CHAPTER I
AN EPISODE IN THE EMOTIONAL EXPERIENCE OF THE MAN WITH THE BLUE EYES
Thus far, for the surer basing of our argument, it has appeared advisable to proceed step by step. But the foundations being now well and truly laid, the pace of our narrative may, with advantage, quicken; a twelve month be rounded up in a page, a decade, should convenience so dictate, in a chapter.
To the furthering of which advance, let it be stated that the close of the year still in question marked the date, for Damaris, of two matters of cardinal importance. For it was then Sir Charles Verity commenced writing his history of the reign of Shere Ali, covering the eleven years following the latter's accession to the very turbulent throne of Afghanistan in 1863.—Colonel Carteret may be held mainly responsible for the inception of this literary enterprise, now generally acclaimed a classic. Had not Sir William Napier, so he argued, made the soldier, as historian, for ever famous? And why should not Charles Verity, with his unique knowledge of court intrigues, of the people and the country, do for the campaigns of the semi-barbarous Eastern ruler, that which Sir William had done for Wellington's campaign in the Spanish Peninsular?
Carteret prophesied—and truly as the event richly proved—a finely fascinating book would eventually come of it. Meanwhile—though this argument, in favour of the scheme, he kept to himself—the preparation of the said book would supply occupation and interest of which his old friend appeared to him to stand rather gravely in need. For that something was, just now, amiss with Charles Verity, Carteret could not disguise from himself. He was changed, in a way a little broken—so at least the younger man's kindly, keenly observant, blue eyes regretfully judged him. He fell into long silences, seeming to sink away into some abyss of cheerless thought; while his speech had, too often, a bitter edge to it. Carteret mourned these indications of an unhappy frame of mind. Did more—sought by all means in his power to conjure them away.
"We must make your father fight his battles over again, dear witch," he told Damaris, pacing the terrace walk topping the sea-wall beside her, one evening in the early November dusk. "His record is a very brilliant one and he ought to get more comfort out of the remembrance of it. Let's conspire, you and I, to make him sun himself in the achievements and activities of those earlier years. What do you say?"
"Oh! do it, do it," she answered fervently. "He is sad—and I am so afraid that it is partly my fault."
"Your fault? Why what wicked practises have you been up to since I was here last?" he asked, teasing her.
A question evoking, in Damaris, sharp inward debate. For her father's melancholy humour weighed on her, causing her perplexity and a measure of self-reproach. She would have given immensely much to unburden herself to this wise and faithful counsellor; and confide to him the—to her—strangely moving fact of Darcy Faircloth's existence. Yet, notwithstanding her conviction of Colonel Carteret's absolute loyalty, she hesitated; restrained in part by modesty, in part by the fear of being treacherous. Would it be altogether honourable to give away the secret places of Charles Verity's life—of any man's life if it came to that—even to so honourable and trusted a friend? She felt handicapped by her own ignorance moreover, having neither standards nor precedents for guidance. She had no idea—how should she?—in what way most men regard such affairs, how far they accept and condone, how far condemn them. She could not tell whether she was dealing with a case original and extraordinary, or one of pretty frequent occurrence in the experience of those who, as the phrase has it, know their world. These considerations kept her timid and tongue-tied; though old habit, combined with Carteret's delightful personality and the soothing influence of the dusky evening quiet, inclined her to confidences.
"It's not anything I've done," she presently took him up gravely. "But, quite by chance, I learned something which I think the Commissioner Sahib would rather not have had me hear. I had to be quite truthful with him about it; but I was bewildered and ill. I blurted things out rather I'm afraid, and hurt him more than I need have done. I was so taken by surprise, you see."
"Yes, I see," Carteret said, regardless of strict veracity. For he didn't see, though he believed himself on the road to seeing and that some matter of singular moment.
"He was beautiful to me—beautiful about everything—everybody," she asserted. "And we love one another not less, but more, he and I—of that I am sure. Only it's different—different. We can't either of us quite go back to the time before—and that has helped to make him sad."
