Deodars and soft green stretches of turf, surrounded by a map of Asia
in high relief; silver streaks of rivers at the bottom of the map;
snowy peaks and passes at the top of the map, just as if they were set
there to show comparative lengths and heights. Such was the scene from
the ridge chosen out for what is called a Rajah's picnic. What Rajah or
Maharajah, what Nizam or Nawab, matters not. Some one of the many
feudatories who crowd to prefer their claims to something at Simla had
asserted his dignity by giving a picnic to society, and society had
consented to come and eat _pate de foie gras_ and drink champagne on a
hill-side, at the expense of a man to whom one or other of these two
things was an abomination. That is the case in a nutshell; and so long
as the _pate_ was not bought cheap from a box-wallah, and the champagne
was drinkable, nobody cared whether the host was or was not performing
the whole duty of man in tempting his fellows to do those things which
he himself considered worthy of purgatorial pains. But then, to
nine-tenths of the guests the host was a mere lay figure imported into
society on certain occasions, in order to give it local colour by the
display of gold tissue and diamonds.
Barring the shock it gives to first principles in some minds, a Rajah's
entertainment is generally pleasant enough; never more so than when it
takes the form of a picnic--which, by the way, the natives translate
adroitly into pagul khana, or 'fool's dinner.' This one was no
exception to the rule. Two huge flat-roofed tents, open on all sides
save for a deep valance of gay applique-work, and supported by fern and
flower-wreathed poles, served as marquees, where a most elaborate lunch
was laid out in a style worthy of the great Simla caterer. What the
cost was to be per head to the unfortunate noble playing the part of
host is a trivial detail. So, to him, was the lunch itself, seeing that
in this particular case, the host was a Hindu of the strictest caste;
too pure, too proud even to sit down at a table spread with such
abhorred viands. His part consisted, therefore, in receiving the
company in a Cashmir shawl tent with silver poles, yawning between the
handshakes, and thereinafter, when the outcasts were safely started on
the champagne and the _pate_, jolting back joyfully in a _jhan-pan_ to
Simla in order to purify himself in unmentionable ways before eating
his own dinner. The next day or the day after he would pay the bills,
some official would be told off to congratulate him on the success of
the entertainment; perhaps, if he was a great swell, to say that
H---- E----y had enjoyed it immensely. And then the only thing
remaining to be done would be to enter the cost in the State accounts.
Under what heading outsiders cannot presume to say; possibly
civilisation.
But none of the guests troubled themselves about these details. The sky
was blue as blue could be, the grey bloom on the spreading deodar
branches glinted white in the strong light, the shadows beneath them
showed black. Across the valley, contours of terraced crops round a
cluster of apricot-trees marked the village sites. Blue air lay between
you and them, blue air between them and the snows, blue air gave a
thousand iridescent tints to the plains rolling up into the southern
sky beyond the dotted ridge of Simla. And below you, drifting up the
valleys like grazing sheep, were little fleecy mist-clouds,
inconsequent, hopelessly astray.
'Poor things! How lost they look!' said Gwen gaily, pointing at them
with her white lace parasol.
'A fellow-feeling makes us wondrous kind,' quoted one of her circle.
'Mrs. Boynton knows what it is for a heavenly being to be condemned to
earth.'
'That sounds prettier than it is. An angel astray! Lewis! defend me
from my friends!'
She turned to him with the prettiest air of appeal, the sweetest
confidence in a regard, which to the outside world was cousinly, to
these two something more. Such a bait seldom fails to rouse a man's
vanity, even if it leaves his heart untouched.
'My dear Gwen,' he replied readily, 'there is no need for defence. The
angel is not astray since you are here with us, and we are in
Paradise.'
George Keene applauded with both hands as he sat at her feet looking
out over the plains. Once more it seemed incredible that there should
be such a place on God's earth as Hodinuggur.
'Well, some of us will be sitting at the gate thereof disconsolate ere
long,' remarked a man leaning against a rock, with a cup of black
coffee and a cigarette. 'By the way, Keene, we might share a tonga the
day after tomorrow.'
'Mr. Keene is not going,' interrupted Mrs. Boynton quickly. 'No one
wants him down there, and we need dancing men dreadfully. Miss Tweedie
had spoken to her father about it?'
'And you?'
The question, which came almost in a whisper, was answered by a smile
only; but it brought a sort of mist to George Keene's young eyes as he
looked out over the plains again. The spiritual exaltation of it all
was almost too much at times for the hard-headed young fellow who had
clothed his own honest uprightness with a woman's softness and
sweetness, in order to worship it.
