CHAPTER XX.
INTERCEPTED LETTERS.
In her own room that night, Cecil, in the first strength of her grief and desolation, took a solemn resolution never on any account to mention Charlie to Azim Bey again. He was jealous of him—well, he should have no more cause to be so. So far as her intercourse with her pupil went, all should be as though Charlie had never existed. In view of the armed neutrality which had hitherto subsisted between them on this subject, it was not, perhaps, quite clear in what way she could do more than she had already done, but it soothed her feelings to make these resolutions. She would never allude to her engagement in conversation with Azim Bey again, no, not if she were dying for a sight of Charlie. Even though all that had happened was to be ascribed to his malevolent interposition, she would never degrade herself and Charlie so far as to seek his help in setting things right, nor yet to recur to the part he had played in the events which had just occurred. After all, she had come to Baghdad to teach Azim Bey, and not to find a husband for herself, and it might be that her pupil considered himself justified in objecting to her interesting herself in such extraneous matters. At any rate, he should not have to complain of this again. She would devote herself more earnestly than ever to his education, but he should never be so far honoured as to have Charlie’s name mentioned in his hearing.
The plan seemed to work beautifully. Cecil laboured long the next morning in removing from her face the traces left by her tears and by an almost sleepless night, and appeared in the schoolroom as if the events of the day before had never occurred. Azim Bey understood the situation perfectly, and accepted it. He was very gracious, and he could afford to be so, for he had gained all he wanted. Nothing could well have been more delightful than his behaviour—it might almost be called chivalrous. If Cecil had not had the memory of yesterday to warn her, she might have been tempted to imagine that her young barbarian was becoming a gentleman; but her eyes were opened now, and she could only wonder and admire, without being convinced.
The days passed on. Sir Dugald received a telegram from Bandr Abbas to say that Charlie had reached that place safely, and found an extraordinary amount of work awaiting him. After that there came a long unbroken silence. From the Indian newspapers, and through official channels, they heard occasionally that the epidemic was running its course, and that the two surgeons were working heroically among the sick and dying, but there did not come one single message from Charlie himself. Cecil was astonished, but she never thought of blaming him. Possibly he would not write to her lest the letter should convey infection, and he was certainly overwhelmed with work, very likely with insufficient leisure even for needed rest. In this belief she bestowed all the more pains on her own letters, doing her best, by means of their fulness and tenderness, to bridge over the distance which separated her from her lover, so far as this could be done from one side only.
At last Sir Dugald received another telegram, which said that before resigning his position under Government, Charlie was making a tour of inspection, in company with a high medical official, of the British settlements in the Gulf. The cholera had been stamped out at Bandr Abbas, and when this tour was over, Charlie was going home. The telegram concluded with the words, “Letters all missed,” which seemed to shed a little light on the mystery of the sender’s long silence. No doubt he had written, but in some way or other all his letters had gone astray. It was strange, however, that even after this none arrived. Sir Dugald expressed it as his opinion that Charlie must go about looking for pumps in which to post his letters, under the impression that they were pillar-boxes; but Lady Haigh and Cecil held firmly to the belief that, moving about as he was from place to place, he was too busy to write. In vain did Sir Dugald, who had assumed quite a paternal authority over Cecil since their confidential talk on the Sunday preceding Charlie’s departure, urge her to bring her lover to a sense of his undeserved blessings by suspending her own letters for a time—she felt that this was impossible. The long journal-letters supplied the place to her of the Sunday afternoon talks which she had been accustomed to enjoy. A third telegram informed them that Charlie was going home, and gave his English address very clearly. “Letters still gone wrong,” it said again, and Cecil triumphed over Sir Dugald, although he told her that she was only saving Charlie’s character as a lover at the expense of his common-sense.
The news of Dr Egerton’s resignation of his post was now public property, and people began to perceive merits which they had hitherto ignored in the way he had performed his duties. His colleague at Bandr Abbas and the rest of the English community there were loud in their praises of his behaviour during the epidemic, and this caused his former adventurous journeys, undertaken for the purpose of investigating the diffusion of the disease, to be brought to mind. Even the fact of his having been instrumental in checking the spread of a cholera epidemic in his former post,—a success which had been followed, as he had told Cecil bitterly long before, by his enforced resignation,—was recalled, and one or two very hard things were said of the superior who had insisted on his removal. In fact, he was the hero of the hour among a certain set in India, chiefly consisting, it is to be feared, of those who had been disappointed and passed over, like himself, but numbering in their ranks some few who could command a hearing in the Press. The remarks of the Indian papers were balm to the souls of Cecil and Lady Haigh, and they read with avidity all that was said in Charlie’s praise, although Lady Haigh once remarked sadly—
“It all comes too late, Cecil. A little of this encouragement and appreciation, bestowed three years ago, would have saved this ‘valuable public servant,’ whose loss they deplore so feelingly, to the public service, for he would have stayed in India, and persevered in trying for a better post, instead of taking this as a forlorn-hope.”
“And then we should never have met!” said Cecil. “Well, Lady Haigh, I am sorry if you are.”
To which no answer could be made, and Lady Haigh ceased her lamentations. But time was passing on, and still there came no news from Charlie, with the exception of one telegram announcing his safe arrival in England. Things were becoming more and more mysterious. Why should four telegrams alone, all addressed to Sir Dugald, arrive out of all the missives which it was tolerably certain Charlie had sent off? Cecil felt sure that he could never have received her letters without answering them; what, then, had become of the answers? It was not until Christmas-time that the mystery was solved. Cecil was at the Residency as usual, and when the mail came in she looked eagerly to see whether there were any letters for her. Again she was disappointed; there was only one, and this was a bulky epistle from her stepmother. The appearance of the letter was characteristic of the writer. The many closely-written sheets were stuffed into a thin envelope much too small for them, and this had naturally resented such treatment by giving way, in consequence of which it had been “found open, and officially sealed.” The direction was blotted and irregular, and had evidently been written in a violent hurry; and the stamp, which was upside down, was of double the proper value. Cecil laughed at the appearance of the envelope, and mentally pictured little Mrs Anstruther writing in feverish haste to catch the mail, and scrambling the letter into the post just in time. As usual, the first page was dated about a fortnight earlier than the last, and Cecil hurried on to the end. Here at last was the news for which she had been longing.
“Oh, my dear Cecil,” wrote Mrs Anstruther, “we have had such a delightful surprise. Your friend Dr Egerton came to see us yesterday, and we talked about you for hours and hours. Your father and I are greatly pleased with him, and the little children love him already. He is staying at the Imperial Hotel, and his aunt is there too, but she has not her health here, and I don’t think this place suits her. They seem very well off, and Fitz says that one of the boys at the school told him that Dr Egerton has really an immensity of money, for it has been accumulating for him ever since he has been in the East. But, dear childie, why don’t you write to him? Indeed, indeed, I think you are not treating him well. He says he has never had one single line from you, though he has written to you every week. It is not kind of you, and we were so greatly astonished to hear it that we couldn’t think of any excuses for you. Sure the poor boy”—these four words were scratched out, for Mrs Anstruther flattered herself that both her literary style and her accent were extremely English—“Poor Dr Egerton is deeply in love with you, but he said himself he could not understand it. Indeed he was in a great state lest something had happened to you, but we were able to reassure him about that——”