Naturally enough George overslept himself. Naturally also he woke to
feel himself hustled and bustled, for he was due to meet the incoming
camp at the borders of his district at a certain hour; a feeling he
proceeded to vent on the factotum for being late with the early tea
which that worthy had had carried over from the bungalow in an odd
little procession, tailing off to some of the large-eyed village lads
and lasses learning betimes the customs of their rulers. In addition,
George had promised Mrs. Boynton an answer about the Ayodhya pot, and
now, even by hurrying, which he loathed, he could scarcely find time to
seek Azizan in the old place. Still he did hurry, and leaving the camel
which he was to ride gurgling in the courtyard, wasted five minutes in
tramping up and down the flags in front of the mosque; finally, in
vexation, returning by the short cut through the bazaar. In these early
hours it had a deserted, yet still dissipated air, the few loungers
looking as if they had been up all night. Only the quails challenged
cheerfully from their shrouded cages. In the arched causeway, however,
he came on Dalel Beg, most offensively European in costume and manner;
for he too was bound on reception-duty.
'Aha! Keene, old chappie,' he began with a leer, 'you sleep well after
burra-khana (big dinner) with the mem. By Jove, you keep it up late.'
George could scarcely refrain from kicking him then and there. But the
thought that these people had possibly put their own construction on
his absence from the palace made him feel hot and cold with rage and
regret. To avoid the subject--the only course open to him--he hastily
held out the Ayodhya pot which he was carrying, and asked the Mirza if
he had any idea to whom it belonged.
Now the Mirza's oblique eyes had been on it from the first; but at the
question they narrowed to mere slits of compressed cunning.
'Ah, so! very good. I know. Yes, yes! it belong to you, Keene, of
course. Bah! it is worth nothing. I hate old trumpery matters. You are
very welcome.'
'You mistake, sahib,' retorted George haughtily, 'this does not, did
not belong to your grandfather; it belongs to an old woman who lives
near the palace. She promised to sell it to me, and now I'm rather in a
hurry to complete the bargain. Mem Boynton sahiba wants it, and they
leave to-morrow or next day.'
Dalel Beg, who had been turning the pot over and over in his hand,
laughed.
'So you say it is another----'
'Certainly it is another,' interrupted George, annoyed beyond measure
by his manner; 'it belongs, as I said, to an old woman. She has a
daughter called Azizan----' he paused, doubtful of putting Dalel on any
woman's track.
'Azizan!'--the Mirza signed his attendants to fall back with unwonted
decision before he went on,--'Azizan! tell me, Keene, a young girl?
with eyes of light like potter's?'
Evidently he knew something of, and was interested in, the girl, and
George, now that it was too late, regretted having mentioned her name.
'Can't wait any longer now, I'm afraid,' he replied, glad of the
excuse; 'just send one of your fellows up to my quarters with the pot,
will you? Thanks, I've no time to lose.'
Left thus cavalierly, Dalel Beg scowled after the young Englishman;
then with a compendious oath turned back to the side door whence he had
emerged, and, stumbling in his anger up the dark stairs, appeared again
in Chandni's presence. He almost flung the pot beside her as she lay
curled up on her bed, and then, driven to words by her arrogant silence
began a volley of furious questions.
What mischief had the woman been up to? How came it that the English
cub had seen Azizan? Azizan, who after all was his half-sister, one of
the race, though they did keep her out of his sight. And that oaf, that
infidel---- His wrath was real, for beneath the veneer of modern
thought the fierce jealousy of the Moghul lay strong as ever.
Chandni gave a jeering laugh, 'Thou art too handsome for the maidens, O
Dalel; too wicked also even for the race. Thou needest one like me to
keep thee straight. Lo! there is nothing to know, nothing to tell.
Hadst asked last night, the answer might have been other. I set a snare
and it failed; for thou wert right--the boy is no boy, but a milksop.
May fate send him death and us a black man in his place, else I stop
not here!'
Her jingling feet struck the ground with a clash and she yawned again.
In truth she was tired of Hodinuggur, and longed for the Chowk at
Delhi. Dalel, with a sneer adulterating his frown, looked at her
vengefully, 'Wah! thou art a poor creature, putting the blame on
others, after woman's way. Thy wiles are useless, forsooth, because
the boy is a milksop. Then a strange mem comes and he sits drinking
wine--my wine, look you, for his servant required it of me--until the
dawn; then comes home tipsy after losing himself among the tent-pegs.'
