CHAPTER XIII

As Rosamond read, that page of her womanhood which she had hitherto so deliberately kept blank was printed as with a tale of fire. Between those short winter hours, between the leaping of the wood flames and the fall of the cold chill twilight, all that she had cheated her heart of—the tears, the passion, the grief—came upon her like a storm. And fate worked its will.

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    It's no use mincing matters (wrote Harry English); we are besieged, and the worst of it is, our work's not done. For Cartwright and his good fellows have either fallen into the wily old chief's hands, or are as hotly pressed as we are ourselves. We have been able to get no tidings from him so far. It's rather a joke, isn't it—though a grim one? We started so cocksure of setting him free, and here we are in a trap ourselves. Well, I'm going to try and get this letter through to you, as the Major—we call him the Colonel now—is trying to run another despatch. It will probably be the last for some time, so don't be alarmed, love, if you are long without news. The old fort is sturdy and well placed, and we shan't have even the glory of danger. God keep you.

The letter—in its incredibly soiled and creased cover—was docketed with soldierly neatness: "Brought back by messenger unable to pass."

The rest of the papers in the case were all loose sheets. The earlier of these were carefully dated. But presently this methodic precision was dropped. Most of them seemed to be merely disconnected jottings, at times scarcely more than a phrase or two—as it were the fixing of a passing thought—others, again, a sort of outpouring that covered whole pages: thus, nearly to the end. But the last two sheets were once more inscribed with something of the formality of a document.

    I shall write you a sort of journal, and, please God (had begun Harry English), we shall read it together some day. Our poor dusky Mercury came back to us quicker than he left, with a bullet in him. I am troubled at the thought of your suspense, but, from the last letter I got through, you will gather that this state of affairs was not unexpected: the old chief has been too much for us for the moment. But they are warned at headquarters and we may expect relief in our turn any day. We must not be impatient, though, as they'll have a stiff job getting across the snows. Meanwhile we are all for glory here, and are determined to out-guile or out-fight the Khan before anything so common and everyday as a relief takes place. We're a first-class set of fellows, doctor and all complete; the Major's a brick. Our own boys are rocks (as usual), and Leicester has forty Goorkhas that I'd back—well, against anything! Of course there are these Afridis we can't trust; but they know who's master here. And we've got the old flag, Rosamond—floating grandly like a living thing. We keep up the good old ceremony when running it up at dawn. And you should see the grins flash out on those black faces, when Vane gives his last vicious little twist to the cord in the cleat to make fast for the day! By the way, this business is doing Vane a lot of good. He was a soft pink pulp of a boy, but the little fellow's got pluck, and it's coming out now.

    Talking of the flag—last night I was up on the roof, counting the enemy's fires; everything was very still, and I heard the loose line beating fretfully against the staff in the wind: it brought me back—back! Do you remember Fort Monckton, at Stokes Bay, Rosamond, and the smell of the gorse that day of days to me? The night after, when I could not sleep, I walked the bastion at Monckton and heard the cords of the flagstaff flap. I was to meet you again in the morning—Oh, Rosamond!

*      *      *      *      *

    Great news! Cartwright has fought his way to us with his little band. As fine a bit of mountain fighting as has ever been done. We made a sortie to his aid, and only lost four men and a sergeant. Bethune has a piece out of his shoulder, but no bones broken, and Whiteley thinks he'll be up again in a day or two. It's like having my right hand in a sling to have the old chap laid up.

    We've got him tight in bed now; and all the fun he is allowed is to watch the bullets that come in through the window and break on the opposite wall. He's in the safe angle, but it's rather a job for us dodging in and out to get at him.

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    The poor Major's gone. We feel orphaned. His stout old body seemed to keep the soul of us all together. It was a bullet through the eye. He never even knew it. I was beside him, Rosamond—the laugh was still on his lips. He fell slowly, like a tower. Dear old fat jolly fellow! I won't grudge him his quick passage. Vane has done nothing but blubber. We buried him in the inner courtyard: they sniped from the crags like blazes, but we did it, and no casualties. Tomorrow ends the first week of the siege proper. We have ten men sick, four wounded, and have lost our major, and all the responsibility devolves upon me now.

