THE MASQUERADE AND ITS CONSEQUENCES
The masquerade, which came off this evening, is over. I have taken part
in it, and I am tired and bewildered; but I know I shall not be able to
rest until I have tried to recall and to understand what has happened.
So I have asked for a longer supply of light than usual, and I am
sitting alone in my cabin writing it all down.
As soon as the masquerade was arranged I determined on my disguise.
I would be an Indian of high rank. I consulted Chunder Singh, who
with the most obliging readiness entered into my project, undertaking
to dress and instruct me for the part. With this view we retired to
his cabin in the early part of the day. He happened to have in his
possession such a dress as Indian rajahs wear upon state occasions,
decked out with jewellery which appeared to be of great value. In
these he dressed me. Then he stained my face and hands a light brown,
deepened the colour of my hair and eyebrows, and wound a magnificent
turban round my brows. This done he began to show me the proper
gestures to use and speeches to make, I in the meantime watching him
closely, and trying to mould my behaviour on his. At first, so far as
I was concerned, it was a mere game; but presently I felt as though
an indescribable and mysterious change were coming upon me. I was not
copying him only--his mind was being reflected upon my mind. I was, in
fact, stepping out of my own individuality and into that of another.
I might have thought myself the victim of a curious illusion had it
not been that there was an answering change in Chunder Singh. For a
few moments I saw him stand as if paralysed, then a wonderful light
overspread his face, and with outstretched arms he came towards me
slowly, murmuring 'Brother! Brother!'
To the end of my days I shall remember the misery of that moment. I
retreated before Chunder Singh. I would copy his gestures no longer. I
took off the dress and sent him away. As soon as it was done, however,
I laughed at myself for my folly. What did my uneasiness mean? I was
the successor of a rajah and the inheritor of his wealth. If I could
play the part of a rajah, so much the better. When the evening came I
sent for Chunder Singh, and said that if he would forgive my abruptness
of the morning I would put on his dress again. I had told no one what
I intended to be; not even Mrs. Lyster. Why I made all this mystery I
can't exactly tell. It was partly, I think, to humour Chunder Singh.
I remember even pretending that I should not appear at all, not being
able to rig up a suitable dress. Only the first officer, to whom the
names were bound to be given in, was in possession of my secret.
I think, at the last moment, I should have drawn back, if it had not
been for Chunder Singh. As it was, almost everyone was out before I
could make up my mind to be presented. In the meantime the curious
change of the morning had come over me again, and I felt not so much
acting a part as living in it. That others shared my illusion was
evident from the puzzled faces of the little motley crowd, when I
appeared among them, and was presented in my turn to pretty Britannia,
under a high-sounding Indian title.
Gravely and reverently I made my salaam, and then stood aside. Colonel
Trent was close by, looking well as an Arab sheikh. He looked at me
scrutinisingly, and addressed me in Urdu. I had studied this dialect
with Chunder Singh; but I confess I was surprised by the readiness
with which I understood and answered the Colonel. We exchanged a few
more words, and then he turned away from me, and I heard him say to one
of the officers in English: 'I thought it was young Gregory; but I see
I am wrong. Who is it?'
The answer I did not catch.
And next I saw the light figure of my friend, Mrs. Lyster, who was
dressed as a gipsy, detaching itself out of a group, whose fortunes she
had been telling. There was an expression of mingled triumph and malice
in her face, which looked extraordinarily young, under its fantastic
head-dress. I saw that she expected to find her friend, Tom Gregory,
under the Indian prince's magnificent mask, and that she was jubilant
over her own penetration in detecting him. I think I wished her to find
me; but I could not help myself. For that hour I was the Indian rajah.
When Mrs. Lyster had received my profound reverence, and gazed for a
few moments speechlessly into my impassive face, the red colour flamed
to her cheeks, and she turned away. But the first officer, who knew me,
looked more bewildered than anyone else. Two or three times during the
evening I caught him taking up convenient posts for observing me; but
he did not seem to be able to satisfy himself. I happened to be near
him when Mrs. Lyster, who was really mortified by her failure to detect
me amongst the masqueraders, begged him to give up his secret.
'I promise not to make any use of it,' she said coaxingly.
'But I am bound, Mrs. Lyster,' he pleaded; 'and then, you know'--he was
looking straight into my face--'our friend, Mr. Tom, might be nearer
than we imagine. Think of his wrath if he heard me betraying him!'
'Nonsense; look for yourself. There is no one here,' said Mrs. Lyster.
'Except the rajah,' said the first officer, in a melodramatic whisper.