This was Dalel's version of the incident. It interested his hearer into
provoking details by denial.
'It is a lie,' she said calmly.
'Daughter of the bazaars, 'tis true! did I not wait till nigh three
with champagne and devil-bone, yet he came not? Did not his servant
tell me but now I had stinted them in wine? Did not the tent pitchers
say he wandered as a madman among the pegs? Was he not at me, even now,
to get this pot for this mem, this woman?' So far his anger had swept
him past its first cause; now he remembered and harked back to it. 'How
came he by the pot, I say? how hath he seen a woman of our race?'
'Ask the Diwan,' she replied coolly; 'for me that measure is over, I
will dance to another tune.' And as she spoke, though her feet scarcely
shifted, a new rhythm came to these jingling bells. ''Tis odd,' she
murmured in a singing tone, as she lifted the pot and held it out at
arm's-length, 'we come back to this old thing at every turn, and now
his mem wants it. Leave it with me a space, O Mirza Dalel Beg. I will
set it yonder in the niche where I take the seed of dreams; it may
bring wisdom to them.'
Dalel gave a contemptuous grunt.
'Thou art no better than an old spay-wife with thy dreams and omens and
fine talk. Sure the Hindu pig, from whom I took thee, hath infected
thee with his idolatrous notions----'
'See, I go not back to them and him,' she interrupted quickly, 'leave
it, I say, if thou art wise. If the sahib seek it of thee, say one of
thy women knows the owner and makes arrangement. Tis true, and thou
lovest the truth, O Dalel.'
As usual, her recklessness cowed him, and when he had gone and she sat
rolling the opium pellets in her palms, the Ayodhya pot lay in the
niche. Something had declared in its favour, and wisdom lay in
humouring the mysterious will which nine times out of ten insisted on
playing the game of life in its own fashion. Then she lay back half
asleep, half awake, her hands clasped behind her smooth head, her eyes
fixed on the shifting pattern beneath the glaze. The sun climbing up
sent a bar of shine through a chink in the balcony roof. It slanted
into the recesses, undulated over her curved body and reaching the
niche made the Ayodhya pot glow like a sapphire. But by this time
Chandni was dreaming, so she did not hear the merry laughter of a
cavalcade passing through the Mori gate on its way to the canvas city
in the camping ground. A cavalcade of aliens, with Rose Tweedie on a
camel, her English side-saddle, perched on the top of a native pad,
giving her such height that she was forced to stoop.
'Another inch, Miss Tweedie,' cried George gaily, 'and you would have
had to dismount; you will have to cultivate humility before trying
Paradise!'
'Sure Miss Rose is an angel already,' put in Dan Fitzgerald.
But Lewis Gordon rode gloomily behind; partly because he himself was in
a shockingly bad temper, partly because the camel he rode was a
misanthropist. And these two causes arose the one from the other, since
it was not his usual mount. That, when Rose Tweedie had taken advantage
of Mrs. Boynton's absence to desert the dhoolies which were the only
alternative conveyance across this peculiarly sandy march, had been
impounded for the young lady on account of its easy paces. He
remembered those paces ruefully, as, with low-pitched indignation he
wondered why she could not have stuck to the more ladylike dhooli. Yet
she looked well on the beast and rode it better than most men would
have done on a first trial; than he would, at any rate. But these were
aggravations, not palliations, of her offence; still, when, on
dismounting, she came straight up to him, her natty top-boots in full
evidence, the huge sola hat, borrowed from her father, making her slim
upright figure show straighter and slenderer than ever, he was forced
to confess that if she did do these horrible things she did them with
infinite _verve_ and good taste.
'I'm so sorry, Mr. Gordon!' she exclaimed eagerly, 'indeed I didn't
know of the exchange father made till we had started, or I'd have stuck
to the dhooli--indeed I would. What an awful brute it was! I saw it
giving you a dreadful time. Do let me send you over some Elliman?'
'I'm not such a duffer as all that, Miss Tweedie,' he began.
