The Potter and the Clay: A Romance of Today
Page 28
*VII.*
Trevelyan let the hand that held Mackenzie’s letter fall between hissprawling legs.
He had been sitting on the front steps of the house when Mactier hadbrought him his mail and he had opened it there.
There were the papers, and a half dozen bills, a wedding invitation, twosets of reception cards, the announcement of a club meeting, and aletter from his aunt in eastern Scotland, begging him to come to them,if only for a week, and telling him that Cary was with them,and—Mackenzie’s letter.
He had laid it aside to open last. It might have been he wanted to takehis time reading it; or a dread of hearing from any of the old mess. Atany rate, he hesitated before opening it, even when he had disposed ofthe rest of the mail.
He read it after awhile, and then he raised his head and looked hard atthe group of trees near the house.
And so Mackenzie had been transferred to a distant regiment soon afterhe, Trevelyan, had resigned. There were a good many pages given to thedescription of the new Station and the new set of officers and men, thatTrevelyan skipped over hastily. It was only the last part that hadstruck him suddenly, like a heavy blow in the face, and that made him,after awhile, pick up the letter and re-read the part.
"We had a cholera scare this season, but we managed to strangle it, sothat it never became more than local, but it kept Clarke—he’s myassistant, and a good chap he is—and me, on the jump for a time. Thenatives won’t look out for the water, and I don’t believe the entiremedical and military force of the United Kingdom combined would be ableto make them do so! And of course it’s damnation in this special spotwhere there is more or less cholera every year. I sometimes feelinclined to say if they’re such fools let them drink and bathe and drownthemselves in the water, for they’re not worth saving. But you see,unless the scourge is stamped out among them it goes on spreading andthreatens the barracks. We can’t spare one of our dandy men. We need’em all in the Service—every last mother’s son of ’em, bless their stoutold British hearts!
"You saw a case or two at the old Station, and you know something ofwhat it means. But you haven’t any idea of an army surgeon’s dread of anepidemic—that is a surgeon who has been through the cholera mill. Iknow, for I’ve spent most of my term in India, and years ago I was inthe midst of a howling time of it—men dropping off by the score! Inever want to go through such a thing again. The horror of it is enoughto last a man a good deal longer than his natural life—and the chaps whohelped me! Well, most of the men who could—and they were brave men,too—took to heels, and the handful that buckled to, to nurse, keptgetting sick from fatigue and the vile water—and then when the mendied—the fires—
"There, you know it, I suppose, or you’ve heard of it before. No one_knows_ it, until one’s been through it.
"The natives were pretty good on the whole a few months ago and so westamped it out then. Jove! some of them were sick, though—sicker thanthe sickest dog you ever saw—. There was one fellow—he was worthsaving—and I never worked so hard over a man in my life, except Stewartwhen he was hurt at the old Station. He died, though. All the while Ikept thinking of that time with Stewart, and how you brought him backfrom death. I’ve never understood that, and I never learned anythinglike it in my _Materia Médica_. It was kind of uncanny, but it did thework. I wondered if you could have done something for that fellow. Icouldn’t. He was a Scotchman, by the way, of the rank and file."
Here the letter stopped. On a fresh sheet was a postscript.
"Just came across this in my desk—two months old. I must have thought Ihad sent it and didn’t. Guess I’ll let it go though. Now that theimmediate cholera scare is over the natives are playing the dickensagain with the water—as they always do. It begins to look like trouble.When the spring rains come it’ll play the devil with the Service thistime. Well!"
Trevelyan put down the letter. There was an odd fullness in his throat.
He got up and began to walk to and fro. Once he stopped and kicked atthe gravel of the drive with his heel. The odd fullness in his throatgrew, and it seemed to him as though an invisible force was impellinghim to India.
Then he gripped at his self-control, and quieted his throbbing brain byhis will. There should be no impetuous passion to lead him wronglyhere. He would weigh the risks; he would force himself to think of allit meant—of all the horror of the details—the horrors that wereunspeakable, almost unthinkable. He had seen something of them when hewas at the Station. Whatever his decision there should be no regrets.
All day he wandered around the place—preoccupied. He did not touch hislunch, and he scarcely touched his dinner.
In the evening he went into the great library and thought it out—alone.
