CHAPTER XXI
ETHNE MAKES ANOTHER SLIP
Mrs. Adair speculated with some uneasiness upon the consequences of thedisclosures which she had made to Durrance. She was in doubt as to thecourse which he would take. It seemed possible that he might franklytell Ethne of the mistake which he had made. He might admit that he haddiscovered the unreality of her affection for him, and the reality ofher love for Feversham; and if he made that admission, however carefullyhe tried to conceal her share in his discovery, he would hardly succeed.She would have to face Ethne, and she dreaded the moment when hercompanion's frank eyes would rest quietly upon hers and her lips demandan explanation. It was consequently a relief to her at first that nooutward change was visible in the relations of Ethne and Durrance. Theymet and spoke as though that day on which Willoughby had landed at thegarden, and the evening when Ethne had played the Musoline Overture uponthe violin, had been blotted from their experience. Mrs. Adair wasrelieved at first, but when the sense of personal danger passed fromher, and she saw that her interference had been apparently withouteffect, she began to be puzzled. A little while, and she was both angryand disappointed.
Durrance, indeed, quickly made up his mind. Ethne wished him not toknow; it was some consolation to her in her distress to believe that shehad brought happiness to this one man whose friend she genuinely was.And of that consolation Durrance was aware. He saw no reason to destroyit--for the present. He must know certainly whether a misunderstandingor an irreparable breach separated Ethne from Feversham before he tookthe steps he had in mind. He must have sure knowledge, too, of HarryFeversham's fate. Therefore he pretended to know nothing; he abandonedeven his habit of attention and scrutiny, since for these there was nolonger any need; he forced himself to a display of contentment; he madelight of his misfortune, and professed to find in Ethne's company morethan its compensation.
"You see," he said to her, "one can get used to blindness and take it asthe natural thing. But one does not get used to you, Ethne. Each timeone meets you, one discovers something new and fresh to delight one.Besides, there is always the possibility of a cure."
He had his reward, for Ethne understood that he had laid aside hissuspicions, and she was able to set off his indefatigable cheerfulnessagainst her own misery. And her misery was great. If for one day she hadrecaptured the lightness of heart which had been hers before the threewhite feathers came to Ramelton, she had now recaptured something of thegrief which followed upon their coming. A difference there was, ofcourse. Her pride was restored, and she had a faint hope born ofDurrance's words that Harry after all might perhaps be rescued. But sheknew again the long and sleepless nights and the dull hot misery of thehead as she waited for the grey of the morning. For she could no longerpretend to herself that she looked upon Harry Feversham as a friend whowas dead. He was living, and in what straits she dreaded to think, andyet thirsted to know. At rare times, indeed, her impatience got thebetter of her will.
"I suppose that escape is possible from Omdurman," she said one day,constraining her voice to an accent of indifference.
"Possible? Yes, I think so," Durrance answered cheerfully. "Of course itis difficult and would in any case take time. Attempts, for instance,have been made to get Trench out and others, but the attempts have notyet succeeded. The difficulty is the go-between."
Ethne looked quickly at Durrance.
"The go-between?" she asked, and then she said, "I think I begin tounderstand," and pulled herself up abruptly. "You mean the Arab who cancome and go between Omdurman and the Egyptian frontier?"
"Yes. He is usually some Dervish pedlar or merchant trading with thetribes of the Soudan, who slips into Wadi Halfa or Assouan or Suakin andundertakes the work. Of course his risk is great. He would have shortshrift in Omdurman if his business were detected. So it is not to bewondered at that he shirks the danger at the last moment. As often asnot, too, he is a rogue. You make your arrangements with him in Egypt,and hand him over the necessary money. In six months or a year he comesback alone, with a story of excuses. It was summer, and the seasonunfavourable for an escape. Or the prisoners were more strictly guarded.Or he himself was suspected. And he needs more money. His tale may betrue, and you give him more money; and he comes back again, and again hecomes back alone."
Ethne nodded her head.
"Exactly."
Durrance had unconsciously explained to her a point which till now shehad not understood. She was quite sure that Harry Feversham aimed insome way at bringing help to Colonel Trench, but in what way his owncapture was to serve that aim she could not determine. Now sheunderstood: he was to be his own go-between, and her hopes drew strengthfrom this piece of new knowledge. For it was likely that he had laid hisplans with care. He would be very anxious that the second feather shouldcome back to her, and if he could fetch Trench safely out of Omdurman,he would not himself remain behind.
Ethne was silent for a little while. They were sitting on the terrace,and the sunset was red upon the water of the creek.
"Life would not be easy, I suppose, in the prison of Omdurman," shesaid, and again she forced herself to indifference.
"Easy!" exclaimed Durrance; "no, it would not be easy. A hovel crowdedwith Arabs, without light or air, and the roof perhaps two feet aboveyour head, into which you were locked up from sundown to morning; verylikely the prisoners would have to stand all night in that foul den, soclosely packed would they be. Imagine it, even here in England, on anevening like this! Think what it would be on an August night in theSoudan! Especially if you had memories, say, of a place like this, tomake the torture worse."