'I didn't mean that, you know I didn't; but if you won't have the
Elliman, take a hot bath, it's the next best thing I know for
stiffness. You can tell your bearer to take the water from our
bath-fire. And thanks so much, I enjoyed the ride immensely. Mr.
Fitzgerald raced me at the finish, and I beat by a good head.'
'A particularly good head, I should say,' he replied, out of sheer love
of teasing, for he knew how intensely she disliked his artificial
manner with women. The fact annoyed him in his turn. It was another of
her unwarrantable assumptions of superiority; nevertheless he followed
her advice about the bath.
Indeed Hodinuggur for the rest of the day claimed suppleness of joint,
in the mind at least. We all know the modern mansion where, entering a
Pompeian hall you pass up a Jacobean staircase, along Early English
corridors, and Japanese landings to Queen Ann drawing-rooms; mansions
of culture, where present common-sense is relegated to the servants'
attics. Hodinuggur was as disturbing to a thoughtful person unused to
gymnastics; perhaps more so because a certain glibness of tongue in
slurring over chasms and ignoring abysses, became necessary when, as
fell to Lewis Gordon's lot, most of the day passed in interviews.
Solemn interviews of State, then personal interviews with an ulterior
object, finally begging interviews _pur et simple_. The other members
of the camp, however, had an easy time of it, their attendance not
being required. Dan Fitzgerald passed most of his day in vain hopes of
a _tete-a-tete_ with Mrs. Boynton, for he was on tenter-hooks to
explain the feeling with which, on returning late to the camp, he had
found it in commotion over her loss; but Gwen, who always dreaded Dan
when he had reasonable cause for emotion, avoided him dexterously,
chiefly by encouraging George, who was nothing loth to spend his day in
camp. At first the lad felt no little vexed to find himself shy and
constrained among so large a party; but this feeling wore off quickly,
and when he came, ready dressed for tennis, into the drawing-room tent
at tea-time it seemed quite natural to be once more amid easy-chairs
and knick-knacks, to see the pianette at which Rose sang her Scotch
songs with such spirit littered with music, and to find her busy at a
table set with all manner of delightful things to eat. He was boy
enough to try so many of them, that Dan had to apologise for his
subordinate's greed before they trooped out laughing to the very
different world which lay beyond the treble plies of the tent--that
mystical veil of white, and blue, and red, which, during the camping
months, hangs between India and its rulers, giving rise to so much
misunderstanding on both sides. It is the fashion nowadays to
accentuate the faults of the latter, but much of the bad name given by
superficial observers to Anglo-Indian society, is the result of that
curious lightheartedness which springs from the necessity for
relaxation, consequent on the gloveless hold India exacts on the
realities and responsibilities of life. The saying, 'Let us eat and
drink and be merry, for to-morrow we die,' is hurled unfairly at
pleasure-seekers all the world over, simply because merriment has
become associated with a low type of amusement. If we change the verbs,
the blame vanishes; since to live happily is the end and aim of all
morality. For happily means worthily to those who have any moral sense.
Then in India the pursuit of pleasure must needs be personal, for there
are no licensed purveyors of amusement. You cannot go to a box-office,
buy seats, spend the day seriously, dine at a restaurant, and take a
hansom to the play. As a rule you have to begin by building the
theatre. So it is in all things, and surely after a hard day's work in
bringing sweetness and light (and law) within reach of the heathen,
even a judge with a bald head may unbend to youthful pastimes, without
breaking the Ten Commandments!
But Colonel Tweedie was not bald, and he played tennis vigorously
in what Rose called the duffers' game, with Mrs. Boynton, the
under-secretary, and Lewis Gordon who pleaded shortsightedness as an
excuse for not joining the Seniors against the Juniors, where Rose and
George challenged all comers. Yet he owned it was pretty enough to see
the former sending back Dan's vicious cuts with a setting of her teeth
ending in a smile either at success or failure. Pleasant to see the
alertness, confidence, confidentialness between the boy and girl; to
hear his quick 'Look out,' evoke the breathless 'I've--got it,' as the
ball whizzed to some unguarded spot. It was a fierce struggle and the
wide-eyed villagers who had trooped out to see the strange doings on
their ancestral threshing-floor, gathered instinctively round the
harder game.
