through, for it was Pelham who made the marriage possible. Darrell
could do nothing but gaze into Elizabeth’s beautiful black eyes, and if
Pelham would have let him, would have spent all the money necessary for
their first–class passage to India in buying bouquets for Elizabeth.
Between Richard Baskerville, already known as one of the cleverest
young lawyers in Washington, and Pelham a sincere friendship sprang up,
as the two men were alike in many respects.
On a bright, sunny day in February, Elizabeth Brandon became the wife
of Jack Darrell. The wedding took place at a little suburban church
where the seats were cheap enough for General Brandon, who was a strong
churchman, to afford seats for two. There were neither bridesmaids
nor groomsmen, nor any of the showy paraphernalia of a smart wedding.
Elizabeth, as much in love as she was, yet felt too much the coming
parting from her father to make her wedding a merry one; it was,
rather, sad, as are many of the sweetest things in life. Pelham was
best man, and the Ambassador, who had good–naturedly helped the matter
along, was present. Also there were half a dozen fossils, old comrades
and Virginia relations of the Brandons. Richard Baskerville and Mrs.
Luttrell were there, and the society newspapers described Mrs. Luttrell
as wearing a superb black–velvet gown and a magnificent ermine cape.
Mrs. Luttrell’s black–velvet gown and ermine cape were a uniform which
she had worn for the last forty years, replacing each velvet gown and
ermine cape, as fast as they wore out, with new ones.
Her carriage took the bride and her father to the church, the
bridegroom and his best man having preceded them in a cab. Elizabeth,
in her simple white wedding gown, with magnificent old lace and her
grandmother’s pearls, made an exquisite bride, and Darrell looked
every inch a soldier in his scarlet tunic. It was a wedding where love
and honor presided, yet Pelham’s heart was heavy at what might be the
outcome.
There was a simple wedding breakfast at Elizabeth’s home, where were
assembled a few persons, some of them, like the Ambassador and a
couple of cabinet officers, sufficiently important to have delighted
the newly rich to have secured as guests, and others, like the old
comrades and the decayed Virginia relatives, so unimportant that the
newly rich would not have touched them with a ten–foot pole. The
bride’s health was drunk in cheap champagne. When she departed in her
travelling gown for her two days’ wedding trip before sailing on that
other tremendous journey to India, tears were in the eyes of most
present, but General Brandon was dry–eyed and smiling. When he had
bidden the last guest farewell and turned into his lonely home, which
had that strange look of emptiness that follows a wedding or a funeral,
Pelham returned with him.
General Brandon, seeing the sympathy in the eyes of Pelham, who had his
own heartache, laid both hands on his shoulders and said, “My dear sir,
believe me, I am at this moment a perfectly happy and delighted man,”
and then suddenly wept like a child.
Pelham spent the next two days comforting and uplifting General
Brandon, and felt himself comforted and uplifted by association with
such a man. He said earnestly, at parting with the General: “Believe
me, your daughter has the best of friends as well as husbands in
Darrell, but she shall never want a friend as long as I live. India
is a treacherous place to men who are out in the hot sun, and life is
held there by a very uncertain tenure. So your daughter may survive us
both; but as long as either one of us is alive, she shall be as well
protected as if she were in your house.”
Two days after the wedding Pelham saw Elizabeth on the deck of the
steamer which was to carry them to Havre. Her first words were, “How is
my father?” and despite the deep glow of happiness which radiated from
her soul through her eyes, she could not speak of him without tears.
Nor did she at any time show any forgetfulness of him. She wrote him
every day, and posted her letters at every stopping–place on that long
journey to India.
Travelling makes people as well acquainted as marriage does, and by the
time Captain and Mrs. Darrell and Pelham reached Marseilles, Pelham
knew Elizabeth quite as well as Darrell did, and understood her far
better. It was a delightful but saddening joy to Pelham when he found
Elizabeth soon turning to him, rather than to Darrell, to answer her
intelligent questions. In fact, Darrell himself, when she asked him,
would say, “Pelham will tell you; he knows a lot more about those old
classic beggars and Greek cads and ruffians than I do.” Elizabeth still
found Darrell the most charming man in the world.
