The Way of an Eagle by Ethel M. Dell

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"Stir the fire," she whispered. "He feels so cold."

But Muriel did not move to obey. Instead she held out her arms.

"Let me take him, dear," she begged tremulously. Daisy shook her head
with a jealous tightening of her clasp. "He has been so ill, poor wee
darling," she whispered. "It came on so suddenly. There was no time
to do anything. But he is easier now. I think he is asleep. We won't
disturb him."

Muriel said no more. She rose and blindly poked the fire. Then--for
the sight of Daisy rocking her dead child with that set, ashen face
was more than she could bear--she turned and stole away, softly
closing the door behind her.

Again meeting the English servants hovering outside, she sent them
downstairs to light the kitchen fire, going herself to the dining-room
window to watch for the doctor. Her feet were bare and freezing, but
she would not return to her room for slippers. She felt she could not
endure that awful wailing at close quarters again. Even as it was, she
heard it fitfully; but from the nursery there came no sound.

She wondered if Blake had gone across the meadow to the doctor's
house--it was undoubtedly the shortest cut--and tried to calculate how
long it would take him.

The waiting was intolerable. She bore it with a desperate endurance.
She could not rid herself of the feeling that somehow Nick was near
her. She almost expected to see him come lightly in and stand beside
her. Once or twice she turned shivering to assure herself that she was
really alone.

There came at last the click of the garden-gate. They had come across
the drenched meadows. In a transient gleam of moonlight she saw the
two figures striding towards her. Grange stopped a moment to fasten
the gate. The doctor came straight on.

She ran to the front door and threw it open. The wind blew swirling
all about her, but she never felt it, though her very lips were numb
and cold.

"It's too late!" she gasped, as he entered. "It's too late!"

Jim Ratcliffe took her by the shoulders and forced her away from the
open door.

"Go and put something on," he ordered, "instantly!"

There was no resisting the mastery of his tone. She responded to it
instinctively, hardly knowing what she did.

The _ayah's_ paroxysm of grief had sunk to a low moaning when she
re-entered her room. It sounded like a dumb creature in pain. Hastily
she dressed, and twisted up her hair with fingers that she strove in
vain to steady.

Then noiselessly she crept back to the nursery.

Daisy was still rocking softly to and fro before the ore, her piteous
burden yet clasped against her heart. The doctor was stooping over
her, and Muriel saw the half-eager, half-suspicious look in Daisy's
eyes as she watched him. She was telling him in rapid whispers what
had happened.

He listened to her very quietly, his keen eyes fixed unblinking upon
the baby's face. When she ended, he stooped a little lower, his hand
upon her arm.

"Let me take him," he said.

Muriel trembled for the answer, remembering the instant refusal with
which her own offer had been met. But Daisy made no sort of protest.
She seemed to yield mechanically.

Only, as he lifted the tiny body from her breast, a startled, almost
a bereft look crossed her face, and she whispered quickly, "You won't
let him cry?"

Jim Ratcliffe was silent a moment while he gazed intently at the
little lifeless form he held. Then very gently, very pitifully, but
withal very steadily, his verdict fell through the silent room.

"He will never cry any more."

Daisy was on her feet in a moment, the agony in her eyes terrible to
see. "Jim! Jim!" she gasped, in a strangled voice. "He isn't dead!
My little darling,--my baby,--the light of my eyes; tell me--he
isn't--dead!"

She bent hungrily over the burden he held, and then gazed wildly into
his face. She was shaking as one in an ague.

Quietly he drew the head-covering over the baby's face. "My dear," he
said, "there is no death."

The words were few, spoken almost in an undertone; but they sent a
curious, tingling thrill through Muriel--a thrill that seemed to
reach her heart. For the first time, unaccountably, wholly intangibly,
she was aware of a strong resemblance between this man whom she
honoured and the man she feared. She almost felt as if Nick himself
had uttered the words.

Standing dumbly by the door, she saw the doctor stoop to lay the poor
little body down in the cot, saw Daisy's face of anguish, and the
sudden, wide-flung spread of her empty arms.

The next moment, her woman's instinct prompting her, she sprang
forward; and it was she who caught the stricken mother as she fell.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE CREED OF A FIGHTER

It was growing very hot in the plains. A faint breeze born at sunset
had died away long ago, leaving a wonderful, breathless stillness
behind. The man who sat at work on his verandah with his shirt-sleeves
turned up above his elbows sighed heavily from time to time as if
he felt some oppression in the atmosphere. He was quite a young man,
fair-skinned and clean-shaven, with an almost pathetically boyish look
about him, a wistful expression as of one whose youth still endured
though the zest thereof was denied to him. His eyes were weary and
bloodshot, but he worked on steadily, indefatigably, never raising
them from the paper under his hand.

