CHAPTER NINE.
AFTER LONG YEARS.
"Let's get the ponies, and jog over and look up Jermyn. Shall we,Campian?" said Upward, during breakfast a few mornings later.
"I'm on. But--who's Jermyn when he's at home?"
"He isn't at home. He's out here now," cut in Lily.
"Smart young party, Lil," said Campian, with an approving nod. "And whois he when he's out here now?"
"Why, Jermyn, of course."
"Thanks. That's precisely what I wanted to know. Thanks, fair Lilian.Thine information is as terse as it is precise."
"_I_ should say _Colonel_ Jermyn if I were you, Lily," expostulated thatyoung person's mother; whereat Hazel crowed exultantly, and Campianlaughed. The latter went on:
"As I was saying, Upward, before we were interrupted, who is Jermyn?"
"Oh, he's a Punjab cavalry man up here on furlough. He's had fever bad,and even Shalalai wasn't high enough for him, though he doesn't want togo home, so he rented my forest bungalow for the summer. It's abouteight miles in the Gushki direction. You haven't been that way yet."
"So? And what does Jermyn consist of?"
"Eh? Ah, I see. Himself and a niece."
"What sort of a niece?"
"Hideous," cut in Hazel.
"Really, I can't allow that sort of libel to pass, even for a joke,"said Mrs Upward. "She isn't hideous at all. Some people admire herimmensely."
"Pff!" ejaculated Lily, tip tilting her nose in withering scorn. "Tooblack."
"Mr Campian likes them that way," cackled Hazel. "At least, he usedto," added this imp, with a meaning look across the table at Nesta. "Iwas only humbugging. She isn't really hideous. We'll ride over too,eh, Lil?"
"No, you won't--not much," retorted Upward decisively. "You two are aprecious deal too fond of running wild as it is, and you can just stayat home for once. Besides, we don't want you at all. We may take onsome chikor on the way, or start after some from Jermyn's. Shall you beready in half an hour, Campian?"
The latter replied in the affirmative, and they rose from the table.While they were preparing to start, he observed Nesta standing aloneunder the trees.
"Well, Nessita, and of what art thou thinking?" he said, coming behindher unnoticed. She started.
"Of nothing. I never think. It's too much trouble."
"Phew! Don't take it so much to heart. They'll soon be back."
"What a tease you are," she retorted petulantly. "I hope they won't.If you only knew how sick I am of the pair of them."
"That so? I was going to say you'd have to make shift with me for thenext few days, but--There, it's a sin to tease her. What's the matter?You're not looking up to your usual brilliancy of form and colouring,little girl."
"Oh, I've got a most beastly headache. I'm going to try and go to sleepall day, if those two wretched children will let me."
"Poor little girl! Shall I persuade Upward to let them come with us?"
"No, no. It doesn't matter. You'd better go now, or you'll start MrUpward fussing."
"And cussing?"
"Yes, that too. I'm going in now. Good-bye."
"Nesta looks very much below par this morning, Upward," said Campian, asthey rode along.
"Does she? Finds it dull, perhaps, now, without those two jokers.She's never happy without a lot of them strung around her."
"_So_? These blue-eyed, fluffy headed girls usually are that way, Ihave observed. They are wonderfully taking, but--lacking in depth."
"Thought at one time she was rather stringing _yours_ on to hercollection of scalps, old chap," said Upward, with a sly chuckle.
"Because we went out chikor shooting together once or twice?" repliedCampian tranquilly. "Talk of the devil--there _are_ some chikor." Andthe next few minutes were spent in dismounting--a rapid fifty pacesthrough the sparse herbage--a whirr of wings--the triple crack of guns--and a brace and a half of birds retrieved by the attendant forest guard;while the remainder of the covey, having gained the mountain side, wascrawling up the rock slopes like spiders on a wall.
"See that hole, Campian?" said Upward, soon after they had resumed theirway. "That's the markhor cave. There's always a markhor there, thepeople say."
"Let's go and see if he's at home now, except that we've only got shotguns," replied Campian, looking up at the black fissure pointed out, andwhich cleft the rock face some distance overhead, seeming to start froma grassy ledge. It looked by no means an inaccessible sort of place.