'Ari, sister!' murmured a deep-bosomed mother of many to her gossip, as
they squatted on one of the heaps of chaff which had been swept aside
from the hard beaten floor. 'That one in the short skirt is a
_budmarsh_.[1] Her man will need his hands.' Yet an unrestrained
chuckle ran round the female portion of the audience as Dan,
over-running himself in a hopeless attempt after the impossible,
scattered a group of turbaned pantaloons, who, retreating with shaking
heads to re-form further off, muttered in wondering rebuke, 'Hai! Hai!
does not shame come to her.' But a third section, ranged in rows, gave
an exotic 'hooray!'--a ridiculous, feeble little cheer, started by a
young man in a black alpaca coat, and accompanied by still feebler
clapping. This was the village school and its master, claiming its
right to be a judge of 'crickets.'
'You have the better half of creation on your side, Miss Tweedie,'
remarked Lewis, when, the games being over, the men were resuming their
coats. 'What is more, the rising generation of the worser half also.
The boys were unanimous for the "Miss"; we miserable men being left to
the support of past ages. India is doomed. Another decade will see
woman's rights rampant.'
She turned on him readily, as she always did. 'The boys applauded
because the rising generation, thank heaven, is being taught to love
fair play--even towards women.'
'At it again!' interrupted Mrs. Boynton plaintively, 'really I must get
you two bound over to keep the peace.'
'Then I shall have to hire another camel for my luggage,' said Lewis
gravely, 'for Miss Tweedie knocks me and my arguments to bits.'
Gwen turned aside impatiently, saying in a lower voice, 'How foolish
you are, Lewis! One would have thought you would have tired of it by
this time.'
'On the contrary,' he replied in his ordinary tone: 'the bloom is
perennial. I wither beneath the ice of Miss Tweedie's snubs, and revive
beneath the sun of her smiles like--like a bachelor's button.'
And Rose did smile. Her contempt always seemed to pass by the man
himself, and rest on his opinions. Even there, much as she loathed
them, she was forced to confess that they did not seem to affect his
actions; that it was impossible to conceive of his behaving to any
woman, save as a gentleman should behave. Yet this thought aggravated
the offence of his manner by enhancing its malice aforethought, and
made her frown again.
'Come! there is light enough for a single yet, Mr. Keene,' she said
imperiously, and George, with one regretful glance at Mrs. Boynton,
obeyed. Lewis Gordon looked after them, shrugged his shoulders, and
strolled off to the messroom-tent.
'It really is shameful of Lewis to tease Miss Tweedie as he does,'
began Gwen, who, finding herself unavoidably paired with Dan, instantly
started what she thought a safe topic of conversation. He looked at her
with absent eyes.
'A shame, is it? but when a man likes a girl he is very apt----'
She broke in with a petulant laugh. 'Are you asleep, Dan? What could
induce you to think that?'
'What? Why, love of course! Set a thief to catch a thief. A man can't
be in love himself without----'
He certainly was not asleep! but she managed to double back to safer
ground. Yet his words recurred to her that evening during the half hour
_tete-a-tete_ which she accorded with the utmost regularity to Colonel
Tweedie in his capacity of host; Rose meanwhile singing songs to the
younger men who gathered round the piano, leaving those two decorously
to the sofa.
'There is a little song I want Mrs. Boynton to hear,' called the
Colonel during a pause. 'I forget its name--you haven't sung it
for a long time, and I used to be so fond of it. A little Jacobite
song--really a charming air, Mrs. Boynton.' Rose flushed visibly--at
least to the feminine eyes in the party--and shook her head.
'But you must remember it, my dear,' persisted her father; 'do try.'
'Oh yes! please do try! I should so like to hear it,' echoed Gwen
curiously, her eyes full on the blush. Rose, conscious of it, felt
herself a fool, and looked still more uncomfortable.
'Talking of Jacobite songs,' remarked an indifferent voice beside her,
'I wonder, Miss Tweedie, if you know a great favourite of mine, called
"Lewie Gordon"--don't laugh, you boys, it's rude. If so, please sing
it. I haven't heard it for years; people are always afraid of making me
vain.'
She gave him a quick, grateful look, as, with a nod, she broke into the
song.