Ethne looked out across that cool garden. At this very moment HarryFeversham might be struggling for breath in that dark and noisome hovel,dry of throat and fevered with the heat, with a vision before his eyesof the grass slopes of Ramelton and with the music of the Lennon Riverliquid in his ears.
"One would pray for death," said Ethne, slowly, "unless--" She was onthe point of adding "unless one went there deliberately with a fixedthing to do," but she cut the sentence short. Durrance carried it on:--
"Unless there was a chance of escape," he said. "And there is achance--if Feversham is in Omdurman."
He was afraid that he had allowed himself to say too much about thehorrors of the prison in Omdurman, and he added: "Of course, what I havedescribed to you is mere hearsay and not to be trusted. We have noknowledge. Prisoners may not have such bad times as we think;" andthereupon he let the subject drop. Nor did Ethne mention it again. Itoccurred to her at times to wonder in what way Durrance had understoodher abrupt disappearance from the drawing-room on the night when he hadtold her of his meeting with Harry Feversham. But he never referred toit himself, and she thought it wise to imitate his example. Thenoticeable change in his manner, the absence of that caution which hadso distressed her, allayed her fears. It seemed that he had found forhimself some perfectly simple and natural explanation. At times, too,she asked herself why Durrance had told her of that meeting in WadiHalfa, and of Feversham's subsequent departure to the south. But forthat she found an explanation--a strange explanation, perhaps, but itwas simple enough and satisfactory to her. She believed that the newswas a message of which Durrance was only the instrument. It was meantfor her ears, and for her comprehension alone, and Durrance was bound toconvey it to her by the will of a power above him. His real reason shehad not stayed to hear.
During the month of September, then, they kept up the pretence. Everymorning when Durrance was in Devonshire he would come across the fieldsto Ethne at The Pool, and Mrs. Adair, watching them as they talked andlaughed without a shadow of embarrassment or estrangement, grew moreangry, and found it more difficult to hold her peace and let thepretence go on. It was a month of strain and tension to all three, andnot one of them but experienced a great relief when Durrance visited hisoculist in London. And those visits increased in number, and lengthenedin duration. Even Ethne was grateful for them. She could throw off themask for a little while; she had an
opportunity to be tired; she hadsolitude wherein to gain strength to resume her high spirits uponDurrance's return. There came hours when despair seized hold of her."Shall I be able to keep up the pretence when we are married, when weare always together?" she asked herself. But she thrust the questionback unanswered; she dared not look forward, lest even now her strengthshould fail her.
After the third visit Durrance said to her:--
"Do you remember that I once mentioned a famous oculist at Wiesbaden? Itseems advisable that I should go to him."
"You are recommended to go?"
"Yes, and to go alone."
Ethne looked up at him with a shrewd, quick glance.
"You think that I should be dull at Wiesbaden," she said. "There is nofear of that. I can rout out some relative to go with me."
"No; it is on my own account," answered Durrance. "I shall perhaps haveto go into a home. It is better to be quite quiet and to see no one fora time."
"You are sure?" Ethne asked. "It would hurt me if I thought you proposedthis plan because you felt I would be happier at Glenalla."
"No, that is not the reason," Durrance answered, and he answered quitetruthfully. He felt it necessary for both of them that they shouldseparate. He, no less than Ethne, suffered under the tyranny ofperpetual simulation. It was only because he knew how much store she setupon carrying out her resolve that two lives should not be spoiltbecause of her, that he was able to hinder himself from crying out thathe knew the truth.
"I am returning to London next week," he added, "and when I come back Ishall be in a position to tell you whether I am to go to Wiesbaden ornot."
Durrance had reason to be glad that he had mentioned his plan before thearrival of Calder's telegram from Wadi Halfa. Ethne was unable toconnect his departure from her with the receipt of any news aboutFeversham. The telegram came one afternoon, and Durrance took it acrossto The Pool in the evening and showed it to Ethne. There were only fourwords to the telegram:--
"Feversham imprisoned at Omdurman."
Durrance, with one of the new instincts of delicacy which had been bornin him lately by reason of his sufferings and the habit of thought, hadmoved away from Ethne's side as soon as he had given it to her, and hadjoined Mrs. Adair, who was reading a book in the drawing-room. He hadfolded up the telegram, besides, so that by the time Ethne had unfoldedit and saw the words, she was alone upon the terrace. She rememberedwhat Durrance had said to her about the prison, and her imaginationenlarged upon his words. The quiet of a September evening was upon thefields, a light mist rose from the creek and crept over the garden bankacross the lawn. Already the prison doors were shut in that hot countryat the junction of the Niles. "He is to pay for his fault ten timesover, then," she cried, in revolt against the disproportion. "And thefault was his father's and mine too more than his own. For neither of usunderstood."