Even when a step sounded in the room behind him, he scarcely looked
up. "One moment, old chap!" He was still working rapidly as he spoke.
"I've a toughish bit to get through. I'll talk to you in a minute."

There was no immediate reply. A man's figure, dressed in white linen,
with one arm quite invisible under the coat, stood halting for a
moment in the doorway, then moved out and slowly approached the table
at which the other sat.

The lamplight, gleaming upwards, revealed a yellow face of many
wrinkles, and curious, glancing eyes that shone like fireflies in the
gloom.

He stopped beside the man who worked. "All right," he said. "Finish
what you are doing."

In the silence that followed he seemed to watch the hand that moved
over the paper with an absorbing interest. The instant it rested he
spoke.

"Done?"

The man in the chair stretched out his arms with a long gesture of
weariness; then abruptly leapt to his feet.

"What am I thinking of, keeping you standing here? Sit down, Nick!
Yes, I've done for the present. What a restless beggar you are! Why
couldn't you lie still for a spell?"

Nick grimaced. "It's an accomplishment I have never been able to
acquire. Besides, there's no occasion for it now. If I were going to
die, it would be a different thing, and even then I think I'd
rather die standing. How are you getting on, my son? What mean these
hieroglyphics?"

He dropped into the empty chair and pored over the paper.

"Oh, you wouldn't understand if I told you," the other answered.
"You're not an engineer."

"Not even a greaser of wheels." admitted Nick modestly. "But you
needn't throw it in my teeth. I suppose you are going to make your
fortune soon and retire--you and Daisy and the imp--to a respectable
suburb. You're a very lucky chap, Will."

"Think so?" said Will.

He was bending a little over his work. His tone sounded either absent
or dubious.

Nick glanced at him, and suddenly swept his free right hand across the
table. "Put it away!" he said. "You're overdoing it. Get the wretched
stuff out of your head for a bit, and let's have a smoke before
dinner. I'll bring her out to you next winter. See if I don't!"

Will turned towards him impulsively. "Oh, man, if you only could!"

"Only could!" echoed Nick. "I tell you I will. Ten quid on it if you
like. Is it done?"

But Will shook his head with a queer, unsteady smile. "No, it
isn't. But come along and smoke, or you will be having that infernal
neuralgia again. It was confoundedly good of you to look me up like
this when you weren't fit for it."

Nick laughed aloud. "Man alive! You don't suppose I did it for your
sake, do you? Don't you know I wanted to break the journey to the
coast?"

"Odd place to choose!" commented Will.

Nick arose in his own peculiarly abrupt fashion, and thrust his hand
through his friend's arm.

"Perhaps I thought a couple of days of your society would cheer me
up," he observed lightly. "I daresay that seems odd too."

Will laughed in spite of himself. "Well, you've seen me with my
nose to the grindstone anyhow. You can tell Daisy I'm working like a
troop-horse for her and the boy! Jove! What a knowing little beggar
that youngster used to be! He isn't very strong though, Daisy writes."

"How often do you hear?" asked Nick.

"Oh, the last letter came three weeks ago. They were all well then,
but she didn't stop to say much because Grange was there. He is
staying with them, you know."

"You haven't heard since then?" There was just a hint of indignation
in Nick's query.

Will shook his head. "No. She's a bad correspondent, always was. I
write by every mail, and of course, if there were anything I ought
to know, she would write too. But they are leading a fairly humdrum
existence just now. She can't have much to tell me."

Nick changed the subject. "How long has Grange been there?"

"I don't know. Some time, I think. But I really don't know. They are
very old pals, you know, he and Daisy. There was a bit of a romance
between them, I believe, years ago, when she was in her teens. Their
people wouldn't hear of it because they were first cousins, so it
fizzled out. But they are still great friends. A good sort of fellow,
I always thought."

"Too soft for me," said Nick. "He's like a well-built ship adrift
without a rudder. He's all manners and no grit--the sort of chap who
wants to be pushed before he can do anything. I often ached to kick
him when we were boxed up at Wara."

Will smiled. "The only drawback to indulging in that kind of game
is that you may get kicked back, and a kick from a giant like Grange
would be no joke."