It was at Marseilles on a late afternoon in early March that Darrell
said this to Elizabeth. The three were sitting at a table on the
terrace of a café overlooking the old harbor, with its crumbling Vauban
forts. The ships’ lights were twinkling against the dark blue of the
water and the darker blue of the sky, while afar off they could see
faintly the outline of the Château d’If, where Monte Cristo learned his
language of the Abbé. Pelham had been telling Elizabeth the story of
the city. The ancient Massilia, inhabited by a people whose talk was
not, as the old Greek wrote, of seed–time or ploughing or harvest, but
of
“Mast and helm and oar–bench,
And the stately ships wherein
They have all joy and pleasure
O’er the wet sea way to win.”
Elizabeth, with the keen delight of a mind newly awakened to books and
travel, was capable of enjoying both. Her childhood and first girlhood
had been spent in a secluded country house, where the books were few
and old and of little value. The two or three years she had spent in
Washington since her father’s return from Egypt, enriched only by
his Egyptian bonds, had not been of a sort to develop her mind. They
had chiefly been spent in dancing and flirting; but Elizabeth, with
the Southern girl’s inevitable tendency both to dance and flirt, had
that which often goes with it, a depth of intelligence and a serious
understanding. It was a like seriousness of understanding in Pelham
which attracted her so powerfully. Darrell, whom she still thought, and
was to think for some time to come, the most charming man in the world,
was never serious about anything except dogs and horses and Elizabeth.
He took everything easily, especially life and death, and would have
ridden up to a roaring battery or into any other of the many mouths
of hell with a smile upon his lips. He did not quite understand why
Elizabeth, in the midst of her bridal joy, often shed tears for her
father, and although never showing the least impatience at it, or aught
but the tenderest kindness, wondered why she should want anybody but
him, as he wanted no one but her.
He was, like many men of his kind, perfectly modest, too high–minded
if not too large–minded for jealousy, and thought it the most natural
thing in the world that Elizabeth should turn to Pelham for sympathy
and information, as Darrell himself had always done. At this moment
he was very much interested in Pelham’s account of the ancient tunny
fisheries, as they had just had among their _hors–d’œuvres_ dried
tunny fish, as well as their bouillabaisse. Elizabeth knew something
of the man of yesterday who had made bouillabaisse immortal, but
Darrell was surprised to hear that Thackeray had ever written verse.
Pelham, sitting next Elizabeth and, although habitually a silent man,
doing most of the talking, began to wonder sadly how long it would be
before Elizabeth became desperately bored by her lover husband. No
such thought entered Elizabeth’s mind; she only deemed herself twice
fortunate in having the companionship of such a friend as Pelham as
well as the love of her hero husband Darrell.
Next morning they sailed through Suez for Bombay. Elizabeth proved a
good sailor and spent most of her waking hours on deck. Darrell lay
back in his steamer chair and smoked, being quite satisfied with the
spectacle of his charming Elizabeth tripping up and down the deck and
talking with Pelham. The other passengers were not quite certain at
first whose wife she was.
As they sailed over the blue Mediterranean, it was Pelham who told
Elizabeth when they would come in sight of Stromboli; and it was on
his arm that she watched before daybreak a great, pallid moon sinking
into the black world of waters on the west, while on the east the dun
sky, across which fled great ragged masses of dark clouds, was lighted
by the vast torches of Stromboli waving like a blazing head of Medusa.
Meanwhile Darrell was sound asleep in his berth. It would have taken
more than ten Strombolis to have gotten him up on deck at that hour.
But a gun, a dog, or a fishing–rod would have kept him up all night
and made him as alert and watchful as if his life depended upon the
issue. It was Pelham who showed to Elizabeth the sickle–shaped port
of Messina, and told her of the ancient coins of the city, which bore
a sickle upon them. And together, as they sailed along the desolate
shores of Crete, they followed the itinerary of Paul of Tarsus.
