The Way of an Eagle - Ethel May Dell (i read books TXT) 📗

you've only got the grit to go on praying, praying hard, even against your own convictions, you'll get it sooner or later. You are bound to get it. They say God doesn't always grant prayer because the thing you want may not do you any good. That's gammon--futile gammon. If you want it hard enough, and keep on clamouring for it, it becomes the very thing of all others you need--the great essential. And you'll get it for that very reason. It's sheer pluck that counts, nothing else--the pluck to go on fighting when you know perfectly well you're beaten, the pluck to hang on and worry, worry, worry, till you get your heart's desire."
He sprang up with a wide-flung gesture. "I'm doing it myself," he said, and his voice rang with a certain grim elation. "I'm doing it myself. And God knows I sha'n't give Him any peace till I'm satisfied. I may be small, but if I were no bigger than a mosquito, I'd keep on buzzing."
He walked to the end of the room, stood for a second, and came slowly back.
Will was looking at him oddly, almost as if he had never seen him before.
"Do you know," he said, smiling faintly, "I always thought you were a rotter."
"Most people do," said Nick. "I believe it's my physiognomy that's at fault. What can any one expect from a fellow with a face like an Egyptian mummy? Why, I've been mistaken for the devil himself before now." He spoke with a semi-whimsical ruefulness, and, having spoken, he went to the window and stood there with his face to the darkness.
"Hear that jackal, Will?" he suddenly said. "The brute is hungry. You bet, he won't go empty away."
"Jackals never do," said Will, with his weary sigh.
Nick turned round. "It shows what faithless fools we are," he said.
In the silence that followed, there came again to them, clear through the stillness, and haunting in its persistence, the crying of the beast that sought its meat from God.