She blamed herself for the gift of that fourth feather. She leaned uponthe stone balustrade with her eyes shut, wondering whether Harry wouldoutlive this night, whether he was still alive to outlive it. The verycoolness of the stones on which her hands pressed became the bitterestof reproaches.
"Something can now be done."
Durrance was coming from the window of the drawing-room, and spoke as hecame, to warn her of his approach. "He was and is my friend; I cannotleave him there. I shall write to-night to Calder. Money will not bespared. He is my friend, Ethne. You will see. From Suakin or fromAssouan something will be done."
He put all the help to be offered to the credit of his own friendship.Ethne was not to believe that he imagined she had any further interestin Harry Feversham.
She turned to him suddenly, almost interrupting him.
"Major Castleton is dead?" she said.
"Castleton?" he exclaimed. "There was a Castleton in Feversham'sregiment. Is that the man?"
"Yes. He is dead?"
"He was killed at Tamai."
"You are sure--quite sure?"
"He was within the square of the Second Brigade on the edge of the greatgulley when Osman Digna's men sprang out of the earth and broke through.I was in that square, too. I saw Castleton killed."
"I am glad," said Ethne.
She spoke quite simply and distinctly. The first feather had beenbrought back by Captain Willoughby. It was just possible that ColonelTrench might bring back the second. Harry Feversham had succeeded onceunder great difficulties, in the face of great peril. The peril wasgreater now, the difficulties more arduous to overcome; that she clearlyunderstood. But she took the one success as an augury that anothermight follow it. Feversham would have laid his plans with care; he hadmoney wherewith to carry them out; and, besides, she was a woman ofstrong faith. But she was relieved to know that the sender of the thirdfeather could never be approached. Moreover, she hated him, and therewas an end of the matter.
Durrance was startled. He was a soldier of a type not so rare as themakers of war stories wish their readers to believe. Hector of Troy washis ancestor; he was neither hysterical in his language nor vindictivein his acts; he was not an elderly schoolboy with a taste for loud talk,but a quiet man who did his work without noise, who could be stern whenoccasion needed and of an unflinching severity, but whose nature wasgentle and compassionate. And this barbaric utterance of Ethne Eustacehe did not understand.
"You disliked Major Castleton so much?" he exclaimed.
"I never knew him."
"Yet you are glad that he is dead?"
"I am quite glad," said Ethne, stubbornly.
She made another slip when she spoke thus of Major Castleton, andDurrance did not pass it by unnoticed. He remembered it, and thought itover in his gun-room at Guessens. It added something to the explanationwhich he was building up of Harry Feversham's disgrace anddisappearance. The story was gradually becoming clear to his sharpenedwits. Captain Willoughby's visit and the token he had brought had givenhim the clue. A white feather could mean nothing but an accusation ofcowardice. Durrance could not remember that he had ever detected anysigns of cowardice in Harry Feversham, and the charge startled himperpetually into incredulity.
But the fact remained. Something had happened on the night of the ballat Lennon House, and from that date Harry had been an outcast. Supposethat a white feather had been forwarded to Lennon House, and had beenopened in Ethne's presence? Or more than one white feather? Ethne hadcome back from her long talk with Willoughby holding that white featheras though there was nothing so precious in all the world.
So much Mrs. Adair had told him.
It followed, then, that the cowardice was atoned, or in one particularatoned. Ethne's recapture of her youth pointed inevitably to thatconclusion. She treasured the feather because it was no longer a symbolof cowardice but a symbol of cowardice atoned.
But Harry Feversham had not returned, he still slunk in the world'sby-ways. Willoughby, then, was not the only man who had brought theaccusation; there were others--two others. One of the two Durrance hadlong since identified. When Durrance had suggested that Harry might betaken to Omdurman, Ethne had at once replied, "Colonel Trench is inOmdurman." She needed no explanation of Harry's disappearance from WadiHalfa into the southern Soudan. It was deliberate; he had gone out to becaptured, to be taken to Omdurman. Moreover, Ethne had spoken of theuntrustworthiness of the go-between, and there again had helped Durrancein his conjectures. There was some obligation upon Feversham to come toTrench's help. Suppose that Feversham had laid his plans of rescue, andhad ventured out into the desert that he might be his own go-between. Itfollowed that a second feather had been sent to Ramelton, and thatTrench had sent it.
To-night Durrance was able to join Major Castleton to Trench andWilloughby. Ethne's satisfaction at the death of a man whom she did notknow could mean but the one thing. There would be the same obligationresting upon Feversham with regard to Major Castleton if he lived. Itseemed likely that a third feather had come to Lennon House, and thatMajor Castleton had sent it.
Durrance pondered over the solution of t
he problem, and more and more hefound it plausible. There was one man who could have told him the truthand who had refused to tell it, who would no doubt still refuse to tellit. But that one man's help Durrance intended to enlist, and to this endhe must come with the story pat upon his lips and no request forinformation.
"Yes," he said, "I think that after my next visit to London I can pay avisit to Lieutenant Sutch."