When the ship made its slow way through the Canal to Suez, Darrell
was roused to study it from the aspect of a military man. But it was
Pelham, who had more military science in his ugly head than Darrell
had in his whole handsome young body, who watched with Elizabeth the
red flamingoes rising from amid the tamarisk trees. Once out of the
Canal, Darrell again resumed his life of smoking, sleeping, eating, and
adoring Elizabeth; but Elizabeth, who was being educated by Pelham,
listened with the eagerness of an intelligent child to Pelham’s stories
of those historic lands whose bleak, black–scarred, and rocky shores
border the Red Sea. He told her of those strange Mohammedan people
who inhabit this country, where nature is as fierce as man, and where
“Allah is God of the great deserts,” as Pierre Loti says,—those people
in whom Islam is incarnate. Together Elizabeth and Pelham watched the
passage around Bab–el–Mandeb, the “Gate of tears.”
At last, on a hot, bright morning, they landed at Bombay, the great
busy, dirty city, and after a week’s travel by night and day they
finished their journey at Embira, in one of the remotest depths of
the Punjab. Elizabeth had travelled far and fast, since that January
night when both Pelham and Darrell had searched for the little pearl
heart, dropped from around her milk–white throat; but she had travelled
farther and faster than she knew.
_Chapter Three_
Embira was like most second and third rate Indian stations, neither
better or worse. There were a dirty native city, where plague and
famine alternated; a river that was either a rushing torrent or as
dry as a bone; and cantonments which had seen little change since the
Mutiny. A battalion of Pelham and Darrell’s regiment was stationed
there, with large detachments of artillery and cavalry.
The only remarkable thing about the station was that, although it was
very far from being garrisoned by any part of a crack regiment, the
social status of the officers and their wives appeared to be almost
on a level with that of the household troops. The wife of the Colonel
commanding was the niece of an Earl besides being the commanding
officer of the C. O. There were a couple of titled women among the
officers’ wives, and no less than two subalterns would inherit
baronetcies. Neither Pelham nor Darrell stood any chance of inheriting
his grandfather’s title, nor did there seem much more possibility of
Darrell’s inheriting the problematical fortune which was the staple
joke between Pelham and himself.
Darrell, who would have been classed as a detrimental in London, was
of the sort to be adored by the young ladies of the post; and his
appearance with a bride, and that with scarcely a day’s warning, was
both a slight and a grievance to the ladies of Embira. And an American
wife, too! It was the aim and object of the ladies to maintain the
social tone of the regiment, of which they were enormously proud, and
here was Darrell, the grandson of a peer, introducing a person among
them whom it was taken for granted he had met in the wilds of the Rocky
Mountains near Philadelphia, or who was perhaps a miner’s daughter in
the vicinity of Boston.
It was in this critical and even hostile circle that Elizabeth made her
first appearance, three days after her arrival at Embira. It was on
the occasion of the regimental sports, which were rendered brilliant
by the presence of a large party of visitors from England, including
the noble Earl who was uncle to the C. O.’s wife, a commissioner who
had brought his own new wife on purpose to eclipse the pretty wife of
the deputy–commissioner, and a vice–regal aide–de–camp,—all together a
brilliant party for a remote Indian station.
The afternoon was hot and bright, but the gardens which were reserved
for tea and flirtations were still unparched and the white polo grounds
adjoining were not as yet dust blinded. When Elizabeth, at five o’clock
in the afternoon, appeared dressed for the occasion, on the veranda
of their quarters, Darrell surveyed her with pride and pleasure, not
unmixed with apprehension. She looked, it is true, exquisitely charming
in her pale green muslin, her rose–crowned hat, her white parasol, and
with her little, black, silver–buckled shoes, a model of daintiness
to the eyes of the Englishmen. But Darrell also felt some anxiety; he
suspected that she would be coldly received by the unkind women and
patronized by the kind ones, and he feared that Elizabeth might be as
crushed by both as an English girl might have been. Pelham, on the
contrary, who understood Elizabeth far better than her husband did and
felt even a deeper pride in her as his silent adoration for her had
grown deep and strong, felt not the slightest fear. Elizabeth was in
manner and bearing, as well as in beauty, far above the most patrician
woman at the station. Every other woman except herself realized and
recognized that there was some one above her in station, she was of
necessity the social inferior of somebody. Not so with Elizabeth. As
an American woman of good birth, she had never seen or heard of any
one who was above her, and would have been perfectly at her ease with
royalty itself. The admiring glances and compliments of Pelham and
Darrell flattered Elizabeth and brought the wild–rose color to her
creamy cheeks; and with the consciousness of looking her best, she
entered the gardens with her husband walking on one side of her and
Pelham on the other, and was duly presented to the Colonel’s lady.
