Read The Broken Road Page 35


  CHAPTER XXXV

  A LETTER FROM VIOLET

  Within a week the Khan was back in his Palace, the smoke rose once moreabove the roof-tops of Kohara, and a smiling shikari presented himselfbefore Poulteney Sahib in the grounds of the Residency.

  "It was a good fight, Sahib," he declared, grinning from ear to ear atthe recollection of the battles. "A very good fight. We nearly won. I wasin the bazaar all that day. Yes, it was a near thing. We made a mistakeabout those cliffs, we did not think they could be climbed. It was a goodfight, but it is over. Now when will your Excellency go shooting? I haveheard of some markhor on the hill."

  Poulteney Sahib stared, speechless with indignation. Then he burstout laughing:

  "You old rascal! You dare to come here and ask me to take you out when Igo shooting, and only a week ago you were fighting against us."

  "But the fight is all over, Excellency," the Shikari explained. "Now allis as it was and we will go out after the markhor." The idea that anyill-feeling could remain after so good a fight was one quite beyond theshikari's conception. "Besides," he said, "it was I who threw the gravelat your Excellency's windows."

  "Why, that's true," said Poulteney, and a window was thrown up behindhim. Ralston's head appeared at the window.

  "You had better take him," the Chief Commissioner said. "Go out with himfor a couple of days," and when the shikari had retired, he explained thereason of his advice.

  "That fellow will talk to you, and you might find out which way ShereAli went. He wasn't among the dead, so far as we can discover, and Ithink he has been headed off from Afghanistan. But it is important thatwe should know. So long as he is free, there will always bepossibilities of trouble."

  In every direction, indeed, inquiries were being made. But for the momentShere Ali had got clear away. Meanwhile the Khan waited anxiously in thePalace to know what was going to happen to him; and he waited in someanxiety. It fell to Ralston to inform him in durbar in the presence ofhis nobles and the chief officers of the British force that theGovernment of India had determined to grant him a pension and a residencerent-free at Jellundur.

  "The Government of India will rule Chiltistan," said Ralston. "The wordhas been spoken."

  He went out from the Palace and down the hill towards the place where theBritish forces were encamped just outside the city. When he came to thetents, he asked for Mr. Linforth, and was conducted through the lines. Hefound Linforth sitting alone within his tent on his camp chair, and knewfrom his attitude that some evil thing had befallen him. Linforth roseand offered Ralston his chair, and as he did so a letter fluttered fromhis lap to the ground. There were two sheets, and Linforth stoopedquickly and picked them up.

  "Don't move," said Ralston. "This will do for me," and he sat down uponthe edge of the camp bed. Linforth sat down again on his chair and, asthough he were almost unaware of Ralston's presence, he smoothed out uponhis knee the sheets of the letter. Ralston could not but observe thatthey were crumpled and creased, as though they had been clenched andtwisted in Linforth's hand. Then Linforth raised his head, and suddenlythrust the letter into his pocket.

  "I beg your pardon," he said, and he spoke in a spiritless voice. "Thepost has just come in. I received a letter which--interested me. Is thereanything I can do?"

  "Yes," said Ralston. "We have sure news at last. Shere Ali has fled tothe north. The opportunity you asked for at Peshawur has come."

  Linforth was silent for a little while. Then he said slowly:

  "I see. I am to go in pursuit?"

  "Yes!"

  It seemed that Linforth's animosity against Shere Ali had died out.Ralston watched him keenly from the bed. Something had blunted the edgeof the tool just when the time had come to use it. He threw an extraearnestness into his voice.

  "You have got to do more than go in pursuit of him. You have got to findhim. You have got to bring him back as your prisoner."

  Linforth nodded his head.

  "He has gone north, you say?"

  "Yes. Somewhere in Central Asia you will find him," and as Linforthlooked up startled, Ralston continued calmly, "Yes, it's a large order, Iknow, but it's not quite so large as it looks. The trade-routes, the onlypossible roads, are not so very many. No man can keep his comings andgoings secret for very long in that country. You will soon get wind ofhim, and when you do you must never let him shake you off."

  "Very well," said Linforth, listlessly. "When do I start?"

  Ralston plunged into the details of the expedition and told him thenumber of men he was to take with him.