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    Rosamond, you never loved me. I have blinded myself to it. But here, alone in this fort, with death in every breath I draw, many things have become clear to me. This is the truth: you never loved me, but you are still a child. I could have had such patience, oh, my God!—but now I may have no time left for patience.

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    Rosamond, my rose, I took you before your hour—but I was as one who rides past and sees his flower bloom, and knows that he must pluck it in all haste, to wear on his heart, or leave it for another. I never kissed you but that you turned your cheek. Oh, I could have taken your lips had I wanted to, and I knew it. Now it breaks upon me like a wave, that if God only gave me ten minutes more with you, I could teach you how to love. But no, what is not given is not good to take: I would not rob you of your own gracious gift. Oh, my darling, you wept when I left you, the tears rained down your cheeks into my lips. I kissed your sweet eyes and drank the salt of them, and in that hour of grief you left me your lips at last—but they were open lips, like a child's; what could they give me—who wanted your woman's soul?

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The words seemed to spring out of the page; to strike her as she read. She had not loved him. She herself had not known it, but it was true and he had known it. All the blood in her body seemed to rush back to her heart; she felt her cheeks grow cold and stiff in a sudden horror of the discovery. Then, with the reaction, the full tide seemed to turn upon itself and rush tingling through her frame. With a burning face she bent over the lines and read them avidly again—and again. How he had loved her! Ah, she felt what love meant, now! She understood! She was no longer the rigid, self-centered schoolgirl, looking forth on the narrow boundaries of her own ethics and deeming them the limits of life. She was a woman, a woman with a heart for him, for the man who had selected her; a woman with a passion leaping to his own. And he ... he was dead! No, no; he was not dead, he must not be dead! If she only knew how to reach him.... "It is we who make our dead dead." He must be somewhere. By that very craving of her whole being for him he must exist to answer it. And wheresoever he was, the cry of her soul must surely reach him and call him back to her.

Outside, in the winter sunshine, a robin began to pipe. The exultant beating of her heart slowed down; the eddy that had seized her fell away from her. Her spirit, that had seemed about to be caught up into some realm of ecstasy where pain was inextricably blent with joy, sank back into the material bondage. She heaved a great sigh and languidly took up the next sheet.

After his love cry, Harry English, too, had relapsed into the everyday cares; this entry was dated March 23.

    My first act as C.O. here has been to reduce the rations one third. The dear old Major could not bring himself to do it. "We'll have as good a time, boys, as can be expected in the circumstances, and then, by George, if they don't come to get us loose we'll make a rush for it. A man can die but once; but we won't die by inches, if I know it." It was a jolly soldier's doctrine in its way, and had a dash of fatalism in it that suited our lads here down to the ground. But now that I have the management of the business, I cannot see my duty in that light. This fort is but a little peg in England's machinery—but lose a peg and who can tell what may happen to the machine! So your husband holds the fort, Rosamond, and will hold it to the last minute of the last hour, to the last pinch of pea-flour and the last bag of gunpowder to blow the last of us up! And to-day we begin to draw in our belts.

*      *      *      *      *

    Vane's got a touch of fever. He's never really looked up since the Major went. Poor little chap, he'll see plenty more. It has rained three nights, and the men are drenched. Our sick list is increasing. Old Bethune's getting quite fit again, however, and that's a comfort to me. Queer chap, he lies on his back and reads an odd volume of Browning and hasn't a word to throw to a dog; and, with all his poetry, if I know him, not an aspiration or a thought except his men and his work.