There is perhaps nowhere in the world that the inability of
Englishwomen to dress well and their total subjection to their
dressmakers are so obvious as in India. There the woollen gowns which
look well on an autumn day among the Scotch hills, and the tailor–made
dresses which are suited for Regent Street on a dull morning, the
elaborate silks and laces which are fit for London drawing–rooms and
theatres, are worn with a serene unconsciousness of unfitness. On this
hot afternoon the ladies of Embira had put on their best,—that is to
say, their worst clothes as far as unsuitability went. Hats bristling
with feathers, large white boas, rustling silks, and gorgeous parasols
made the gardens bright, but made the wearers look half–baked. Among
these came Elizabeth’s delicate green muslin and airy lightness of
attire. The men, on looking at her, felt as if they had just had an
iced drink. The ladies saw that she had accomplished something quite
beyond them in the way of dress, which, as Darrell half feared, made
the unkind determine to be more icy to her and the kind even more
patronizing.
The Colonel’s lady, a vast person in purple silk and a collection
of diamond ornaments which made her appear as if covered with a
breastplate of jewels, was one of the latter kind. She greeted
Elizabeth as if she were a fifteen–year–old schoolgirl who must needs
be awed by all she saw around her. Elizabeth, who knew well the
cosmopolitan society of Washington and was accustomed to see power and
importance classed together, was in no way terrified; nor was she even
astonished when the Earl, a shabby person who had a turbulent wife
whom he was very glad to leave at home, asked to be introduced to Mrs.
Darrell.
The Colonel’s wife, who had spent the whole time of her uncle’s visit
trying to induce him to be introduced to people against his will, was
staggered, but promptly agreed to his proposition. She whispered his
name and rank in Elizabeth’s ear and advanced a step or two towards the
Earl, but Elizabeth quite unconsciously stood perfectly still and had
the Earl brought to her to be introduced, receiving him exactly as she
would have done some of the numerous pleasant elderly gentlemen whom
she had met in Washington. The Earl, who was not without humor, saw
the look of amazement on the face of the Colonel’s lady at Elizabeth’s
calm attitude and secretly enjoyed the situation. He was an easy–going
person who had but one requirement on the face of the earth, and that
was to be perpetually amused and entertained. And this one requirement
of his soul was amply satisfied by the charming young American girl.
She was not in the least like most of the American girls he had
known and met in England, who were usually the daughters of retired
tradesmen and rather poor imitations of Lady Clara Vere de Vere. The
Earl, however, much to his chagrin was not allowed to have Elizabeth
all to himself and was compelled to share her society with a couple of
impudent subalterns, who in the pursuit of a pretty face and a dainty
foot feared neither man nor devil.
This was only the beginning of an afternoon of triumph for Elizabeth, a
triumph which she enjoyed without appreciating its true significance.
She had the enormous advantage of being distinctly different from the
women around her, and of having the perfect ease which comes from the
feeling of perfect equality. She was perhaps the best–born woman of all
those present, reckoning good birth to mean many generations of people
at the top of the ladder. Ever since the first Brandon, a decayed
gentleman, had set foot on American soil in the days of Charles I., the
Brandons had been in the front rank, with none better than themselves.
The Earl himself had a great–grandmother who began life as a milliner’s
apprentice and thence progressed to the London stage. But Elizabeth’s
great–grandmothers were all of the Brahmin caste in her own country.
The ancestry of the titles in the regiment went back only as far as
the early part of the eighteenth century, while Elizabeth’s ancestors
had behind them already some hundreds of years as gentle people,
before their advent into the new country. It was that perhaps which
gave Elizabeth the patrician nose and her delicate hands and feet, and
it certainly gave her that perfect composure of manner which, unlike
Lady Clara Vere de Vere’s icy stateliness, could not be successfully
imitated by any parvenu who ever walked the earth.