"Bhallu Khan says he wouldn't be in now," said Upward, who had beentalking in Hindustani to the old Pathan. "He only sleeps there."
"So? Well, I don't believe in his markhor then, Upward. If the brutewas so regular in his habits as all that, he'd have been shot long ago."
"Very likely. But Bhallu Khan says the people are afraid of him. Theydon't believe he is a real markhor, but a spirit that takes the form ofone. He is guarding some buried treasure, and it's unlucky to go nearthe place."
"It wouldn't be unlucky if they found the treasure, by Jove! What doesit consist of?"
Upward spoke again to the old forester, whose answer, translated toCampian, caused the latter fairly to start in his saddle, his scepticismdispersed.
"He says it is supposed to be old sword hilts and things, encrusted withthe most priceless jewels. Hallo! You seem to believe in it, oldchap?"
"Not I. Only it reminded me of something else. But I suppose they havea yarn of the kind attached to pretty nearly every hole and corner ofthe land, eh?"
"Yes. I have heard of others; but, curiously enough, now I think of it,this jewelled sword hilt idea doesn't seem to come into them. It'sgenerally a case of tons of gold mohurs, and all that sort of thing."
"I suppose so," asserted Campian tranquilly. But his tranquillity wasall outward, for as they continued their way, his mind was very livelyindeed. Was there really something in the legend? Had he struck uponthe clue at last--not merely a clue, but the actual spot? How he wishedhe had learned Hindustani, so as to be able to communicate, at firsthand, with those who might be able to furnish other clues. All save thewild Baluchis of the more remote and nomad clans spoke that language,and it was of primary importance to obtain information of this kind atfirst hand, and unfiltered through a third party.
"Campian's very _chup_ to-day," thought Upward, peering furtively at hiscompanion, who, during the last couple of miles, had hardly spoken,except in monosyllables. "I wonder if the sly old dog is really smashedon Nesta, and is thinking it over--I wonder?"
He would have wondered more could he have read the thoughts of "the slyold dog" aforesaid, for they ran not upon love but upon lucre.
"There's the bungalow," said Upward presently, pointing out a whitelow-roofed dwelling high up on the hillside. "Not a bad little placefor a while, but most confoundedly out of the way."
The path wound around the spurs, ascending more abruptly, mostly in theshade of the junipers, here growing to greater size, and more thickly.Presently they came out upon a small plateau, and the bungalow.
"Hallo, Upward! Glad to see you. Don't get many visitors up here."
"How do, colonel? This is Mr Campian--stopping with me. Nearly gotshot by some Pathan budmashes, and then drowned by the _tangi_ comingdown, on the night he arrived. You may have heard about it."
"Not a word--not a word. Haven't seen a soul for weeks. Glad to meetyou, Mr Campian. Fine view from here, isn't there?"
"Splendid," assented Campian, who had been taking in both the speakerand the view. The former was of the pleasant, genial type of soldier--elderly, grizzled, upright, well-groomed. The latter--well, it wasfine--uncommonly so. From its eyrie-like position, the bungalowcommanded a vast sweep of mountain and valley. Embedded against abackground of juniper slope the front of the plateau looked out upon ascene, the leading idea conveyed by which was that of altitude andvastness. Opposite, a line of great mountains shot up in craggy headsto the sky; their slopes alte
rnating in slab-like cliffs and gloomychasms running up into lateral valleys. Juniper forest, more or lesssparse, straggled along the base; and but for the aridity of the allprevailing stone and the scattered vegetation, the view would have beenlovely. As it stood, it was only immense. Circling kites, utteringtheir plaintive whistle, floated in clouds against the blue of the sky,or, gracefully steering themselves with their long forked tails, soaredout over the valley.
"Fine air, too," went on Colonel Jermyn. "After the awful heat of someof those plains stations you can appreciate it, I can tell you. But Idaresay, you got a taste of that on your way up?"
"Rather. Coming through Sindh, for instance, if you leaned backsuddenly in the train against the back of the seat, it was like leaningagainst a lot of fizzling Vesuvian heads."
"Ah, prickly heat. We know what that is down below--don't we, Upward?"
But the reply was lost in the soft rustle of draperies, and a softervoice:
"How do you do, Mr Upward?" As the three rose, it needed not theformal introduction. The colonel's words seemed to sound from far awayin Campian's ears. "My niece--Miss Wymer."