Had the dreams come to this? Was this the answer?
_Was it the answer?_
He sat rigid and mute questioning the silence, but the silence gave backno answer.
Outside the stars appeared one by one, only to hide themselves behindthe mist that slowly had arisen, and the cold chill of midnight crept inthrough the closed windows. The fire on the hearth faded from itssteady glow of gold to the red of the dying embers, and the student lampon the table flickered and went out. And still Trevelyan sat rigid andmute, with his wide eyes questioning the silence.
By and by the silence became alive, and was peopled with the visions ofhis thoughts. He remembered what those cholera cases were, he had seenin India—the unutterableness of it all—and there swept over him not somuch the abhorrence of death as of its manifestation. After all, was itnot wholly the close contact with the disease itself he shrank from?Death——
Why, death was not so bad.
And Trevelyan’s tense features relaxed a little.
After all, he would not go to court death. He had lived through thatdesire and conquered it the night he had lain wounded by his own hand inthe military hospital. Foolhardiness was not courage, so he had toldhimself then, and so he believed now.
Then, it was not likely that he would catch the plague and die. He hadalways laughed at disease; he who had never been ill; and had notMackenzie lived through one of the worst epidemics on record—thispromised to be mild, as compared to it. It was not so much the fear ofdeath and disease, but was he willing to accept both if they came?
The old passionate love of life he had felt years ago when a boy,fighting the storm and the sea and death, shot through him and thrilledhim from his throbbing head to his feet. He rose and flung out his armsand bent them backwards and forwards. He could feel the flow of theblood and the _life_ that was there.
Then he thought of Mackenzie’s letter and he pictured the oncoming ofthe cholera, and Mackenzie and his little band fighting the scourgeunaided. What was the strength of his life for if not to serve these;if not to serve the men who served England! Might he not so serveEngland, too, and help to save, perhaps, the lives of those who foughtin her defense and for her honor?
It would be service, but it would not be the service he had dreamed ofas a child, and striven for as a boy and a youth. He had thought toserve with the sword, and perhaps—so he had dreamed—meet death in acharge like the charge his father had made. His blood had thrilled atthe thought of the rally, and the command he would send down the line!
Trevelyan fumbled in the dark for his chair, and sat down.
It would never be that. If he should die serving Mackenzie and Englandwhat he had done would die with him. He might be mentioned in theReports, but Reports—
Well; why not? What had he done for England that England shouldremember him? He had only served England in dishonor.
"When the men died—the fires—"
It would not even mean that he could be brought back here—to Scotland,to his crags and sea—to rest in the old vault. That last dream wouldhave to fade even as the other dreams had faded.
He might not serve England gloriously; he might help the Service onlyindirectly, but wo
uld not the service and the help be there? Might henot so pick up the broken pieces?
Still the silence gave back no answer.
The wan gray dawn stole in through the lifting mist and found himwide-eyed and sleepless still.
After awhile he rose again and stretched his stiff legs and went downthe hall to the front door and opened it. The chill of the early dawnstruck him and he shivered. He walked down to the sea and stood there,looking out over the gray, cold waste of waters, and then he climbed tothe eyrie, and looked out over the waters again. They seemed colder andgrayer than before, and from force of habit he crawled to the ledge andleaned over. The _swish_, s-w-i-s-h, of the breakers below reached him,and through the faint mist he could see the white foam. The toss of thespray touched his face in friendly greeting as it had done so often—sooften before.
The faintest touch of shell-like pink crept into the gray sky anddeepened, and was reflected on the sea, and still Trevelyan lingered.The old passionate strength of the boy-child came back to him then, ashe hung, listening to the beat of the sea. The self-assurance had gonefrom the courage, and had been crushed beyond restoration when he hadbroken the clay; but the courage was there—born afresh—unyielding andenduring and deep as the sea.
He rose to his feet and he flung out his arms toward the sea as he haddone when he had beaten it and the storm and death, in Cary’s home, as achild; but he said nothing, for the odd fullness in his throat. Letdeath come so, his heart cried. Death, even when it strikes, does notalways conquer, and Death was not all.
Then he climbed down and went back to the house, and up-stairs and flunghimself on his bed.
The sea had answered his questionings.
_Thus_ would he serve the Service.