Nick looked supremely contemptuous. "Fellows like Grange don't kick.
They don't know how. That's why I had to leave him alone."

He turned into Will's sitting-room and stretched himself out upon an
ancient _charpoy_ furnished with many ancient cushions that stood by
the window.

Will gave him a cigarette, and lighted it. "I wonder how many nights I
have spent on that old shake-down," he remarked, as he did it.

Nick glanced upwards. "Last year?"

Will nodded. "It was like hell," he said, with terrible simplicity. "I
came straight back here, you know, after Daisy left Simla. I suppose
the contrast made it worse. Then, too, the sub was ill, and it meant
double work. Well," with another sigh, "we pulled through somehow,
and I suppose we shall again. But, Nick, Daisy couldn't possibly stand
this place more than four months out of the twelve. And as for the
kiddie--"

Nick removed his cigarette to yawn.

"You won't be here all your life, my son," he said. "You're a rising
man, remember. There's no sense in grizzling, anyhow, and you're
getting round-shouldered. Why don't you do some gymnastics? You've
got a swimming bath. Go and do a quarter of a mile breast-stroke every
day. Jupiter! What wouldn't I give to"--He broke off abruptly. "Well,
I'm not going to cry for the moon either. There's the _khit_ on the
verandah. What does he want?"

Will went out to see. Nick, idly watching, saw the native hand him
something on a salver which Will took to the lamp by which he had been
working. Dead silence ensued. From far away there came the haunting
cry of a jackal, but near at hand there was no sound. A great
stillness hung upon all things.

To Nick, lying at full length upon the cushions, there presently came
the faint sound of paper crackling, and a moment later his friend's
voice, pitched very low, spoke to the waiting servant. He heard the
man softly retire, and again an intense stillness reigned.

He could not see Will from where he lay, and he smoked on placidly for
nearly five minutes in the belief that he was either answering
some communication or looking over his work. Then at last, growing
impatient of the prolonged silence, he lifted his voice without
moving.

"What in the world are you doing, you unsociable beggar? Can't you
tear yourself away from that beastly work for one night even? Come in
here and entertain me. You won't have the chance to-morrow."

There was no reply. Only from far away there came again the weird yell
of a jackal. For a few seconds more Nick lay frowning. Then swiftly
and quietly he arose, and stepped to the window.

There he stopped dead as if in sudden irresolution; for Will was sunk
upon his knees by the table with his head upon his work and his arms
flung out with clenched hands in an attitude of the most utter, the
most anguished despair. He made no sound of any sort; only, as Nick
watched, his bowed shoulders heaved once convulsively.

It was only for a moment that Nick stood hesitating. The next, obeying
an impulse that he never stopped to question, he moved straight
forward to Will's side; and then saw--what he had not at first seen--a
piece of paper crumpled and gripped in one of his hands.

He bent over him and spoke rapidly, but without agitation. "Hullo, old
boy! What is it! Bad news, eh?"

Will started and groaned, then sharply turned his face upwards. It was
haggard and drawn and ghastly, but even then its boyishness remained.

He spoke at once, replying to Nick in short, staccato tones. "I've
had a message--just come through. It's the kiddie--our little chap--he
died--last night."

Nick heard the news in silence. After a moment he stooped forward and
took the paper out of Will's hand, thrusting it away without a glance
into his own pocket. Then he took him by the arm and hoisted him up.
"Come inside!" he said briefly.

Will went with him blindly, too stricken to direct his own movements.

And so he presently found himself crouching forward in a chair staring
at Nick's steady hand mixing whiskey and water in a glass at his
elbow. As Nick held it towards him he burst into sudden, wild speech.

"I've lost her!" he exclaimed harshly. "I've lost her! It was only the
kiddie that bound us together. She never cared a half-penny about
me. I always knew I should never hold her unless we had a child. And
now--and now--"

"Easy!" said Nick. "Easy! Just drink this like a good chap. There's no
sense in letting yourself go."

Will drank submissively, and covered his face. "Oh, man," he whispered
brokenly, "you don't know what it is to be despised by the one being
in the world you worship."

Nick said nothing. His lips twitched a little, that was all.

But when several miserable seconds had dragged away and Will had
not moved, he bent suddenly down and put his arm round the huddled
shoulders. "Keep a stiff upper lip, old chap," he urged gently. "Don't
knock under. She'll be coming to you for comfort presently."

"Not she!" groaned Will. "I shall never get near her again. She'll
never come back to me. I know. I know."