Carteret listened in increasing interest aware that he sounded unlooked-for depths, apprehensive lest those depths should harbour disastrous occurrences. He walked the length of the terrace before again speaking. Then, no longer teasing but gently and seriously, he asked her:
"Do you feel free to tell me openly about this, and let me try to help you—if it's a case for help?"
Damaris shook her head, looking up at him through the soft enclosing murk, and smiling rather ruefully.
"I wish I knew—I do so wish I knew," she said. "But I don't—not yet, anyway. Help me without my telling you, please. The book is a splendid idea. And then do you think you could persuade him to let us go away abroad, for a time? Everything here must remind him—as it does me—of what happened. It was quite right," she went on judicially—"for everyone's sake, we should stay here just the same at first. People," with a scornful lift of the head Carteret noted and admired—"might have mistaken our reason for going away. They had to be made to understand we were perfectly indifferent.—I knew all that, though we never discussed it. One does things, sometimes, just because it's right they should be done, without any sort of planning—just by instinct. Still I know we can't be quite natural here. What happened comes between us. We're each anxious about the other and feel a constraint, though we never speak of it. That can't be avoided, I suppose, for we both suffered a good deal at the time—but he most, much the most because"—
Damaris paused.
"Because why?"
"I suppose because I'm young; and then, once I got accustomed to the idea, I saw it meant what was very wonderful in some ways—a wonderfulness which, for me, would go on and on—a whole new country for me to explore and travel in, quite my own—and—and—which I couldn't help loving."
"Heigh ho! heigh ho!" Carteret put in softly. "This becomes exciting, dear witch, you know."
"I don't want to be tantalizing," she answered him, still pacing in the growing dimness of land and sea.
The dead black mass of the great ilex trees looked to touch the low hanging sky. A grey gleam, here and there, lit the surface of the swirling tide-river. The boom of the slow plunging waves came from the back of the Bar, and now and again wild-fowl cried, faint and distant, out on the mud-flats of the Haven.
"Listen," Damaris said. "It is mournful here. It tells you the same things over and over again. It sort of insists on them. The place seems so peaceful, but it never lets you alone, really. And now, after what happened, it never leaves him—the Commissioner Sahib—alone. It repeats the same story to him over and over again. It wears him as dropping water wears away stone. And there is no longer the same reason for staying there was at first. Persuade him to go away, to take me abroad. And come with us—couldn't you?—for a little while at least. Is it selfish to ask you to leave your hunting and shooting so early in the season? I don't want to be selfish. But he isn't well. Whether he isn't well in his body or only in his thinkings, I can't tell. But it troubles me. He sleeps badly, I am afraid. The nights must be very long and lonely when one can't sleep.—If you would come, it would be so lovely. I should feel so safe about him. You and the book should cure him between you. I'm perfectly sure of that. To have you would make us both so happy"—
And, in her innocent importunity, Damaris slipped her hand within Colonel
Carteret's arm sweetly coaxing him.
He started slightly. Threw back his head, standing, straight and tall, in the mysterious twilight beside her. Raised his deerstalker cap, for a moment, letting the moist chill of the November evening dwell on his hair and forehead.
Though very popular with women, Carteret had never married, making a home for his elder sister, Mrs. Dreydel—widow of a friend and fellow officer in the then famous "Guides"—and her four sturdy, good-looking boys at the Norfolk manor-house, which had witnessed his own birth and those of a long line of his ancestors. To bring up a family of his own, in addition to his sister's, would have been too costly, and debt he abhorred. Therefore, such devoirs as he paid the great goddess Aphrodite, were but few and fugitive—he being by nature and temperament an idealist and a notably clean liver. By his abstention, however, sentiment was fine-trained rather than extinguished. His heart remained young, capable of being thrilled in instant response to any appeal of high and delicate quality. It thrilled very sensibly, now, in response to the appeal of Damaris' hand, emphasizing her tender pleading regarding her father. She touched, she charmed him to an extent which obliged him rather sharply to call his senses to order. Hadn't he known her ever since she was a babe a span long? Wasn't she, according to all reason, a babe still, in as far as any decently minded male being of his mature age could be concerned? He told himself, at once humorously and sternly, he ought to feel so, think so—whether he did or not. And ought, in his case, was a word not to be played fast and loose with. Once uttered it must be obeyed.