The first utterance had been enough for Campian. There was no othersuch voice in the world. And as he stood there, exchanging the formalhand-clasp of ordinary every-day greeting with Vivien Wymer, smallwonder that his self-possession should be shaken to the core. For, fiveyears earlier, these two had parted--in anger and bitterness on the sideof one, a whole world of heart-consuming love on that of both. They hadparted, agreeing to be strangers thenceforward, and had been so, nor hadthey set eyes on each other since. Now, by the merest of chances, andtotally unprepared, they met again amid the craggy mountain ranges ofwild Baluchistan.
"We were talking about the prickly heat, Vivien," went on the colonel."Mr Campian says it was like leaning against burning match-heads comingup in the train--ha, ha! You look a trifle below par even now," turningto Campian. "Won't you have a `peg'? Upward, excuse me--what aforgetful ass I am. So seldom I see anyone up here I'm forgetting mymanners. After your long, hot ride, too!"
"Not feeling fit to-day. A new climate sometimes does knock me out atfirst," replied Campian mendaciously, he being both by constitution andpractice as hard as nails. He was savage with himself for losing hisself-possession, even for a moment. "No lack of that article on theother side, anyway," he thought bitterly.
Outwardly there was not. Vivien Wymer's manner in greeting him had beenso perfectly free and unconcerned that not one in ten thousand wouldhave dreamed she had ever set eyes on him before. Nor, as she sat theretalking to Upward, could the keenest ear have detected a trace of flurryin her soft-voiced, flowing tones; and what ear could be keener thanthat of the man who sat there, straining to catch every word--everytone--while endeavouring to avoid replying at random to the conversationof his host.
"That'll pick you up," said the latter, as the bearer appeared with atray containing very tall tumblers and a bottle and syphons. "Nothinglike a `peg' after a hot ride. We can't get ice up here, but I alwayshave the stuff kept in a cooler. Mix for yourself."
"You must come down to our camp for a day or two, Miss Wymer," Upwardwas saying. "You'll come, too, won't you, colonel? There are stillsome birds left. It's rotten shooting, but all there is here."
Thereupon the conversation turned on _shikar_ in general, and tiger inparticular, and Campian felt relieved, for now he could drop out of it.Five years ago it was that he and Vivien had parted--yes, exactly fiveyears--and now, as he sat watching her, it seemed as though but fivedays had passed over her, for all the change they had brought--outwardly, at any rate. All was the same--the poise of the head--eventhe arrangement of the rippling waves of soft dark hair had undergonebut slight alteration; the quick lifting of the eyelids, the glance,straight and full, of the heavily fringed eyes. Yet, if taken featureby feature, Vivien Wymer could not have been summed up as beautiful.Was it a certain grace of movement inseparable from a perfect symmetryof form--an irresistible, sensuous attractiveness side by side with arare refinement--that would have set her on the highest pinnacle, whileother women, beautiful as a dream, would have been passed by unnoticed?He could not say. He only knew that she had appealed to him as no otherwoman had ever done before or since; that the possession of her wouldfill every physical and mental want--we desire to emphasise the latterphase, in that it was a question of no wild whirlwind of infatuatedpassion. She had drawn out in him--as regarded herself, at any rate--all that was best; had even been the means of implanting within himqualities wholly beneficial, and which he would have repudiated allcapacity for entertaining. In her he had recognised his destinedcounterpart. He might live a thousand years and never again meet withsuch. He was no longer young. He had known varied and eventfulexperiences, including a sinister matrimonial one, mercifully forhimself, comparatively short. But Vivien Wymer had been the one love ofhis life, and the same held good of him as regarded herself, yet theymet again now as strangers. One thing he decided. They were to keep upthe _role_. Since she wished it--and evidently she did wish it--hewould offer no enlightenment.
"Is your friend keen on sport, Upward?" the colonel was saying. "Youought to take him to try for a markhor."
"Don't know that I care much for sport in that form," cut in Campian."It represents endless bother and clambering; all for the sake of oneshot, and that as likely as not a miss. The knowledge that it is goingto be your one and only chance is bound to make you shoot nervous. Now,I like letting off the gun a great deal, not once only."