"Don't be a fool!" said Nick still gently. "You don't know. Of course
she will come back to you. If you stick to her, she'll stick to you."

Will made a choked sound of dissent. Nevertheless, after a moment he
raised his quivering face, and gripped hard the hand that pressed his
shoulder. "Thanks, dear fellow! You're awfully good. Forgive me for
making an ass of myself. I--I was awfully fond of the little nipper
too. Poor Daisy! She'll be frightfully cut up." He broke off, biting
his lips.

"Do you know," he said presently in a strained whisper, "I've wanted
her sometimes--so horribly, that--that I've even been fool enough to
pray about it."

He glanced up as he made this confidence, half expecting to read
ridicule on the alert face above him, but the expression it wore
surprised him. It was almost a fighting look, and wholly free from
contempt.

Nick seated himself on the edge of the table, and smote him on the
shoulder. "My dear chap," he said, with a sudden burst of energy,
"you're only at the beginning of things. It isn't just praying now and
then that does it. You've got to keep up the steam, never slack for an
instant, whatever happens. The harder going it is, the more likely
you are to win through if you stick to it. But directly you slack,
you lose ground. If you've only got the grit to go on praying, praying
hard, even against your own convictions, you'll get it sooner or
later. You are bound to get it. They say God doesn't always grant
prayer because the thing you want may not do you any good. That's
gammon--futile gammon. If you want it hard enough, and keep on
clamouring for it, it becomes the very thing of all others you
need--the great essential. And you'll get it for that very reason.
It's sheer pluck that counts, nothing else--the pluck to go on
fighting when you know perfectly well you're beaten, the pluck to hang
on and worry, worry, worry, till you get your heart's desire."

He sprang up with a wide-flung gesture. "I'm doing it myself," he
said, and his voice rang with a certain grim elation. "I'm doing it
myself. And God knows I sha'n't give Him any peace till I'm satisfied.
I may be small, but if I were no bigger than a mosquito, I'd keep on
buzzing."

He walked to the end of the room, stood for a second, and came slowly
back.

Will was looking at him oddly, almost as if he had never seen him
before.

"Do you know," he said, smiling faintly, "I always thought you were a
rotter."

"Most people do," said Nick. "I believe it's my physiognomy that's
at fault. What can any one expect from a fellow with a face like an
Egyptian mummy? Why, I've been mistaken for the devil himself before
now." He spoke with a semi-whimsical ruefulness, and, having spoken,
he went to the window and stood there with his face to the darkness.

"Hear that jackal, Will?" he suddenly said. "The brute is hungry. You
bet, he won't go empty away."

"Jackals never do," said Will, with his weary sigh.

Nick turned round. "It shows what faithless fools we are," he said.

In the silence that followed, there came again to them, clear through
the stillness, and haunting in its persistence, the crying of the
beast that sought its meat from God.

CHAPTER XXV

A SCENTED LETTER

There is no exhaustion more complete or more compelling than the
exhaustion of grief, and it is the most restless temperaments that
usually suffer from it the most keenly. It is those who have watched
constantly, tirelessly, selflessly, for weeks or even months, for whom
the final breakdown is the most utter and the most heartrending.

To Daisy, lying silent in her darkened room, the sudden ending of the
prolonged strain, the cessation of the anxiety that had become a part
of her very being, was more intolerable than the sense of desolation
itself. It lay upon her like a physical, crushing weight, this absence
of care, numbing all her faculties. She felt that the worst had
happened to her, the ultimate blow had fallen, and she cared for
nought besides.

In those first days of her grief she saw none but Muriel and the
doctor. Jim Ratcliffe was more uneasy about her than he would
admit. He knew as no one else knew what the strain had been upon the
over-sensitive nerves, and how terribly the shock had wrenched them.
He also knew that her heart was still in a very unsatisfactory state,
and for many hours he dreaded collapse.

He was inclined to be uneasy upon Muriel's account as well, at first,
but she took him completely by surprise. Without a question, without a
word, simply as a matter of course, she assumed the position of
nurse and constant companion to her friend. Her resolution and steady
self-control astonished him, but he soon saw that these were qualities
upon which he could firmly rely. She had put her own weakness behind
her, and in face of Daisy's utter need she had found strength.

He suffered her to have her way, seeing how close was the bond of
sympathy between them, and realising that the very fact of supporting
Daisy would be her own support.

"You are as steady-going as a professional," he told her once.