She started and glanced at me. 'What a turn you gave me!' she said
pettishly. 'As it happens I know all about him. He doesn't understand a
word of English.'
'Oh! doesn't he?' said the first officer, trying to tip me a wink, but
breaking down in the process.
'Now don't you pretend to be so innocent,' said Mrs. Lyster. 'I have
it all from the Captain. We took him on at Malta, and he has been
living in his cabin ever since, and Chunder Singh persuaded him to come
out in his warpaint and mystify us all. You see!' nodding her head
triumphantly. And she added in a lower voice, 'What a handsome fellow
he is! If it were possible really to like a native----'
But here, with a pang at my heart, I turned away, for I did not wish to
hear any more.
Shortly after this the deck-lights were extinguished, and the little
crowd of masqueraders went down to the saloon, where, over a champagne
supper, the Captain was to announce his award. And now came what,
to me, was the most curious part of it all. My name was called as
the winner of the prize; but I did not respond. Thereupon there was
a little explosion of laughter and ironical cheering; and Chunder
Singh, who had been sitting beside me, pushed me forward. With the
curious sensation of one awakened from a dream, I rose to my feet, said
something, I don't remember what, and received the congratulations of
my friends.
'You are a fine actor, my young friend,' said an old fellow near me. 'I
never saw a thing carried off so well. You might have been amongst the
darkies all your life.'
'I protest, I am not sure of him yet,' said another.
'Is he sure of himself?' This was from Mrs. Lyster, who sat exactly
opposite to me at the table. I noticed, with a little pang, that her
tone was chilly, and she looked at me with a gleam of something like
anger in her eyes--I am afraid she will not forgive me for having
disappointed her----
--My trick has produced consequences which I was far from expecting
when I planned it. All of my 'Patagonia' friends, with the exception
of Chunder Singh, who is almost irritatingly affectionate, have
been giving me the cold shoulder. The Captain and the first officer
are excessively busy whenever they catch sight of me. Colonel Trent
has chosen to adopt a short, reserved manner which prevents me from
addressing him much. Mrs. Lyster is politely cold, and several ladies,
who had condescended to be gracious to me, have quietly relegated me to
a much less intimate footing.
So far as these last are concerned I do not mind; but Mrs. Lyster and
I have been too friendly for me to be able to give her up without a
struggle. I asked her this morning how soon she meant to forgive me.
She answered hurriedly, but with a spice of resentment in her manner,
that she did not know what I meant; there was nothing to forgive, and
then, to avoid more questions, she left me abruptly. In the afternoon
she approached me of her own accord, and made an effort to be cordial;
but the effort was too apparent for me to be able to feel very grateful.
What is the meaning of it all? Can she, can any of them, imagine that
I am only playing the European? Mrs. Lyster cannot, for she knows all
about me. But even allowing that it were so, not that I am an Asiatic,
for that would be impossible, but that my sympathies reach out into the
land where the ideas which have measurelessly enriched the spiritual
heritage of the nations had their birth; nay, more, that some secret
tie of blood or mental kinship does actually bind my life to that of
the east--why should they, therefore, despise me? Ah! what a puzzle it
is! What a strange, inexplicable tangle! Who, who, will ever set it
right?
--This has been a busy week, for it has included our landing at
Alexandria, our day up the Nile, our night at Cairo, and our caravan
journey across the Desert to Suez, where we took ship again. It is
night now. I have just come down from the hurricane-deck, where I have
been talking to Chunder Singh. We are steaming quietly down the Gulf of
Suez, with the shores of Arabia and Egypt looking dim and ghostly in
the moonlight rising on either side of us.
My mind is full of the strange thing Chunder Singh has been telling
me. I was right in my original suspicion. He did, and does, take a
peculiar interest in me. It was for my sake that he came over to
England, and for my sake that he is returning; but he would not seek to
know me until I had bade my home friends farewell, and was launched,
as it were, on my new life. He was the intimate friend and counsellor
of my cousin, the rajah, who himself desired that he should make my
acquaintance in this way. Other of his servants and retainers are to
meet me in Bombay, and put themselves at my disposition.
This is, of course, rather startling news. I have scarcely realised
it yet; but in the meantime my feelings are mingled. On the one hand
I am thankful; I find it pleasant to know that I have been thought of
and provided for in the great new land, which will presently open out
before me. On the other I have a sensation of something like fear. It
is as if the new life were seizing me, drawing me in, as if I should
never again return to the old life, with all its sweet, homely ways.
