His Excellency's English Governess

by Sydney C. Grier

“I am glad you have spoken to me, Lady Haigh, for it seems to make it easier—I mean—yes, it is easier—to see the right course than if Dr Egerton had asked me himself. I think I am bound in honour to consider my duty to my employer, and to go on with my work. The Pasha has acted most kindly and honourably by me, and he wishes me to carry on Azim Bey’s education. I can’t feel that it would be right, after all the trouble and expense he has had, to throw up my situation for the sake of a—well, of personal feelings. I think the Pasha would have a right to say he didn’t think much of Christianity if I treated him in that way, and I have tried not to hide my colours in the Palace. I think it is only right for me to go on as I am.”

“But you don’t mind my having told you, dear? You are not angry with Charlie? What will you say to him?”

“That is scarcely a fair question, Lady Haigh,” said Cecil, pausing with her hand upon the door, but keeping very much in the shade of the curtain; “or did Dr Egerton depute you to receive his answer as well as to plead his cause?”

“Ah, she shan’t get off like that,” said Lady Haigh to herself, as the door closed behind her young friend. “Charlie shall have his chance when he comes back and speak for himself, and I am very much mistaken if he doesn’t get a little hope to help him through the next three years.”

CHAPTER XV.
AFTER ALL——

But Christmas Eve passed on, the new agreement was brought and signed, and still Charlie did not come. The other young men looked at one another and laughed when they found that he had not appeared, and one or two betrayed symptoms of an inclination to take his place and monopolise Cecil. But they had no chance, as they were ready to acknowledge ruefully at night; for even if Miss Anstruther had been willing to let herself be monopolised, Lady Haigh would not have allowed it. She was very particular in keeping the conversation general in the drawing-room that evening, and in checking any tendency towards confidential talks. Captain Rossiter did once by a bold stroke succeed in getting Cecil to linger at the piano, trying over the accompaniment of a new song which had just reached him from England; but before he could guide the conversation round to anything more interesting than key-notes and sharps, Lady Haigh moved over to a chair close to the instrument, and the rest of the company followed.

Cecil did not sleep much that night. She had made definitely the momentous decision which had been confronting her for so long, and had signed away her liberty for three years more, but it was not the thought of this that kept her awake. She had heard Charlie Egerton’s love declared, though not by himself, and the recollection made her heart beat fast. Even if (and she was not quite so sure about this as she had been a little while ago)—even if she did not love him, she could not but feel touched both by his affection and his constancy. But why had he not come back? Why, after declaring so openly his intention of returning, had he lingered until after she had bound herself to remain in Baghdad? What had detained him? Had anything happened to involve him in one of the border disputes which were continually occurring between the Arab tribes, or had the spell of the old wandering life regained its power over him? If it were really the latter, Cecil felt that he might as well spare himself the trouble of coming back at all, so far as she was concerned. Ever since she had first met him she had deliberately thrown her influence into the scale against his nomadic tastes, trying to induce him to settle down steadily, and do his best, by persistent attention to duty, to counteract the effects of his earlier erratic proceedings. It was a pity, she had felt sometimes, that a man whose nature revelled in the unusual and the unconventional should be guided so strenuously into the beaten track, where another, with natural gifts of a far less remarkable order, would have filled his place with much more satisfaction to himself and to his superiors.

But it was all for Charlie’s own good. It must be to his advantage to be held back from sacrificing all his prospects to the impulse of a moment, and Lady Haigh had been unremitting in impressing upon Cecil that whereas an eccentric, harum-scarum genius might do a great deal in the way of contributions to inexact science, the Indian Government, and indeed all governments, preferred the steady man who could be trusted to keep in the line marked out for him. Almost unconsciously Cecil had been setting this as a kind of test for Charlie in her own mind, watching, with an interest which she believed was wholly ethical and impersonal, his two years’ struggle to stick to his work and avoid quarrelling with Sir Dugald. Hence she had come to the rather one-sided conclusion that she would certainly have no more to do with him if his efforts failed, while discreetly leaving a blank as to what was to happen if they were crowned with success. But in any case, if he could forget all that he had said, and the importance of haste, at such a time as this, and linger among the Bakhtiaris or the Hajar, it would be evident that his love was as little to be depended upon as his persistence in any walk of life had formerly been.

It was not wounded pride which actuated Cecil as she reasoned out this conclusion with herself, nor was it lack of sympathy with Charlie in the trials and worries of his uninteresting post at Baghdad. It was simply that she felt the lack of stability in his character, and the need there was for correcting it, and that she had a traitor on her own side to crush, in the shape of the unreasoning attraction towards Eastern and simpler modes of life which sometimes possessed herself. With Charlie this feeling was a passion, but in her it came only very occasionally into collision with her habitual fixedness of purpose and invariable caution. Still, the very knowledge of the existence of this tendency in herself made her harder upon Charlie, and more determined to guide him in the safe middle path of daily duty steadily performed,—just as we are all prone to correct with greater willingness the faults we perceive in ourselves which are at variance with our general character,—and she felt, as she reviewed her conduct and advice mentally that night, that she could not reproach herself with what she had done. But she had now something else to consider—namely, what she was going to do—although the circumstances seemed so uncertain that she felt herself justified in leaving the matter open. Suppose Charlie had been unavoidably detained after all, and that he returned within the next few days, would he speak to her still, now that his speaking would come too late? She could not doubt for a moment that he would, but when he did, what would he say? Yes, and what would she say? These questions ran in her mind all night, in spite of the wise procrastination she had exercised in determining to leave the matter undecided.

“I really wish,” she said pettishly to herself, when she saw in the morning her pale face and tired eyes reflected in the glass—“I really wish now that he would stay away until to-morrow, so that I could get back to the Palace and be safe with Azim Bey without having to go through all this.” And so much worried and perturbed did she feel at the moment that she believed she meant what she said.