  "You had better go first into Chinese Turkestan," he said. "There are anumber of Hindu merchants settled there--we will give you letters tothem. Some of them will be able to put you on the track of Shere Ali. Youwill have to round him up into a corner, I expect. And whatever you do,head him off Russian territory. For we want him. We want him brought backinto Kohara. It will have a great effect on this country. It will showthem that the Sirkar can even pick a man out of the bazaars of CentralAsia if he is rash enough to stand up against it in revolt."

  "That will be rather humiliating for Shere Ali," said Linforth, after ashort pause; and Ralston sat up on the bed. What in the world, hewondered, could Linforth have read in his letter, so to change him? Hewas actually sympathising with Shere Ali--he who had been hottest inhis anger.

  "Shere Ali should have thought of that before," Ralston said sharply,and he rose to his feet. "I rely upon you, Linforth. It may take you ayear. It may take you only a few months. But I rely upon you to bringShere Ali back. And when you do," he added, with a smile, "there's theroad waiting for you."

  But for once even that promise failed to stir Dick Linforth intoenthusiasm.

  "I will do my best," he said quietly; and with that Ralston left him.

  Linforth sat down in his chair and once more took out the crumpledletter. He had walked with the Gods of late, like one immune from earthlytroubles. But his bad hour had been awaiting him. The letter was signedViolet. He read it through again, and this was what he read:

  "This is the most difficult letter I have ever written. For I don't feelthat I can make you understand at all just how things are. But somehow orother I do feel that this is going to hurt you frightfully, and, oh,Dick, do forgive me. But if it will console or help at all, know this,"and the words were underlined--as indeed were many words in VioletOliver's letters--"that I never was good enough for you and you are wellrid of me. I told you what I was, didn't I, Dick?--a foolish lover ofbeautiful things. I tried to tell you the whole truth that last eveningin the garden at Peshawur, but you wouldn't let me, Dick. And I must tellyou now. I never sent the pearl necklace back, Dick, although I told youthat I did. I meant to send it back the night when I parted from thePrince. I packed it up and put it ready. But--oh, Dick, how can I tellyou?--I had had an imitation one made just like it for safety, and in thenight I got up and changed them. I couldn't part with it--I sent back thefalse one. Now you know me, Dick! But even now perhaps you don't. Youremember the night in Peshawur, the terrible night? Mr. Ralston wonderedwhy, after complaining that my window was unbolted, I unbolted it myself.Let me tell you, Dick! Mr. Ralston said that 'theft' was the explanation.Well, after I tried to tell you in the garden and you would not listen, Ithought of what he had said. I thought it would be such an easy way outof it, if the thief should come in when I was asleep and steal thenecklace and go away again before I woke up. I don't know how I broughtmyself to do it. It was you, Dick! I had just left you, I was full ofthoughts of you. So I slipped back the bolt myself. But you see, Dick,what I am. Although I wanted to send that necklace back, I couldn't, I_simply couldn't_, and it's the same with other things. I would be very,very glad to know that I could be happy with you, dear, and live yourlife. But I know that I couldn't, that it wouldn't last, that I should belonging for other things, foolish things and vanities. Again, Dick, youare well rid of a silly vain woman, and I wish you all happiness in thatriddance. I never would have made you a good wife.
Nor will I make anyman a good wife. I have not the sense of a dog. I know it, too! That'sthe sad part of it all, Dick. Forgive me, and thanks, a thousand thanks,for the honour you ever did me in wanting me at all." Then followed--itseemed to Linforth--a cry. "Won't you forgive me, dear, dear Dick!" andafter these words her name, "Violet."

  But even so the letter was not ended. A postscript was added:

  "I shall always think of the little dreams we had together of our future,and regret that I couldn't know them. That will always be in my mind.Remember that! Perhaps some day we will meet. Oh, Dick, good-bye!"

  Dick sat with that letter before his eyes for a long while. Violet hadtold him that he could be hard, but he was not hard to her. He could readbetween the lines, he understood the struggle which she had had withherself, he recognised the suffering which the letter had caused her. Hewas touched to pity, to a greater humanity. He had shown it in hisforecasts of the humiliation which would befall Shere Ali when he wasbrought back a prisoner to Kohara. Linforth, in a word, had shed what wasleft of his boyhood. He had come to recognise that life was never allblack and all white. He tore up the letter into tiny fragments. Itrequired no answer.

  "Everything is just wrong," he said to himself, gently, as he thoughtover Shere Ali, Violet, himself. "Everything is just not what it mighthave been."

  And a few days later he started northwards for Turkestan.