'O send Lewie Gordon hame,
And the lad I daurna name,
Tho' his back be to the wa',
Here's to him that's far awa'.'
She sang with greater spirit than before, a sort of glad recognition of
his kindly tact leading up to the decision of the climax:
'That's the lad that I'll gang wi'.'
Yet after all, amid the chorus of thanks, she heard him say in his
worst manner, '"The lad I daurna name!" how like a woman!' And he added
to the offence; for, when the little under-secretary remarked
diffidently that he had always understood that the song referred to
Charles Edward, though whether to the old or the young Pretender he
could not say, Lewis, as he dawdled away to his nightly task of
breaking up the _tete-a-tete_, murmured that at any rate it referred to
a _pretendu_. But Rose had caught Gwen's appealing look from the sofa
also, and rising, closed the piano with a bang and suggested a round
game. If her intention was to punish the offender, who hated that form
of amusement, she failed ignominiously; for he sat on the 'Stool of
Repentance' with perfect nonchalance, and, when it came to her turn,
paid her such double-edged, charmingly caustic little compliments, that
she had to join in the laugh they raised. It was, in fact, past
midnight ere the Colonel, with many allusions to the delight of such
company, said they really must go to bed, and they trooped in a body
out of the big tent to seek their several quarters.
'I'm glad not to make a casual of you to-night,' said Mrs. Boynton
softly to George.
'Almost wish you were,' he replied, giving a rueful look towards the
red brick prison on the farther side of the canal. 'This is home; that
is exile.'
Dan nodded his head sympathetically. 'I know that feeling. It comes
from jungle stations. And the bungalow does look cheerless in
comparison. Odd; for one naturally associates a camp with wars and
tumults, battles, murders, and sudden death; all the evils of a
transitory world, in fact. But you must have noticed, Mrs. Boynton, the
extraordinary air of peace, security, almost of permanence which tents
have in the moonlight. Look! might they not be solid blocks of marble
fastened by silver cords?'
'I noticed it last night when I was watching them being put up,' began
George unguardedly. Mrs. Boynton looked up quickly. Rose, who was
leaning against a rope by the door of her tent which stood next the
mess, glanced along the line of the camp.
'Silver cords and marble blocks,' she echoed. 'Yes! but it sounds like
the New Jerusalem.'
'I always thought,' remarked Lewis Gordon argumentatively, 'that it was
the tents of Midian. I'm sure some one told me so when I learnt hymns.
Or was it hosts of Midian and tents of Ishmael? Anyhow, they had
nothing to do with Paradise, and I for one have been prowling round
long enough. So good-night, Gwen; don't grow wings in the night,
please; it would be so disconcerting. Good-night, Miss Tweedie.'
Being close beside her he held out his hand.
'Good-night; I hope you are not very stiff.'
'I almost wish I were, for then you would sympathise with
misfortune--like a woman,' he replied in a low voice, and as he passed
to his own tent next hers, she heard him quote the lines--
'Tho his back be to the wa',
Here's to him that's far awa'.'
She looked after him, her face showing soft in the moonlight, then,
with a good-night to the others, disappeared in her turn.
George lingered, giving still more rueful glances at the bungalow. 'I
suppose I must be off too. Oh! by the way! it's all right about the
Ayodhya pot. Dalel Beg tells me his women know the owner, so you will
have it to-morrow. Good-night, Fitzgerald.'
Dan, thus left alone to walk two tents-length with Gwen, felt that fate
was on his side at last; more probably _she_ was, since her fine tact
told her it was never wise to ignore his passion entirely. Besides,
something in her shrank from treating him always as a mere outsider.
'I've been longing for this chance all day,' he began at once in a tone
that was in itself a caress.
'Do you think I am quite blind?' she interrupted, a trifle petulantly;
'the only wonder is that every one in the camp didn't see it also. You
are so reckless, Dan! Of course you wanted to tell me how you felt when
I was lost, and all that; as if I couldn't imagine it!' she gave in to
a smile that was almost tender as she spoke--'Why, Dan! I can see you!
with a face yards long, and the whole camp, Chief and all, under orders
in half a minute. Fire-escapes, life-preservers, first aid to the
wounded, everything mortal man could devise to avert disaster, ready
before the rest had time to think! Do you suppose I don't know what you
are, Dan?' The odd, composite ring in her voice sank as she added, in a
lower tone, 'sometimes I almost wish I didn't.'