No doubt this is merely a sentiment. I ought to be thankful, and I am,
that there is someone to whom I can speak of the future, and who, for
the sake of those who have gone before me, as well as for my own sake,
will advise and guide me.
One of the principal events of this week is that I have made a new
friend. My friend is a little girl about seven years of age, though she
looks much younger. She has white skin, just touched here and there
with the daintiest rose-colour, tiny bewitching features, yellow hair
soft as spun silk, and grey eyes that have a curiously pathetic look
in them. In figure she is the lightest, airiest little creature; such
perfect hands and feet, and so ridiculously small. Light as she is, I
wonder sometimes that those feet can bear the weight of her. She trots
about the deck in pink shoes that are like fairy's slippers--the most
absurdly beautiful things! One of them fell off the other day, and she
came to me to have it put on, and I never had such a difficult task in
all my life.
It is only since the masquerade that Aglaia, who is quite a little
queen in her ways, has deigned to take any notice of me. Before that
she would not respond to my advances at all; now she is more friendly
to me than to anyone else.
Her languid, sickly mother, who I do believe is taking the child out
to India because she lacks energy and resolution to leave her behind,
is only too glad of what she calls, no doubt, the child's infatuation,
so that Aglaia is my constant companion. She is never in the way,
dear little soul! flashing in and out of my cabin, carrying me off to
the other end of the ship, where there is much more amusement for her
than on the quarter-deck, sitting by gravely while Chunder Singh and I
have what she calls our lessons, and falling asleep with her two dear
little hands in one of mine, and her yellow head nestling up against
my shoulder; she is always the same gentle, delightful little being.
'I love you,' she whispered to-night, just before her eyelids closed.
I had been called in 'to help her,' to use her own expression, 'to go
to sleep.' 'Don't go away ever!' I wish I could keep you, my little
darling!
--It has been very hot lately, and some of us have slept on deck. I
did so last night for the first time. Before I went to bed Chunder
Singh had been talking to me on the ancient philosophies and religions
of the East. The last subject we discussed was the old doctrine of
metempsychosis, in which he is a profound believer. As I fell asleep
under the stars I seemed to be listening to an argument respecting it.
'Why should it not be?' said a voice.
'There is no evidence,' said another.
'Is there evidence for anything spiritual?' said the first.
'For this there would be. Show me one with memory of a past!' persisted
the second.
A mocking laugh floated through the air. Then the voice I had first
heard spoke again. 'Come with me, sceptic,' it said, 'and I will show
you.'
In the next moment I found myself in Aglaia's cabin. There lay my
darling wide awake in her berth, her yellow hair tossed back upon her
pillow, and her large grey eyes looking up into mine sorrowfully.
'Are those the eyes of a child?' said the first voice.
I turned and fled.
And next I was in a large church full of gaily-dressed people. A
newly-wedded pair were moving slowly down the aisle to the music of a
triumphant march. Suddenly the bridegroom vanished, and the bride stood
alone. Wondering what this might mean I looked into her face and I knew
it. The eyes, glittering with a fierce light which held mine, were
those of Vivien Leigh.
It seemed to me then that the blood ran cold through my veins as I
heard the mocking voice say:
'Are those the eyes of a woman?'
'A woman! A tigress!' I murmured.
The shock passed. I was on the ship again, lying out upon the deck,
and a face, beautiful with tenderness, was stooping over me. 'Grace!'
I cried, but the shadowy form eluded me. Then I heard a voice--_her_
voice--'Not Grace,' it said, 'Aglaia.'
'No, no,' I cried out piteously.
'Hush!' whispered the dear voice. 'She is lost, poor little creature!
But be patient. I am coming down to help her presently.'
Here the voice died away, and while I was straining my ears to catch it
I felt myself touched.
It was a real sensation this time, for my little friend Aglaia was
at my elbow. She was in a white robe daintily trimmed with lace that
went down to her tiny bare feet, and her pretty yellow hair was all
ruffled with the wind. 'Look!' she said, pointing to the east. I obeyed
her, and oh! what a spectacle it was. For while we had slept the
rosy-fingered dawn, descending, had opened the windows of heaven.
Lost in rapture I was gazing in, when my little friend's small,
plaintive voice recalled me to the earth.
'Aglaia is cold,' it said. 'Carry her.'
I stooped, wrapped her from head to foot in my plaidie, and took her up
in my arms, whereupon she laughed out joyfully.
'That's nice,' she said. 'I'm glad you're so big. Let me look at
heaven, and then I'll go down to mammy.'