The Lamp in the Desert - Ethel May Dell (ebooks online reader .TXT) 📗

for orders."
"Will he come back here?" questioned Tommy.
Bernard shook his head. "No. I'm pretty sure he won't. Now tell me your news!"
"Oh, it's nothing!" said Tommy impatiently. "Nothing, I mean, compared to his clearing out. The trial is over and the man is condemned. He is to be executed next week. It'll mean a shine of some sort--nothing very great, I am afraid."
"That all?" said Bernard, with a smile.
"No, not quite all. There was some secret information given which it is supposed was rather damaging to the Rajah, for he has taken to his heels. No one knows where he is, or at least no one admits he does. You know these Oriental chaps. They can cover the scent of a rotten herring. He'll probably never turn up again. The place is too hot to hold him. He can finish his rotting in another corner of the Empire; and I wish Netta Ermsted joy of her bargain!" ended Tommy with vindictive triumph.
"My good fellow!" protested Bernard.
Tommy uttered a reckless laugh. "You know it as well as I do. She was done for from the moment he taught her the opium habit. There's no escape from that, and the devil knew it. I say, what a mercy it will be when you can get Tessa away to England."
"And Stella too," said Bernard, turning to the subject with relief.
"You won't do that," said Tommy quickly.
"How do you know that?" Bernard's look had something of a piercing quality.
But Tommy eluded all search. "I do know. I can't tell you how. But I'm certain--dead certain--that Stella won't go back to England with you this spring."
"You're something of a prophet, Tommy," remarked Bernard, after an attentive pause.
"It's not my only accomplishment," rejoined Tommy modestly. "I'm several things besides that. I've got some brains too--just a few. Funny, isn't it? Ah, here is Stella! Come and break your fast, old girl! What's the latest?"
He went to meet her and drew her to the table. She smiled in her wan, rather abstracted way at Bernard whom she had seen before.
"Oh, don't get up!" she said. "I only came for a glimpse of you both. I had _tiffin_ in my room. Peter saw to that. Baby is very weak this morning, and I thought perhaps, Tommy dear, when, you go back you would see Major Ralston for me and ask him to come up soon." She sat down with an involuntary gesture of weariness.
"Have you slept at all?" Bernard asked her gently.
"Oh yes, thank you. I had three hours of undisturbed rest. Peter was splendid."
"You must have another _ayah,_" Bernard said. "It isn't fit for you to go on in this way."
"No." She spoke with the docility of exhaustion. "Peter is seeing to it. He always sees to everything. He knows a woman in the bazaar who would do--an elderly woman--I think he said she is the grandmother of Hafiz who sells trinkets. You know Hafiz, I expect? I don't like him, but he is supposed to be respectable, and Peter is prepared to vouch for the woman's respectability. Only she has been terribly disfigured by an accident, burnt I think he said, and she wears a veil. I told him that didn't matter. Baby is too ill to notice, and he evidently wants me to have her. He says she has been used to English children, and is a good nurse. That is what matters chiefly, so I have told him to engage her."
"I am very glad to hear it," Bernard said.
"Yes, I think it will be a relief. Those screaming fits are so terrible." Stella checked a sharp shudder. "Peter would not recommend her if he did not personally know her to be trustworthy," she added quietly.
"No. Peter's safe enough," said Tommy. He was bolting his meal with great expedition. "Is the kiddie worse, Stella?"
She looked at him with that in her tired eyes that went straight to his heart. "He is a little worse every day," she said.
Tommy swore into his cup and asked no further.
A few moments later he got up, gave her a brief kiss, and departed.
Stella sat on with her chin in her hand, every line of her expressing the weariness of the hopeless watcher. She looked crushed, as if a burden she could hardly support had been laid upon her.
Bernard looked at her once or twice without speaking. Finally he too rose, went round to her, knelt beside her, put his arm about her.
Her face quivered a little. "I've got--to keep strong," she said, in the tone of one who had often said the same thing in solitude.
"I know," he said. "And so you will. There's special strength given for such times as these. It won't fail you now."
She put her hand into his. "Thank you," she said. And then, with an effort, "Do you know, Bernard, I tried--I really tried--to pray in the night before I lay down. But--there was something so wicked about it--I simply couldn't."
"One can't always," he said.
"Oh, have you found that too?" she asked.
He smiled at the question. "Of course I have. So has everybody. We're only children, Stella. God knows that. He doesn't expect of us more than we can manage. Prayer is only one of the means we have of reaching Him. It can't be used always. There are some people who haven't time for prayer even, and yet they may be very near to God. In times of stress like yours one is often much nearer than one realizes. You will find that out quite suddenly one of these days, find that through all your desert journeying, He has been guiding you, protecting you, surrounding you with the most loving care. And--because the night was dark--you never knew it."
"The night is certainly very dark," Stella said with a tremulous smile. "If it weren't for you I don't think I could ever get through."
"Oh, don't say that!" he said. "If it weren't me it would be someone else--or possibly a closer vision of Himself. There is always something--something to which later you will look back and say, 'That was His lamp in the desert, showing the way.' Don't fret if you can't pray! I can pray for you. You just keep on being brave and patient! He understands."
Stella's fingers pressed upon his. "You are good to me, Bernard," she said. "I shall think of what you say--the next time I am alone in the night."
His arm held her sustainingly. "And if you're very desolate, child, come and call me!" he said. "I'm always at hand, always glad to serve you."
She smiled--a difficult smile. "I shall need you more--afterwards," she said under her breath. And then, as if words had suddenly become impossible to her, she leaned against him and kissed him.
He gathered her up close, as if she had been a weary child. "God bless you, my dear!" he said.