They had reached the place where their ways separated; hers to the last
tent forward, his to the second row, and she held out her hand with a
smile to say good-night. His heart beat hard at her half-reluctant
admission of praise; besides, Gwen Boynton was not the sort of woman
who could smile thus, and yet expect to end the interview then and
there; perhaps, again, she did not wish it so to end. In her relations
with this man, she often found it difficult to know what she did, or
did not, desire.
'Gwen,' he said eagerly, standing close, with his warm nervous hands
clasping hers, 'did you think of me--then?--when you knew you were
lost, I mean--did you, Gwen?--I don't often ask anything of you, my
darling--you might tell me--It isn't much to ask--Did you, Gwen?'
She gave something between a laugh and a sob. 'Did I? Oh! Dan, you
know I did. There, that is enough--you said that was all you wanted.
Good-night, Dan.'
He went over to his quarters happy as a king. As for Gwen, the personal
influence his immediate presence had over her passed away quickly, and
that which his real absence from her life invariably produced did not
come to soften the curious dread with which she recognised, that in her
trouble of the day before, her first thought had indeed been for him.
How foolish she had been in letting him re-enter her life at all! but
he had come back in her first loneliness when the future had seemed
very black. Now it was different, now it was once more that choice
between poverty and comfort which she had made in her girlhood. With
what pain, none--save Dan, who, alas! always understood--would believe.
And if the choice was necessary then, what was it now with her acquired
habits, her knowledge of the world? They would both be miserable if
they married without money. Then the thought of the bills came, as it
always did to remind her of the tie they imposed. Even if Lewis, whom
she liked and respected, were to make up his mind to marry, she could
not accept him without dismissing Dan. Yet how could she dismiss him,
even for his food, until that money was repaid? Poor Dan! he loved her
dearly, and in a way she cared for him as she had never cared for any
of her other lovers. Yet the decision which had turned out so
comfortably ten years before was still the right decision. Many of
those lovers had been as devoted to her; and yet they had recovered
from their rejection. Then the remembrance of George Keene's admission
that he had been out watching the stars made her smile. He was a nice
boy, who already deemed her an angel; but Lewis objected to wings, and
of the two that was the most convenient view for the woman.
While she was coming to this conclusion George had been looking after
her interests, for on his return to the bungalow he had been startled
by the sudden uprisal of a veiled female from a shadowy corner of his
verandah.
'I am Azizan's mother,' said a muffled voice. 'The Mirza sent me. I
have been waiting the Huzoor's return. There is the pot if the Huzoor
will give ten rupees for it. It is much, yet the pot brings luck.'
'Ten!' echoed George in delight, taking it from her. 'Yes! you shall
have that; then I owe Azizan also. Shall I pay you?'
'My daughter is as myself,' replied the voice. 'It is ten for the
picture, and ten for the pot.'
George fetched the money and counted it carefully into the shrouded
hand.
'That is all, I think?' he asked.
'Huzoor, that is all. May the blessing of the widow and the fatherless
go with the merciful Protector of the Poor.'
But while he was thinking, as he undressed, how pleased Mrs. Boynton
would be, the veiled figure was pausing in the moonlight to speak to
the factotum.
'You have seen nothing, you are to say nothing. And the Diwan sends
these to the servant-people.' Then came twenty careful chinks, this
time into a clutching hand, and Chandni, hurrying back to the city,
laughed silently to herself. The idea of bribing the little sahib's
servants with his own rupees would please Dalel, and put him into a
good temper again; so if this plan matured, her future would ripen with
it. As she passed the sleeping camp she paused, wondering in which tent
lay the mem who had succeeded so easily where she had failed. The
lights were out in all save two, and the double row of glistening white
roofs struck even her insensibility with a savage recognition of
undeserved peace and security. They were no better than she; no better
than those shadowy crouching figures of the village bad-characters set
out here and there to keep watch and ward, on the principle of setting
a thief to catch a thief; a plan which at least secures a deserving
criminal should thefts occur. For it was in the East that the strange
hybrid between altruism and egotism which we call a scape-goat was
invented by mankind.