  CHAPTER XXXVI

  "THE LITTLE LESS--"

  Three years passed before Linforth returned on leave to England. Helanded at Marseilles towards the end of September, travelled to his home,and a fortnight later came up from Sussex for a few days to London. Itwas the beginning of the autumn season. People were returning to town.Theatres were re-opening with new plays; and a fellow-officer, who had acouple of stalls for the first production of a comedy about which publiccuriosity was whetted, meeting Linforth in the hall of his club,suggested that they should go together.

  "I shall be glad," said Linforth. "I always go to the play with thekeenest of pleasure. The tuning-up of the orchestra and the rising of thecurtain are events to me. And, to be honest, I have never been to a firstnight before. Let us do the thing handsomely and dine together before wego. It will be my last excitement in London for another three or fouryears, I expect."

  The two young men dined together accordingly at one of the greatrestaurants. Linforth, fresh from the deep valleys of Chiltistan, waselated by the lights, the neighbourhood of people delicately dressed, andthe subdued throb of music from muted violins.

  "I am the little boy at the bright shop window," he said with a laugh,while his eyes wandered round the room. "I look in through the glass fromthe pavement outside, and--"

  His voice halted and stopped; and when he resumed he spoke without hisformer gaiety. Indeed, the change of note was more perceptible than thebrief pause. His friend conjectured that the words which Linforth nowused were not those which he had intended to speak a moment ago.

  "--and," he said slowly, "I wonder what sort of fairyland it is actuallyto live and breathe in?"

  While he spoke, his eyes were seeking an answer to his question, andseeking it in one particular quarter. A few tables away, and behindLinforth's friend and a little to his right, sat Violet Oliver. She waswith a party of six or eight people, of whom Linforth took no note. Hehad eyes only for her. Bitterness had long since ceased to colour histhoughts of Violet Oliver. And though he had not forgotten, there was nolonger any living pain in his memories. So much had intervened since hehad walked with her in the rose-garden at Peshawur--so many newexperiences, so much compulsion of hard endeavour. When his recollectionswent back to the rose-garden at Peshawur, as at rare times they would, hewas only conscious at the worst that his life was rather dull when testedby the high aspirations of his youth. There was less music in it than hehad thought to hear. Instead of swinging in a soldier's march to thesound of drums and bugles down the road, it walked sedately. To use hisown phrase, everything was--_just not_. There was no more in it thanthat. And indeed at the first it was almost an effort for him to realisethat between him and this woman whom he now actually saw, after threeyears, there had once existed a bond of passion. But, as he continued tolook, the memories took substance, and he began to wonder whether in herfairyland it was "just not," too. She had what she had wanted--that wasclear. A collar of pearls, fastened with a diamond bow, encircled herthroat. A great diamond flashed upon her bosom. Was she satisfied? Did nomemory of the short week during which she had longed to tread the road offire and stones, the road of high endeavour, trouble her content?

  Linforth was curious. She was not paying much heed to the talk about thetable. She took no part in it, but sat with her head a little raised, hereyes dreamily fixed upon nothing in particular. But Linforth rememberedwith a smile that there was no inference to be drawn from that notunusual attitude of hers. It did not follow that she was bored or filledwith discontent. She might simply be oblivious. A remark made about herby some forgotten person who had asked a question and received no answercame back to Linforth and called a smile to his face. "You might imaginethat Violet Oliver is thinking of the angels. She is probably consideringwhether she should run upstairs and powder her nose."

  Linforth began to look for other signs; and it seemed to him that theworld had gone well with her. She had a kind of settled look, almost asleekness, as though anxiety never came near to her pillow. She hadmarried, surely, and married well. The jewels she wore were evidence, andLinforth began to speculate which of the party was her husband. They wereyoung people who were gathered at the table. In her liking for youngpeople about her she had not changed. Of the men no one was noticeable,but Violet Oliver, as he remembered, would hardly have chosen anoticeable man. She would have chosen someone with great wealth and noambitions, one who was young enough to ask nothing more from the worldthan Violet Oliver, who would not, in a word, trouble her with a career.She might have chosen anyone of her companions. And then her eyestravelled round the room and met his.

  For a moment she gazed at him, not seeing him at all. In a moment or twoconsciousness came to her. Her brows went up in astonishment. Then shesmiled and waved her hand to him across the room--gaily, without a traceof embarrassment, without even the colour rising to her cheeks. Thusmight one greet a casual friend of yesterday. Linforth bethought him,with a sudden sting of bitterness which surprised him by its sharpness,of the postscript in the last of the few letters she had written to him.That letter was still vivid enough in his memories for him to be able tosee the pages, to recognise the writing, and read the sentences.