To which she answered with her sad smile, "I served my probation in
the school of sorrow last year. I am only able to help her because I
know what it is to sit in ashes."

He patted her shoulder and called her a good girl. He was growing very
fond of her, and in his blunt, unflattering way he let her know it.

Certain it was that in those terrible days following her bereavement,
Daisy clung to her as she had never before clung to any one, scarcely
speaking to her, but mutely leaning upon her steadfast strength.

Muriel saw but little of Blake though he was never far away. He
wandered miserably about the house and garden, smoking endless
cigarettes, and invariably asking her with a piteous, dog-like
wistfulness whenever they met if there were nothing that he could do.
There never was anything, but she had not the heart to tell him
so, and she used to invent errands for him to make him happier. She
herself did not go beyond the garden for many days.

One evening, about three weeks after her baby's death, Daisy heard his
step on the gravel below her window and roused herself a little.

"Who is taking care of Blake?" she asked.

Muriel glanced down from where she sat at the great listless figure
nearing the house. "I think he is taking care of himself," she said.

"All alone?" said Daisy.

"Yes, dear."

Daisy uttered a sudden hard sigh. "You mustn't spend all your time
with me any longer," she said. "I have been very selfish. I forgot. Go
down to him, Muriel."

Muriel looked up, struck by something incomprehensible in her
tone. "You know I like to be with you," she said. "And of course he
understands."

But Daisy would not be satisfied. "That may be. But--but--I want you
to go to him. He is lonely, poor boy. I can hear it in his step. I
always know."

Wondering at her persistence, and somewhat reluctant, Muriel rose
to comply. As she was about to pass her, with a swift movement Daisy
caught her hand and drew her down.

"I want you--so--to be happy, dearest," she whispered, a quick note of
passion in her voice. "It's better for you--it's better for you--to
be together. I'm not going to monopolise you any longer. I will try
to come down to-morrow, if Jim will let me. It's hockey day, isn't it?
You must go and play as usual, you and he."

She was quivering with agitation as she pressed her lips to the girl's
cheek. Muriel would have embraced her, but she pushed her softly away.
"Go--go, dear," she insisted. "I wish it."

And Muriel went, seeing that she would not otherwise be pacified.

She found Blake depressed indeed, but genuinely pleased to see her,
and she walked in the garden with him in the soft spring twilight till
the dinner hour.

Just as they were about to go in, the postman appeared with foreign
letters for them both, which proved to be from Sir Reginald and Lady
Bassett.

The former had written briefly but very kindly to Grange, signifying
his consent to his engagement to his ward, and congratulating him upon
having won her. To Muriel he sent a fatherly message, telling her of
his pleasure at hearing of her happiness, and adding that he hoped she
would return to them in the following autumn to enable him to give her
away.

Grange put his arm round his young _fiancee_ as he read this passage
aloud, but she only stood motionless within it, not yielding to his
touch. It even seemed to him that she stiffened slightly. He looked at
her questioningly and saw that she was very pale.

"What is it?" he asked gently. "Will that be too soon for you?"

She met his eyes frankly, but with unmistakable distress. "I--I didn't
think it would be quite so soon, Blake," she faltered. "I don't want
to be married at present. Can't we go on as we are for a little? Shall
you mind?"

Blake's face wore a puzzled look, but it was wholly free from
resentment. He answered her immediately and reassuringly.

"Of course not, dear. It shall be just when you like. Why should you
be hurried?"

She gave him a smile of relief and gratitude, and he stooped and
kissed her forehead with a soothing tenderness that he might have
bestowed upon a child.

It was with some reluctance that she opened Lady Bassett's letter
in his presence, but she felt that she owed him this small mark of
confidence.

There was a strong aroma of attar of roses as she drew it from the
envelope, and she glanced at Grange with an expression of disgust.

"What is the matter?" he asked. "Nothing wrong, I hope?"

"It's only the scent," she explained, concealing a faint sense of
irritation.

He smiled. "Don't you like it? I thought all women did."

"My dear Blake!" she said, and shuddered.

The next minute she threw a sharp look over her shoulder, suddenly
assailed by an uncanny feeling that Nick was standing grimacing at
her elbow. She saw his features so clearly for the moment with his
own peculiarly hideous grimace upon them that she scarcely persuaded
herself that her fancy had tricked her. But there was nothing but the
twilight of the garden all around her, and Blake's huge bulk by her
side, and she promptly dismissed the illusion, not without a sense of
shame.

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