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    April 1*st*.—The beginning of a new military year is not likely to add much to our store of anything, except appetite. Old Yufzul, the Khan, has been parleying with us, day after day, for the last week. He rigs up his blessed white rag, and up goes ours, and then comes the messenger—generally an aged woman, with one of the old devil's interminable letters. These never vary. He's ready to make the most favourable terms with us. First condition: surrender of the fort.... I send him back the same document with a polite note affixed—we keep all the decorum of civilised warfare! My conditions are simple: first, he is to lay down his arms unconditionally; then he is to send us in so many scores of sheep, so many measures of corn, and then I will see what I can do about making his peace with the Government of India. I end up with a delicate warning as to the flight of time. Down comes his rag, down comes ours, and the bullets begin to patter again!

    The doctor has a bad opinion of Vane. He says he has no stamina. I never saw any one waste so quickly. Poor little chap, and I who used to think him too pink and too plump! Leicester, the fellow, you know, we found in the fort here with his forty Goorkhas, goes and nurses him like a woman, in the intervals of business. I went to see him to-day—Vane, I mean. He seemed very low, but quite conscious. I thought I worried him, so did not stop long. Leicester tells me he's deadly ashamed of himself for being ill, and thinks I must despise him. Good Lord!

    Bethune's up.

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    April 3*rd*.—My sleep has gone. That's a weak thing for a soldier to have to confess. But I'm tough. I've got into the way of writing like this in the quiet hours. Not that night is always our quiet time, far from it. A black night is our worst enemy. We never know when the creatures will try and rush the fort. Last night we had a lively two hours of it, but I think they've had a lesson, and Rajab, my havildar, has suggested a plan for lighting the walls with pitch on little platforms hung out of the loopholes. If it works, we shan't be taken by surprise again.

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    We buried poor little Vane this morning. Whiteley came to me at eight o'clock last night and said he did not think he'd last out another twelve hours. I went to see him about eleven o'clock, but was no sooner in the room when they called the alarm from the tower—and we had a hot time of it. Our men were splendid, and I am thankful to say our casualties are comparatively few. Leicester made a sally with his Goorkhas, splendidly in the nick, and that settled the day, or rather the night, for us. There's been a good deal of wailing across the water this morning, at which you should see those little devils smile. In fact, the whole garrison would be in high spirits if it were not for Vane. Last night every one, even the orderly in charge, ran away from him in the scrimmage. I thought of this, I knew it would be so, but, of course, we can't waste time on the dying at such a time. The moment the pressure was over I clambered up to his room. The dawn was just breaking; there he was, lying on the boards under the window. Poor little beggar! flat on his back, in his pyjamas, his carbine by his side. He'd been potting at them out of his window, he was not gone, though. He opened his eyes and grinned at me.

    "I'm done for, sir," he said. "But it's not the fever. I'm hit, thank God!"

    I lifted him up. Poor little chappy, he had a scratch along his ribs, but it would not have killed a mouse! "You'll tell them," he said, "it was the wound, not the fever."

    "I'll have you down: 'Killed in action,'" said I, loud into his ear. And he heard, though he was slipping away very fast. He grinned at me again, and then died without a sigh, his head on my breast, like a child.

    This is the fifth week of siege.

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    I am haunted by your presence. We all dream a great deal when we sleep, these times. That's part of the game when one is half-starved. The fellows amuse themselves by telling their dreams at breakfast. It's almost like: "What's the news?" when one meets at the club.

    Bethune makes every one laugh: he's so deadly matter-of-fact, "I dreamed I was sitting down to a Porterhouse steak!" You should hear the boys yell! Leicester, now, yarns away at a magnificent rate. Of course it's half invention; he's a real Irishman; but he keeps us alive. It's as good as a mutton chop to us to see him come dancing into mess—such a mess!—twanging his banjo and singing some absurd lilt of his own making.

    "You see, boys," he says, with a piece of horse on his fork; "to a fellow brought up on 'potatoes and point,' this is positively gorgeous!"