  "I shall always think of the little dreams we had together of our future,and regret that I couldn't know them. That will always be in my mind.Remember that!"

  How much of that postscript remained true, he wondered, after these threeyears. Very little, it seemed. Linforth fell to speculating, with anincreasing interest, as to which of the men at her table she had matedwith. Was it the tall youth with the commonplace good looks opposite toher? Linforth detected now a certain flashiness in his well groomingwhich he had not noticed before. Or was it the fat insignificant youngman three seats away from her?

  A rather gross young person, Linforth thought him--the offspring of someprovincial tradesman who had retired with a fortune and made a gentlemanof his son.

  "Well, no doubt he has the dibs," Linforth found himself saying with anunexpected irritation, as he contemplated the possible husband. And hisfriend broke in upon his thoughts.

  "If you are going to eat any dinner, Linforth, it might be as well tobegin; we shall have to go very shortly."

  Linforth fell to accordingly. His appetite was not impaired, he was happyto notice, but, on the whole, he wished he had not seen Violet Oliver.This was his last night in London. She might so easily have cometo-morrow instead, when he would already have departed from the town. Itwas a pity.

  He did not look towards her table any more, but the moment her party rosehe was nevertheless aware of its movement. He w
as conscious that shepassed through the restaurant towards the lobby at no great distance fromhimself. He was aware, though he did not raise his head, that she waslooking at him.

  Five minutes afterwards the waiter brought to him a folded piece ofpaper. He opened it and read:

  "Dick, won't you speak to me at all? I am waiting.--VIOLET."

  Linforth looked up at his friend.

  "There is someone I must go and speak to," he said. "I won't befive minutes."

  He rose from the table and walked out of the restaurant. His heart wasbeating rather fast, but it was surely curiosity which produced thateffect. Curiosity to know whether with her things were--just not, too. Hepassed across the hall and up the steps. On the top of the steps she waswaiting for him. She had her cloak upon her shoulders, and in thebackground the gross young man waited for her without interposing--thevery image of a docile husband.

  "Dick," she said quickly, as she held out her hand to him, "I did so wantto talk to you. I have to rush off to a theatre. So I sent in for you.Why wouldn't you speak to me?"

  That he should have any reason to avoid her she seemed calmly andcompletely unconscious. And so unembarrassed was her manner that evenwith her voice in his ears and her face before him, delicate and prettyas of old, Dick almost believed that never had he spoken of love to her,and never had she answered him.

  "You are married?" he asked.

  Violet nodded her head. She did not, however, introduce her husband. Shetook no notice of him whatever. She did not mention her new name.

  "And you?" she asked.

  Linforth laughed rather harshly.

  "No."

  Perhaps the harshness of the laugh troubled her. Her forehead puckered.She dropped her eyes from his face.

  "But you will," she said in a low voice.

  Linforth did not answer, and in a moment or two she raised her headagain. The trouble had gone from her face. She smiled brightly.

  "And the Road?" she asked. She had just remembered it. She had almost anair of triumph in remembering it. All these old memories were so dim. Butat the awkward difficult moment, by an inspiration she had remembered thegreat long-cherished aim of Dick Linforth's life. The Road! Dick wonderedwhether she remembered too that there had been a time when for a few daysshe had thought to have a share herself in the making of that road whichwas to leave India safe.

  "It goes on," he said quietly. "It has passed Kohara. It has passed thefort where Luffe died. But I beg your pardon. Luffe belongs to the past,too, very much to the past--more even than I do."

  Violet paid no heed to the sarcasm. She had not heard it. She wasthinking of something else. It seemed that she had something to say, butfound the utterance difficult. Once or twice she looked up at DickLinforth and looked down again and played with the fringe of her cloak.In the background the docile husband moved restlessly.

  "There's a question I should like to ask," she said quickly, andthen stopped.

  Linforth helped her out.

  "Perhaps I can guess the question."

  "It's about--" she began, and Linforth nodded his head.

  "Shere Ali?" he said.

  "Yes," replied Violet.

  Linforth hesitated, looking at his companion. How much should he tellher, he asked himself? The whole truth? If he did, would it trouble her?He wondered. He had no wish to hurt her. He began warily:

  "After the campaign was over in Chiltistan I was sent after him."

  "Yes. I heard that before I left India," she replied.