"Yes, it means a lot of hard work. Well, you've come to the wrongcountry for sport."
"By the way, colonel," said Upward, "my head forester points out a caveon the way here, where they say there's always a markhor. It doesn'tseem difficult to get at I don't believe in it myself, because there's alegend attached." And thereupon he went into the whole story.
Vivien was listening with deepening interest.
"I should like to see that place," she said. "Anything to do with thelegends of the people and country is always interesting. Could we notarrange to go and explore it? You say it is easy to get at?"
"I think so," answered Upward. "We might make a picnic of it. Twofellows from Shalalai who joined camp with me are coming back to-morrowor the next day, and we might all go together. What do you say,colonel?"
"Oh, I don't mind. Getting rather old for clambering, though. Comealong in to tiffin; that's the second gong."
Throughout that repast, Vivien addressed most of her conversation toUpward. Campian, however, who had pulled himself together effectuallyby now, was observing her keenly. When she did have occasion to answersome remark of his, it was as though she were talking to a perfectstranger, beheld that morning for the first time. Very good. If thatwere the line she desired to keep to, not in him was it to encroach uponit. He had his share of pride, likewise of vindictiveness, and some ofthe aggrieved bitterness of their parting was upon him now. But heremembered also that the ornamental sex are consummate actors, and feltsavage with himself for having let down his own guard. And thisimpassiveness he kept up throughout the ordeal of again saying good-bye.
"Well, and what did you think of Colonel Jermyn, Mr Campian?" queriedMrs Upward, when they were seated at dinner that evening. The two menhad returned late, having fallen in with more chikor on the way, and shehad had no opportunity of catechising him before.
"He seems a pleasant sort of man," returned Campian. "There was somescheme of cutting them into a kind of exploration picnic, wasn't there,Upward?" he went on, with the idea of diverting an inevitablecross-examination.
"_Them_! You saw the niece, then?" rapped out Hazel. "What did youthink of her?"
"Think? Why, that you are a shocking little libellist, Hazel,remembering your pronouncement."
"It wasn't me who said she was too black; it was Lily."
"_He's_ mashed too," crowed that young person, grinning from ear to ear.
"Why `too,' L
ilian? Is the name of those in that hapless plightlegion?"
"Rather. You haven't a ghost of a show. Down at Baghnagar she hadthree regiments at her feet. But she wouldn't have anything to say toany of them."
"That looks as if one _had_ a ghost of a show, Lil," replied Campian,serenely bantering. In reality, he had two objects to serve--one tocover the situation from all eyes, the other, haply to extract from thechatter of this hapless child anything that might throw light onVivien's life since they parted.
"Pff! not you," came the reply, short and sharp. "There was _one_--once. She chucked him. No show for anybody now."
"What a little scandalmonger it is," said Campian, going off into ashout of laughter. He had to do it, if only to relieve his feelings.The information thus tersely rapped out by Lily, and which drew downupon the head of that young person a mild maternal rebuke forslanginess, had sent his mind up at the rebound. "Where did she gethold of that for a yarn, Mrs Upward?"
"Goodness knows. Things leak out. Even children like that get hold ofthem in this country;" whereupon Lily sniffed scornfully, and Hazelfired off a derisive cackle. "Do you think her good looking, MrCampian?"
"Decidedly; and thoroughbred at every point." The humour of thesituation came home to the speaker. Here he was, called upon to give averdict offhand as to the one woman who for years had filled all histhoughts, who still--before that day to wit--had occupied a largeportion of them, and he did so as serenely and unconcernedly as thoughhe had never beheld her before that day. "Why did she chuck--the otherfellow?" he went on, moved by an irresistible impulse to keep them tothe subject.
"He turned out a rip, I believe," struck in Upward. "Lifted his elbowstoo much, most likely. A lot of fellows out here do."
"You've got it all wrong, Ernest," said his wife. "You really shouldn'tspread such stories. It was for nothing of the sort, but for familyreasons, I believe; and the man was all right. And it wasn't out hereeither."
"Oh, well, I don't know anything about it, and I'll be hanged if Icare," laughed Upward. "I asked them to come down here for a few dayssoon, and they said they would. Then you can get it out of heryourself."