkar we are loyal. The Sahib knows it. The Sahib will speak for us, and say that we are loyal, and that we have had no dealings with the Nana budmash. The Sahib is my father and my mother.”

Captain Morton nodded, and was graciously pleased to accept a draught of milk. He learned that there was a British force under General Havelock at Mungulwar, some seven miles distant, which accounted for his host's access of loyal zeal. Captain Morton signified that his zeal would be best proved by the provision of transport for himself and his companion.

Helen, awaiting him in the mango grove, saw him return, accompanied by four men, bearing the most ancient and ramshackle of palanquins. She then for the first time realised that her feet were almost raw, and that she could not have walked another mile. They went forward in the dusk, Richard riding, and the palkee bearers grunting as they shuffled along. Helen had rested and been fed. Just before starting she had drunk a deep, delicious draught of milk, and she felt strangely drowsy and indifferent. Their dream was near the waking, this dream in which she and Dick had lived, and moved, and had their being, for the last month. Now they were coming back to daylight, actualities, and convention, but she was too tired in mind and body to care what happened. The last moment in which she felt anything was when she waited for Dick in the mango grove, and wondered whether he would ever come back. Now she only desired to lie still and rest. At last, when she was nearly asleep, she was startled by Richard's voice. He had raised up the right-hand curtain of the palanquin and was walking beside her, with his horse's reins across his arm.

“Helen, I want to speak to you,” he was saying, and she roused herself to listen.

“Yes,” she said.

“We can't be any distance from the camp now. I expect to be challenged every moment. There is something I want to say.”

“Yes,” said Helen, again.

He paused, made a perceptible effort, and spoke.

“I want to tell you what to say.”

“Yes.”

“Every one will ask questions, of course. They will want to know every detail, and some of the details—well, they are unnecessary.”

Helen had a perfectly detached vision of herself telling a row of men in uniform about that moment under the dhak tree when she and Richard kissed, and he remembered. The vision stirred her sense of humour. Was this what Richard meant by an unnecessary detail?

“Yes,” she said. “What shall I say?”

Richard was frowning in the dark. He hated this task more than he had ever hated anything in his whole life. It seemed to degrade him—and her. He hurried over the words.

“Say that I was wounded—badly wounded on the head, and wandered away in a delirious state. You followed me. I was very ill. You nursed me, and as soon as we heard of the relief having come up, we made our way here across country. It will be better not to say that I lost my memory for a time.”

The last sentence was the most difficult, and the most essential part of what he had nerved himself to say. He had imagination, and could divine what might have been whispered, not now, but later on. Even as it was

“Yes,” repeated Helen. She wondered how many more times she would say it. It seemed quite impossible to say anything else.

There was a pause. Then Richard said:

“I shall join Havelock's force as a volunteer, if they will have me. They will send you in to Cawnpore at once, and then down to Allahabad, if they've got their communications open. One can't make any plans, but you will be quite safe now. If all goes well you could get a passage home in the autumn.”

This was the waking indeed.

The dawn light was very chill and grey as it struck upon Helen's heart. Something colder and more dreadful than tragedy touched her, and pointed to the future. She looked where the finger pointed, and saw a monotonous life, in which she earned enough to keep her body alive, whilst her heart starved slowly without love, without Dick.

“Yes,” she said once more. Then her tongue was loosened. “I thought—if I could teach,” she faltered. “I am very fond of children. That would be the best. I must do something. Perhaps at Allahabad I might find something to do.”

Richard bent his head as if to look at her, but it was too dark to see anything inside the palanquin. He seemed about to speak, but instead he turned quickly away, and mounted. Ten minutes later a challenge came sharply out of the dark: “Who goes there?” and at the sound of the English voice Helen, to her own unbounded surprise, burst suddenly into tears. The best comfort that she took with her into Cawnpore next day was a bruised hand. Captain Morton had bruised it when he said good-bye.