Wherefore, thus conclusively self-admonished, he put his cap on his head again and, bending a little over Damaris, patted her hand affectionately as it rested upon his arm.
"Very good—I'll hold myself and my future at your disposition," he gaily said to her. "As much hunting and shooting as I care for will very well keep. Don't bother your pretty head about them. During the Christmas holidays, my nephews will be ready enough, in all conscience, to let fly with my guns and ride my horses, so neither will be wasted. I'll go along with you gladly, for no man living is dearer to me than your father, and no business could be more to my taste than scotching and killing the demons which plague him. They plague all of us, in some form or other, at times, as life goes on."
Very gently he disengaged his arm from her hand.
"Take me indoors," he said, "and give me my tea—over which we'll further discuss plots for kidnapping Verity and carrying him off south. The French Riviera for preference?—Hullo—what the deuce is that?"
For, as he spoke, the two cats appearing with miraculous suddenness out of nowhere—as is the custom of their priceless tribe—rushed wildly past. Fierce, sinuous, infinitely graceful shapes, leaping high in air, making strange noises, chirrupings and squeakings, thudding of quick little paws, as they chased one another round the antiquated, seaward-trained cannon and pyramid of ball.
For a minute or so Damaris watched them, softly laughing. Then, in the content bred of Carteret's promise and the joy of coming travel, something of their frisky spirit caught her too—a spirit which, for all young creatures, magically haunts the dusk. And, as they presently fled away up the lawn, Damaris fled after them, circling over the moist grass, darting hither and thither, alternately pursuing and pursued.
Colonel Carteret, following soberly, revolving many thoughts, did not overtake her until the garden door was reached. There, upon the threshold, the light from within covering and revealing her, she awaited him. Her bosom rose and fell, her breathing being a little hurried, her face a little flushed. Her grave eyes sparkled and danced.
"Oh! you've made me so glad, so dreadfully glad," she said. "And I never properly thanked you. Forgive me. I never can resist them—I went mad with the cats."
Her young beauty appeared to Carteret very notable; and, yes—although she might disport herself in this childishly frolic fashion—it was idle to call her, or pretend her any longer a babe. For cause to him unknown, through force of some experience of which he remained ignorant, she had undeniably come into the charm and mystery of her womanhood—a very fair and noble blossoming before which reverently, if wistfully, he bowed his head.
"It's good to have you declare yourself glad, dear witch, in that case I'm glad too," he answered her. "But as to forgiveness, I'm inclined to hold it over until you leave off being tantalizing—and, upon my word, I find you uncommonly far from leaving off just now!"
"You mean until I tell you what happened?"
Carteret nodded, searching her face with wise, fearless, smiling eyes.
"Ah! yes," he said, "we can put it that way if you please." Damaris hesitated detecting some undercurrent of meaning which puzzled her.
"I may never have to tell you. My father may speak of it—or you may just see for yourself. Only then, then"—she with a moving earnestness prayed him—"be kind, be lenient. Don't judge harshly—promise me you won't."
And as she spoke her expression softened to a great and unconscious tenderness; for she beheld, in thought, a wide-winged sea-bird, above certain letters, tattooed in indigo and crimson upon the back of a lean shapely brown hand.
"I promise you," Carteret said, and passed in at the door marvelling somewhat sadly.
"Is it that?" he asked himself. "If so, it comes early. Has she gone the way of all flesh and fallen in love?"
And this conversation, as shall presently be set forth, ushered in that second matter of cardinal importance, already referred to, which for Damaris marked the close of this eventful year.