CHAPTER XXV
A SCENTED LETTER

There is no exhaustion more complete or more compelling than the exhaustion of grief, and it is the most restless temperaments that usually suffer from it the most keenly. It is those who have watched constantly, tirelessly, selflessly, for weeks or even months, for whom the final breakdown is the most utter and the most heartrending.
To Daisy, lying silent in her darkened room, the sudden ending of the prolonged strain, the cessation of the anxiety that had become a part of her very being, was more intolerable than the sense of desolation itself. It lay upon her like a physical, crushing weight, this absence of care, numbing all her faculties. She felt that the worst had happened to her, the ultimate blow had fallen, and she cared for nought besides.
In those first days of her grief she saw none but Muriel and the doctor. Jim Ratcliffe was more uneasy about her than he would admit. He knew as no one else knew what the strain had been upon the over-sensitive nerves, and how terribly the shock had wrenched them. He also knew that her heart was still in a very unsatisfactory state, and for many hours he dreaded collapse.
He was inclined to be uneasy upon Muriel's account as well, at first, but she took him completely by surprise. Without a question, without a word, simply as a matter of course, she assumed the position of nurse and constant companion to her friend. Her resolution and steady self-control astonished him, but he soon saw that these were qualities upon which he could firmly rely. She had put her own weakness behind her, and in face of Daisy's utter need she had found strength.
He suffered her to have her way, seeing how close was the bond of sympathy between them, and realising that the very fact of supporting Daisy would be her own support.
"You are as steady-going as a professional," he told her once.
To which she answered with her sad smile, "I served my probation in the school of sorrow last year. I am only able to help her because I know what it is to sit in ashes."
He patted her shoulder and called her a good girl. He was growing very fond of her, and in his blunt, unflattering way he let her know it.
Certain it was that in those terrible days following her bereavement, Daisy clung to her as she had never before clung to any one, scarcely speaking to her, but mutely leaning upon her steadfast strength.
Muriel saw but little of Blake though he was never far away. He wandered miserably about the house and garden, smoking endless cigarettes, and invariably asking her with a piteous, dog-like wistfulness whenever they met if there were nothing that he could do. There never was anything, but she had not the heart to tell him so, and she used to invent errands for him to make him happier. She herself did not go beyond the garden for many days.
One evening, about three weeks after her baby's death, Daisy heard his step on the gravel below her window and roused herself a little.
"Who is taking care of Blake?" she asked.
Muriel glanced down from where she sat at the great listless figure nearing the house. "I think he is taking care of himself," she said.
"All alone?" said Daisy.
"Yes, dear."
Daisy uttered a sudden hard sigh. "You mustn't spend all your time with me any longer," she said. "I have been very selfish. I forgot. Go down to him, Muriel."
Muriel looked up, struck by something incomprehensible in her tone. "You know I like to be with you," she said. "And of course he understands."
But Daisy would not be satisfied. "That may be. But--but--I want you to go to him. He is lonely, poor boy. I can hear it in his step. I always know."
Wondering at her persistence, and somewhat reluctant, Muriel rose to comply. As she was about to pass her, with a swift movement Daisy caught her hand and drew her down.
"I want you--so--to be happy, dearest," she whispered, a quick note of passion in her voice. "It's better for you--it's better for you--to be together. I'm not going to monopolise you any longer. I will try to come down to-morrow, if Jim will let me. It's hockey day, isn't it? You must go and play as usual, you and he."
She was quivering with agitation as she pressed her lips to the girl's cheek. Muriel would have embraced her, but she pushed her softly away. "Go--go, dear," she insisted. "I wish it."
And Muriel went, seeing that she would not otherwise be pacified.
She found Blake depressed indeed, but genuinely pleased to see her, and she walked in the garden with him in the soft spring twilight till the dinner hour.
Just as they were about to go in, the postman appeared with foreign letters for them both, which proved to be from Sir Reginald and Lady Bassett.
The former had written briefly but very kindly to Grange, signifying his consent to his engagement to his ward, and congratulating him upon having won her. To Muriel he sent a fatherly message, telling her of his pleasure at hearing of her happiness, and adding that he hoped she would return to them in the following autumn to enable him to give her away.
Grange put his arm round his young _fiancee_ as he read this passage aloud, but she only stood motionless within it, not yielding to his touch. It even seemed to him that she stiffened slightly. He looked at her questioningly and saw that she was very pale.
"What is it?" he asked gently. "Will that be too soon for you?"
She met his eyes frankly, but with unmistakable distress. "I--I didn't think it would be quite so soon, Blake," she faltered. "I don't want to be married at present. Can't we go on as we are for a little? Shall you mind?"
Blake's face wore a puzzled look, but it was wholly free from resentment. He answered her immediately and reassuringly.
"Of course not, dear. It shall be just when you like. Why should you be hurried?"
She gave him a smile of relief and gratitude, and he stooped and kissed her forehead with a soothing tenderness that he might have bestowed upon a child.
It was with some reluctance that she opened Lady Bassett's letter in his presence, but she felt that she owed him this small mark of confidence.
There was a strong aroma of attar of roses as she drew it from the envelope, and she glanced at Grange with an expression of disgust.
"What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing wrong, I hope?"
"It's only the scent," she explained, concealing a faint sense of irritation.
He smiled. "Don't you like it? I thought all women did."
"My dear Blake!" she said, and shuddered.
The next minute she threw a sharp look over her shoulder, suddenly assailed by an uncanny feeling that Nick was standing grimacing at her elbow. She saw his features so clearly for the moment with his own peculiarly hideous grimace upon them that she scarcely persuaded herself that her fancy had tricked her. But there was nothing but the twilight of the garden all around her, and Blake's huge bulk by her side, and she promptly dismissed the illusion, not without a sense of shame.
With a gesture of impatience she unfolded Lady Bassett's letter. It commenced "Dearest Muriel," and proceeded at once in terms of flowing elegance to felicitate her upon her engagement to Blake Grange.
"In according our consent," wrote Lady Bassett, "Sir Reginald and I have not the smallest scruple or hesitation. Only, dearest, for Blake Grange's sake as well as for your own, make quite sure _this time_ that your mind is fully made up, and your choice final."
When Muriel read this passage a deep note of resentment crept into her voice, and she lifted a flushed face.
"It may be very wicked," she said deliberately, "but I hate Lady Bassett."
Grange looked astonished, even mildly shocked. But Muriel returned to the letter before he could reply.
It went on to express regret that the writer could not herself return to England for the summer to assist her in the purchase of her trousseau and to chaperon her back to India in the autumn; but her sister, Mrs. Langdale, who lived in London, would she was sure, be delighted to undertake the part of adviser in the first case, and in the second she would doubtless be able to find among her many friends who would be travelling East for the winter, one who would take charge of her. No reference was made to Daisy till the end of the letter, when the formal hope was expressed that Mrs. Musgrave's health had benefited by the change.
"She dares to disapprove of Daisy for some reason," Muriel said, closing the letter with the rapidity of exasperation.
Grange did not ask why. He was engrossed in brushing a speck of mud from his sleeve, and she was not sure that he even heard her remark.
"You--I suppose you are not going to bother about a trousseau yet then?" he asked rather awkwardly.
She shook her head with vehemence. "No, no, of course not. Why should I hurry? Besides, I am in mourning."
"Exactly as you like," said Grange gently. "My leave will be up in September, as you know, but I am not bound to stay in the Army. I will send in my papers if you wish it."
Muriel looked at him in amazement. "Send in your papers! Why no, Blake! I wouldn't have you do it for the world. I never dreamed of such a thing."
He smiled