第37章

THE DOCTOR'S PRESCRIPTION

The Honourable Jane Champion stood on the summit of the Great Pyramid and looked around her.The four exhausted Arabs whose exertions, combined with her own activity, had placed her there, dropped in the picturesque attitudes into which an Arab falls by nature.They had hoisted the Honourable Jane's eleven stone ten from the bottom to the top in record time, and now lay around, proud of their achievement and sure of their "backsheesh."The whole thing had gone as if by clock-work.Two mahogany-coloured, finely proportioned fellows, in scanty white garments, sprang with the ease of antelopes to the top of a high step, turning to reach down eagerly and seize Jane's upstretched hands.One remained behind, unseen but indispensable, to lend timely aid at exactly the right moment.Then came the apparently impossible task for Jane, of placing the sole of her foot on the edge of a stone four feet above the one upon which she was standing.It seemed rather like stepping up on to the drawing-room mantelpiece.But encouraged by cries of "Eiwa! Eiwa!" she did it; when instantly a voice behind said, "Tyeb!" two voices above shouted, "Keteer!" the grip on her hands tightened, the Arab behind hoisted, and Jane had stepped up, with an ease which surprised herself.As a matter of fact, under those circumstances the impossible thing would have been not to have stepped up.

Arab number four was water-carrier, and offered water from a gourd at intervals; and once, when Jane had to cry halt for a few minutes'

breathing space, Schehati, handsomest of all, and leader of the enterprise, offered to recite English Shakespeare-poetry.This proved to be:

"Jack-an-Jill Went uppy hill, To fetchy paily water;Jack fell down-an Broke his crown-an Jill came tumbling after."Jane had laughed; and Schehati, encouraged by the success of his attempt to edify and amuse, used lines of the immortal nursery epic as signals for united action during the remainder of the climb.

Therefore Jane mounted one step to the fact that Jack fell down, and scaled the next to information as to the serious nature of his injuries, and at the third, Schehati, bending over, confidentially mentioned in her ear, while Ali shoved behind, that "Jill came tumbling after."The familiar words, heard under such novel circumstances, took on fresh meaning.Jane commenced speculating as to whether the downfall of Jack need necessarily have caused so complete a loss of self-control and equilibrium on the part of Jill.Would she not have proved her devotion better by bringing the mutual pail safely to the bottom of the hill, and there attending to the wounds of her fallen hero? Jane, in her time, had witnessed the tragic downfall of various delightful jacks, and had herself ministered tenderly to their broken crowns; for in each case the Jill had remained on the top of the hill, flirting with that objectionable person of the name of Horner, whose cool, calculating way of setting to work--so unlike poor Jack's headlong method--invariably secured him the plum; upon which he remarked "What a good boy am I!" and was usually taken at his own smug valuation.But Jane's entire sympathy on these occasions was with the defeated lover, and more than one Jack was now on his feet again, bravely facing life, because that kind hand had been held out to him as he lay in his valley of humiliation, and that comprehending sympathy had proved balm to his broken crown.

"Dickery, dickery, dock!" chanted Schehati solemnly, as he hauled again; "Moses ran up the clock.The clock struck 'one'--"THE CLOCK STRUCK "ONE"?--It was nearly three years since that night at Shenstone when the clock had struck "one," and Jane had arrived at her decision,--the decision which precipitated her Jack from his Pisgah of future promise.And yet--no.He had not fallen before the blow.He had taken it erect, and his light step had been even firmer than usual as he walked down the church and left her, after quietly and deliberately accepting her decision.It was Jane herself, left alone, who fell hopelessly over the pail.She shivered even now when she remembered how its icy waters drenched her heart.Ah, what would have happened if Garth had come back in answer to her cry during those first moments of intolerable suffering and loneliness? But Garth was not the sort of man who, when a door has been shut upon him, waits on the mat outside, hoping to be recalled.When she put him from her, and he realised that she meant it he passed completely out of her life.He was at the railway station by the time she reached the house, and from that day to this they had never met.

Garth evidently considered the avoidance of meetings to be his responsibility, and he never failed her in this.Once or twice she went on a visit to houses where she knew him to be staying.He always happened to have left that morning, if she arrived in time for luncheon; or by an early afternoon train, if she was due for tea.He never timed it so that there should be tragic passings of each other, with set faces, at the railway stations; or a formal word of greeting as she arrived and he departed,--just enough to awaken all the slumbering pain and set people wondering.Jane remembered with shame that this was the sort of picturesque tragedy she would have expected from Garth Dalmain.But the man who had surprised her by his dignified acquiescence in her decision, continued to surprise her by the strength with which he silently accepted it as final and kept out of her way.Jane had not probed the depth of the wound she had inflicted.