CHAPTER VI
THE FIRST GLIMMER

It was from the Colonel himself that Stella heard of Everard's retirement.
He walked back from the Mess that night with Tommy and asked to see her for a few minutes alone. He was always kinder to her in his wife's absence.
She was busy installing the new _ayah_ whom Peter with the air of a magician who has but to wave his wand had presented to her half an hour before. The woman was old and bent and closely veiled--so closely that Stella strongly suspected her disfigurement to be of a very ghastly nature, but her low voice and capable manner inspired her with instinctive confidence. She realized with relief from the very outset that her faithful Peter had not made a mistake. She was sure that the new-comer had nursed sickly English children before. She went to the Colonel, leaving the strange woman in charge of her baby and Peter hovering reassuringly in the background.
His first greeting of her had a touch of diffidence, but when he saw the weary suffering of her eyes this was swallowed up in pity. He took her hands and held them.
"My poor girl!" he said.
She smiled at him. Pity from an outsider did not penetrate to the depths of her. "Thank you for coming," she said.
He coughed and cleared his throat. "I hope it isn't an intrusion," he said.
"But of course not!" she made answer. "How could it be? Won't you sit down?"
He led her to a chair; but he did not sit down himself. He stood before her with something of the air of a man making a confession.
"Mrs. Monck," he said, "I think I ought to tell you that it was by my advice that your husband resigned his commission."
Her brows drew together a little as if at a momentary dart of pain. "Has he resigned it?" she said.
"Yes. Didn't he tell you?" He frowned. "Haven't you seen him? Don't you know where he is?"
She shook her head. "I can only think of my baby just now," she said.
He swung round abruptly upon his heel and paced the room. "Oh yes, of course. I know that. Ralston told me. I am very sorry for you, Mrs. Monck,--very, very sorry."
"Thank you," she said.
He continued to tramp to and fro. "You haven't much to thank me for. I had to think of the Regiment; but I considered the step very carefully before I took it. He had rendered invaluable service--especially over this Khanmulla trial. He would have been decorated for it if--" he pulled up with a jerk--"if things had been different. I know Sir Reginald Bassett thought very highly of him, was prepared to give him an appointment on his personal staff. And no doubt eventually he would have climbed to the top of the tree. But--this affair has destroyed him." He paused a moment, but he did not look at her. "He has had every chance," he said then. "I kept an open mind. I wouldn't condemn him unheard until--well until he refused flatly to speak on his own behalf. I went over to Khanmulla and talked to him--talked half the night. I couldn't move him. And if a man won't take the trouble to defend his own honour, it isn't worth--that!" He snapped his fingers with a bitter gesture; then abruptly wheeled and came back to her. "I didn't come here to distress you," he said, looking down at her again. "I know your cup is full already. And it's a thankless task to persuade any woman that her husband is unworthy of her, besides being an impertinence. But what I must say to you is this. There is nothing left to wait for, and it would be sheer madness to stay on any longer. The Rajah has been deeply incriminated and is in hiding. The Government will of course take over the direction of affairs, but there is certain--absolutely certain--to be a disturbance when Ermsted's murderer is executed. I hope an adequate force will soon be at our disposal to cope with it, but it has not yet been provided. Therefore I cannot possibly permit you to stay here any longer. As Monck's wife, it is more than likely that you might be made an object of vengeance. I can't risk it. You and the child must go. I will send an escort in the morning."
He stopped at last, partly for lack of breath, partly because from her unmoved expression he fancied that she was not taking in his warning words. She sat looking straight before her as one rapt in reverie. It was almost as though she had forgotten him, suffered some more absorbing matter to crowd him out of her thoughts.
"You do follow me?" he questioned at length