_ PART II CHAPTER VIII. COMRADES
The jingling notes of a piano playing an air from a comic opera floated cheerily forth into the magic silence of the Simla pines, and abruptly, almost spasmodically, a cracked voice began to sing. It was a sentimental ditty treated jocosely, and its frivolity rippled out into the mid-day silence with something of the effect of a monkey's chatter. The _khitmutgar_ on the verandah would have looked scandalised or at best contemptuous had it not been his role to express nothing but the dignified humility of the native servant. He was waiting for his mistress to come out of the nursery where her voice could be heard talking imperiously to her baby's _ayah_. He had already waited some minutes, and he would probably have waited much longer, for his patience was inexhaustible, had it not been for that sudden irresponsible and wholly tuneless burst of song. But the second line was scarcely ended before she came hurriedly forth, nearly running into his stately person in her haste.
"Oh, dear, Sammy!" she exclaimed with some annoyance. "Why didn't you tell me Captain Ratcliffe was here?"
She hastened past him along the verandah with the words, not troubling about his explanation, and entered the room whence the music proceeded at a run.
"My dear Nick," she cried impulsively, "I had no idea!"
The music ceased in a jangle of wrong notes, and Nick sprang to his feet, his yellow face wearing a grin of irrepressible gaiety.
"So I gathered, O elect lady," he rejoined, seizing her outstretched hands and kissing first one and then the other. "And I took the first method that presented itself of making myself known. So they beguiled you to Simla, after all?"
"Yes, I had to come for my baby's sake. They thought at first it would have to be home and no compromise. I'm longing to show him to you, Nick. Only six months, and such a pet already! But tell me about yourself. I am sure you have come off the sick list too soon. You look as if you had come straight from a lengthy stay with the _bandar-log_."
"_Tu quoque!_" laughed Nick. "And with far less excuse. Only you manage to look charming notwithstanding, which is beyond me. Do you know, Mrs. Musgrave, you don't do justice to the compromise? I should be furious with you if I were Will."
Mrs. Musgrave frowned at him. She was a very pretty woman, possessing a dainty and not wholly unconscious charm. "Tell me about yourself, Nick," she commanded. "And don't be ridiculous. You can't possibly judge impartially on that head, as you haven't the smallest idea as to how ill I have been. I am having a rest cure now, you must know, and I don't go anywhere; or I should have come to see you in hospital."
"Good thing you didn't take the trouble," said Nick. "I've been sleeping for the last three weeks, and I am only just awake."
Mrs. Musgrave looked at him with a very friendly smile. "Poor Nick!" she said. "And Wara was relieved after all."
He jerked up his shoulders. "After a fashion. Grange was the only white man left, and he hadn't touched food for three days. If Muriel Roscoe had stayed, she would have been dead before Bassett got anywhere near them. There are times when the very fact of suffering actively keeps people alive. It was that with her."
He spoke briefly, almost harshly, and immediately turned from the subject. "I suppose you were very anxious about your cousin?"
"Poor Blake Grange? Of course I was. But I was anxious--horribly anxious--about you all." There was a quiver of deep feeling in Mrs. Musgrave's voice.
"Thank you," said Nick. He reached out a skeleton finger and laid it on her arm. "I thought you would be feeling soft-hearted, so I have come to ask you a favour. Not that I shouldn't have come in any case, but it seemed a suitable moment to choose."
Mrs. Musgrave laughed a little. "Have you ever found me anything but kind?" she questioned.
"Never," said Nick. "You're the best pal I ever had, which is the exact reason for my coming here to-day. Mrs. Musgrave, I want you to be awfully good to Muriel Roscoe. She needs some one to help her along just now."
Mrs. Musgrave opened her eyes wide, but she said nothing at once, for Nick had sprung to his feet and was restlessly pacing the room.
"Come back, Nick," she said at last. "Tell me a little about her. We have never met, you know. And why do you ask this of me when she is in Lady Bassett's care?"
"Lady Bassett!" said Nick. He made a hideous grimace, and said no more.
Mrs. Musgrave laughed. "How eloquent! Do you hate her, too, then? I thought all men worshipped at that shrine."
Nick came back and sat down. "I nearly killed her once," he said.
"What a pity you didn't quite!" ejaculated Mrs. Musgrave.
Nick grinned. "Sits the wind in that quarter? I wonder why."
"Oh, I hate her by instinct," declared Mrs. Musgrave recklessly, "though her scented notes to me always begin, 'Dearest Daisy'! She always disapproved of me openly till baby came. But she has found another niche for me now. I am not supposed to be so fascinating as I was. She prefers unattractive women."
"Gracious heaven!" interjected Nick.
"Yes, you may laugh. I do myself." Daisy Musgrave spoke almost fiercely notwithstanding. "She's years older than I am anyhow, and I shall score some day if I don't now. Have you ever watched her dance? There's a sort of snaky, coiling movement runs up her whole body. Goodness!" breaking off abruptly. "I'm getting venomous myself. I had better stop before I frighten you away."
"Oh, don't mind me!" laughed Nick. "No one knows better than I that she is made to twist all ways. She hates me as a cobra hates a mongoose."
"Really?" Daisy Musgrave was keenly interested. "But why?"
He shook his head. "You had better ask Lady Bassett. It may be because I had the misfortune to set fire to her once. It is true I extinguished her afterwards, but I don't think she enjoyed it. It was a humiliating process. Besides, it spoilt her dress."
"But she is always so gracious to you," protested Daisy.
"Honey-sweet. That's exactly how I know her cobra feelings. And that brings me round to Muriel Roscoe again, and the favour I have to ask."
Daisy shot him a sudden shrewd glance. "Do you want to marry her?" she asked him point blank.
Nick's colourless eyebrows went up till they nearly met his colourless hair. "Dearest Daisy," he said, "you are a genius. I mean to do that very thing."
Daisy got up and softly closed the window. "Surely she is very young," she said. "Is she in love with you?"
She did not turn at the sound of his laugh. She had almost expected it. For she knew Nick Ratcliffe as very few knew him. The bond of sympathy between them was very strong.
"Can you imagine any girl falling in love with me?" he asked.
"Of course I can. You are not so unique as that. There isn't a man in the universe that some woman couldn't be fool enough to love."
"Many thanks!" said Nick. "Then--I may count upon your support, may I? I know Lady Bassett will put a spoke in my wheel if she can. But I have Sir Reginald's consent. He is Muriel's guardian, you know. Also, I had her father's approval in the first place. It has got to be soon, you see, Daisy. The present state of affairs is unbearable. She will be miserable with Lady Bassett."
Daisy still stood with her back to him. She was fidgeting with the blind-cord, her pretty face very serious.
"I am not sure," she said slowly, "that it lies in my power to help you. Of course I am willing to do my best, because, as you say, we are pals. But, Nick, she is very young. And if--if she really doesn't love you, you mustn't ask me to persuade her."
Nick sprang up impulsively. "Oh, but you don't understand," he said quickly. "She would be happy enough with me. I would see to that. I--I would be awfully good to her, Daisy."
She turned swiftly at the unwonted quiver in his voice. "My dear Nick," she said earnestly, "I am sure of it. You could make any woman who loved you happy. But no one--no one--knows the misery that may result from a marriage without love on both sides--except those who have made one."
There was something almost passionate in her utterance. But she turned if off quickly with a smile and a friendly hand upon his arm.
"Come," she said lightly. "I want to show you my boy. I left him almost in tears. But he always smiles when he sees his mother."
"Who doesn't?" said Nick gallantly, following her lead. _