  "I hunted him," and it seemed to Linforth that she flinched. "There's noother word, I am afraid. I hunted him--for months, from the borders ofTibet to the borders of Russia. In the end I caught him."

  "I heard that, too," she said.

  "I came up with him one morning, in a desert of stones. He was with threeof his followers. The only three who had been loyal to him. They hadcamped as best they could under the shelter of a boulder. It was verycold. They had no coverings and little food. The place was as desolate asyou could imagine--a wilderness of boulders and stones stretching away tothe round of the sky, level as the palm of your hand, with a ragged treegrowing up here and there. If we had not come up with them that day Ithink they would have died."

  He spoke with his eyes upon Violet, ready to modify his words at thefirst evidence of pain. She gave that evidence as he ended. She drew hercloak closer about her and shivered.

  "What did he say?" she asked.

  "To me? Nothing. We spoke only formally. All the way back to India webehaved as strangers. It was easier for both of us. I brought him downthrough Chiltistan and Kohara into India. I brought him down--along theRoad which at Eton we had planned to carry on together. Down that road wecame together--I the captor, he the prisoner."

  Again Violet flinched.

  "And where is he now?" she asked in a low voice.

  Suddenly Linforth turned round and looked down the steps, across the hallto the glass walls of the restaurant.

  "Did he ever come here with you?" he asked. "Did he ever dine with youthere amongst the lights and the merry-makers and the music?"

  "Yes," she answered.

  Linforth laughed, and again there was a note of bitterness in thelaughter.

  "How long ago it seems! Shere Ali will dine here no more. He is in Burma.He was deported to Burma."

  He told her no more than that. There was no need that she should knowthat Shere Ali, broken-hearted, ruined and despairing, was drinkinghimself to death with the riffraff of Rangoon, or with such of it aswould listen to his abuse of the white women and his slanders upon theirhonesty. The contrast between Shere Ali's fate and the hopes with whichhe had set out was shocking enough. Yet even in his case so very littlehad turned the scale. Between the fulfilment of his hopes and the greatfailure what was there? If he had been sent to Ajmere instead of toEngland, if he and Linforth had not crossed the Meije to La Grave inDauphine, if a necklace of pearls he had offered had not beenaccepted--very likely at this very moment he might be reigning inChiltistan, trusted and supported by the Indian Government, a helpfulfriend gratefully recognised. To Linforth's thinking it was only "justnot" with Shere Ali, too.

  Linforth saw his companion coming towards him from the restaurant. Heheld out his hand.

  "I have got to go," he said.

  "I too," replied Violet. But she detained him. "I want to tell you," shesaid hurriedly. "Long ago--in Peshawur--do you remember? I told you therewas someone else--a better mate for you than I was. I meant it, Dick, butyou wouldn't listen. There is still the someone else. I am going to tellyou her name. She has never said a word to me--but--but I am sure. It maysound mean of me to give her away--but I am not really doing that. Ishould be very happy, Dick, if it were possible. It's Phyllis Casson. Shehas never married. She is living with her father at Camberley." Andbefore he could answer she had hurried away.

  But Linforth was to see her again that night. For when he had taken hisseat in the stalls of the theatre he saw her and her husband in a box. Hegathered from the remarks of those about him that her jewels were aregular feature upon the first nights of new plays. He looked at her nowand then during the intervals of the acts. A few people entered her boxand spoke to her for a little while. Linforth conjectured that she haddropped a little out of the world in which he had known her. Yet she wascontented. On the whole that seemed certain. She was satisfied with herlife. To attend the first productions of plays, to sit in therestaurants, to hear her jewels remarked upon--her life had narrowedsleekly down to that, and she was content. But there had been otherpossibilities for Violet Oliver.

  Linforth walked back from the theatre to his club. He looked into a roomand saw an old gentleman dozing alone amongst his newspapers.

  "I suppose I shall come to that," he said grimly. "It doesn't look overcheerful as a way of spending the evening of one's days," and he wassuddenly seized with the temptation to go home and take the first trainin the morning for Camberley. He turned the plan over in his mind for amoment, and
then swung away from it in self-disgust. He retained ageneral reverence for women, and to seek marriage without bringing loveto light him in the search was not within his capacity.

  "That wouldn't be fair," he said to himself--"even if Violet's tale weretrue." For with his reverence he had retained his modesty. The nextmorning he took the train into Sussex instead, and was welcomed by SybilLinforth to the house under the Downs. In the warmth of that welcome, atall events, there was nothing that was just not.

 
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