Darrell was secretly delighted at the admiration which Elizabeth
excited. He had not felt so great a sensation of triumph since he had
introduced into the regimental mess a certain Irish setter with a
pedigree which could be proved back to the time of Queen Elizabeth.
Pelham, who would have been a favorite among the ladies had he allowed
it, saw everything out of the tail of his eye and was rather sorry when
he saw the drift of men towards Elizabeth. When the trio returned to
Darrell’s quarters through the soft Indian twilight, Darrell was openly
elated and Elizabeth secretly so, but Pelham felt that Elizabeth’s
course lay in dangerous waters.
And Pelham was right. Englishwomen have their charms and their virtues,
both of which are great and admirable, but they have no sense of
comradeship. Elizabeth was to them an alien, but instead of appealing
to their sympathies, they saw her without effort easily become the
acknowledged belle of the regiment. There was little in common beyond
the mere formal exchange of courtesies between herself and even those
women and girls at the station who wished to be kind to her. She had no
accomplishments in the usual sense. She neither played, nor sang, nor
drew, nor painted, either on china, fans, screens, or picture frames,
nor could she do anything in water colors. She had no taste for games,
and would not take the trouble even to play tennis. She disliked cards
and would not play bridge, nor was she in any sense the athletic woman
and had no tales of prowess to tell of tremendous mountain walks or
long excursions on horseback. She rode well in a graceful, untaught
manner which improved distinctly under Darrell’s masterly coaching,
but she did not give up her days to it as did some of the girls with
statuesque figures who looked their best on horseback.
The ladies wondered how Mrs. Darrell disposed of her time. If they
could have taken a look into Elizabeth’s own sitting room, they would
have seen a big sewing–table; and the beautiful and dainty gowns which
from time to time Mrs. Darrell appeared in, and the immense variety of
hats which caused the other women to think that she was squandering
her husband’s substance, came forth from that sewing room. Instead
of drawing trashy pictures and embroidering mats and picture frames,
Elizabeth with an artist’s eye designed and made beautiful little
costumes which looked as if they came from Regent Street or the Rue de
la Paix. Her housekeeping, too, was well attended to, and the little
dinners which she occasionally gave were remarkably good. Her mind
had not been much cultivated, but under Pelham’s direction she learned
with avidity—much to the amusement of Darrell, who protested against
a learned wife and predicted that Elizabeth would soon be writing a
novel or doing some other unholy thing likely to result from women who
meddled with books.
Meanwhile Elizabeth’s belle–ship in the regiment became firmly
established. Her charming appearance and her graceful and affable
manners with men, the subtle way she had of making every man believe
that he was her favorite, went farther with the officers of the 178th
Foot than the sketching, painting, playing, and singing of the other
women. Her manners had that fascinating combination known only to
American women, and possibly the secret of their ascendency over men,
of something between an appeal and a command; it was like the rule of a
favorite and delightful child in a household. It may be imagined that
this did not enhance Elizabeth’s popularity with her own sex.
Elizabeth wondered and was piqued at the coldness of the women towards
her. She made faint, ineffectual attempts at intimacy with the
Colonel’s daughters and the wives of various subalterns, but it was of
no avail. She was the daughter of the regiment as far as the officers
were concerned, but by no means a sister of the regiment to the ladies.
Pelham was surprised that the tongue of scandal passed her by, but with
innocence on Elizabeth’s part, and a couple of able–bodied men like
Pelham and Darrell to stand by her, the gossips found it safe to let
Mrs. Darrell alone.
Elizabeth was for a time quite happy in her new life, her only sorrow
being the separation from her father. She wrote him passionate
letters imploring him to come to see her; but it costs money to get
from Washington to Embira in the Punjaub, and General Brandon was
chronically hard up. And so her life moved on, almost as closely linked
with Pelham’s as with Darrell’s, for two years. It was, however, moving
in a direction which Elizabeth only dimly foresaw and understood. By
Pelham’s tact and judgment rather than her own there never was a breath
of scandal concerning their deep and obvious intimacy. Pelham was a man
to be feared as well as respected, and such people are tolerably safe
from criticism.