    But I don't tell my dreams, Rosamond. They are yours and mine.

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    Once you looked at me with fear in your eyes. It was on board ship. I think if I had ever seen that shadow in your beautiful eyes again, I should have had it in me to throw myself into the sea. Oh! what could you fear in me, Rosamond?

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    It has been snowing again on the heights. I pity those who try to conquer the snow. You take it to your arms and try to warm it, and it goes from you in tears. Rosamond, you have been like the snow to me. How could I have ever aspired to you?—white child!

    I think I am wandering—you are the rose-flower to me. My white rose—no! my red red rose—Rose of the World!

*      *      *      *      *

    If they are coming over the snows to relieve us, it will go hard with them. Were it only not to disappoint the brave fellows, I'll hold on; but we are pulling the belt pretty tight. The worst of it is, I feel so terribly alive; I'll take as much killing as a wild cat. I have so much to live for: I have to come back to you! I can make such a fight for it yet. Rosamond, if I have to die, I'll die hard. Now Bethune will be like an old dog fox; he'll sit on his tail and show his teeth and let them have their will at the end without a sound—but I'll fight!

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    I dream, I dream. Rosamond, you came to me last night. First I saw the grey gnarled boughs of the old orchard trees at home grow, as it were, out of the darkness, naked as in the winter time. They broke into lovely leaf and blossom even as I looked ... and then, loveliest flower of all, flowered your face among the rosy wreaths! You had a lace thing over your head, tied under the chin, and you were smiling and your cheeks were young and soft, your face was young and beautiful, but as I came close to you I saw that your hair—your golden hair—was white. I looked into your eyes, deep, deep, and they were wells of love. There was no fear of me in them, Rosamond, only love. And then we drew nearer and nearer to each other. And your lips met mine. Your lips—Rose of the World!

    It was a dream of inexpressible sweetness to me and inexpressible comfort. When I woke up I had a perfume as of red roses in my mouth. I have riddled it all out for myself. I take it to mean that we shall, in spite of everything, meet again, and that I shall love you till you are old, and your hair is white, and that to me, because of our love, you will always be lovely in youth.

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    The want of you comes over me like fire, and I feel the marrow fail me in my bones.

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    Perhaps it is because you are the only woman I ever knew, that I love you so madly. Was it the influence of my dear old mother's high and simple theory of life, or was it by reason of my own energetic ambition of work and utility in this world, or is it merely some innate fastidiousness? ... However it may be, I have never played with love. I never kissed a woman in love before I kissed you. Ah no, love, it was not for any of those reasons—it was because I was keeping myself for you! And now this single passion of my life is devouring me. I dreamed you lay on my heart last night.

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Rosamond raised her eyes, to look unseeingly at the plaster walls before her. The ignorant thing that had been Rosamond English, that once had had such treasure given her, and knew it not; she had but placed her hand in his as a lost child places her hand in that of the first kind stranger who will lead her out of the desolate wood. Hers had been a privilege so rare that, to the eyes of the world, it seems to be a thing impossible—a man's virgin love. Too often had Lady Gerardine seen a meaning smile, under a white moustache, on lips that recalled complacently "the little indiscretions of my youth"; too much had she seen herself, unwillingly, of the lives of the young men about her in the Residency not to realise this now. But then—Harry had been right—she had feared him, feared this strong and chaste passion, feared these virgin ardours; feared the man who had brought her his whole heart, whose eyes had never even looked on sin.

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There was a great silence about her. The fire was dead; the day was closing in; the robin had flown away. Extinct hearth, bleak falling twilight, empty room, silence itself seemed to cry to her with one great voice: "Too late ... too late!"

And the gloom and the desolation of the deserted old house, on the waste English downs, were fit accompaniments to the slow agony in that fort, clinging on the bare flank of Himalayan crags, far away, under the eternal snows; agony over now and world-forgotten, but re-enacted for her alone, who had refused herself at the right hour to her share in it.