Now, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Boynton had said nothing to Colonel
Tweedie about the lad's leave; still, as she fully intended doing so in
the course of the afternoon, her smile was perhaps excusable. 'What is
more, she kept to her intention. Half an hour afterwards any one rash
enough to do so might have interrupted a _tete-a-tete_ she was
conceding to the Colonel in the shade of a huge deodar tree to one side
of a level stretch where two mud tennis-courts had been laid out. But
no one did. A certain officialdom prevails in Simla society, and the
heads of departments have recognised rights and privileges. The
Colonel, however, would scarcely have admitted that he owed his good
fortune to his seniority, for he felt juvenile in a new lounge suit
with very baggy trousers--quite the thing for lolling about in on the
grass while a pretty woman leant over the shafts of the _dandy_ she was
using as a seat, and asked for your opinion on a number of trivial
personal questions. Yet Gwen Boynton was in earnest about it all--to
judge from her eyes--as she let the conversation drift further afield.
'He is such a nice boy--one of those boys who make a woman think how
delightful it would be to have a son in her old age. But he looks as if
he would be the better of another week in the hills; and I suppose even
you cannot manage that.'
He smiled condescendingly.
'The Lieutenant-Governor might object, of course.'
'Then you can! Ah! Colonel Tweedie, if you would! He really isn't fit
to go down, and Mr. Fitzgerald, who is as strong as a horse, could
easily stop at Hodinuggur. He wouldn't like it, of course, but it won't
hurt him. Only----' She paused, looked at her companion, and shook her
head gravely.
'Only?' echoed her elderly admirer, his heart, which had melted like
wax at her cavalier mention of Dan, stiffening again at what might be
consideration for that most ill-advised person.
'Only George won't consent to that, I'm afraid. He has such a
ridiculous attachment to Mr. Fitzgerald. And I suppose it would be
quite impossible to leave the place even for a few days without a
really first-class man in charge. What a comfort it must be for you to
have officers on whom you can rely, like Mr. Fitzgerald.'
Colonel Tweedie gave his little preparatory cough. 'No doubt,
no doubt. At the same time, I am not aware that Mr. Fitzgerald's
presence--er--is so--er--indispensable. The fact is, my dear Mrs.
Boynton, that, owing--er--to previous occurrences, we were anxious to
keep him out--er--out of the responsibility as much as possible. In
fact, but for his own request I should not--er--have arranged for
him to take Mr. Keene's work at all. To refuse, however, would
have--er--given rise to--er--unfounded comment, and so----'
She interrupted his halting mixture of dignity and desire to be at once
considerate and captious with a sigh.
'Poor Mr. Fitzgerald, he has been unlucky. And I suppose if anything
were to go wrong when he was there you would have to take notice of it.
How dreadful for him! Perhaps, after all, it would be better for George
to go back. One would need to be omnipotent to carry out all one's
kindly impulses, wouldn't one, Colonel Tweedie? And we women are so
helpless.'
He leant forward and laid his hand close to hers as it rested on the
framework of the _dandy_. 'Unless you have a stronger arm at your
disposal, as you have now--my dear lady--if only for your kindness to
my daughter, and, as you say, young Keene is not quite the thing.
Besides--I--I mean you--I mean there are privileges which----'
What those privileges were remained unexplained, though Gwen, no doubt,
had a shrewd guess at them, for, just at that moment Dalel Beg, having
no fear of Departments before his eyes, came swaggering up in a
bright-green velvet coat.
'Aha, you here! Hi, you kitmutghar, bring me champagne cup. Jolly,
Tweedie, ain't it?' The Colonel's face belied the proposition, but the
new-comer was not one of those who look for support to surroundings; he
was a law unto himself only. 'You see I wear swagger clothes like you,
Mrs. Boynton. Rajah Sahib old-style man, so I come as native of India
to please him. He is neighbour, Mrs. Boynton, by Hodinuggur, down
waste-water canal cut. You give him water, sir, he give you lakhs on
lakhs.'
This time the Colonel's expression was a study, but Gwen, despite her
usually keen sense of the ludicrous, did not add a smile to the Mirza
sahib's crackling laugh.
'I regret,' began the head of the Department loftily, but Dalel's mind
was full of one thing only, and that was himself; his immense
superiority over the Rajah Sahib, his equality with the sahib-logues.
'Hi, kitmutghar. _Ai, soor ke butcha kyon nahin sunte ho?_ (Ah, son of
a pig, why don't you listen?) _Ek_ glass curacoa. Cup what you call
hog-wash, eh, Tweedie? Rajah, poor chap, know nothing about cup.
Khansamah do him in the eye, hee, hee! Poor old chappie. Gone home to
do poojah and have baths. What rot!'
'Will you take me to get a cup of coffee?' said Gwen hastily to Colonel
Tweedie. 'I won't trouble you to bring it here; it spills so in the
saucer and then it drops over one's best frock.'
The courteous excuse for escape, which came quite naturally to Gwen's
lips, pleased neither of her companions. The gracious instinct
prompting it, which to Colonel Tweedie seemed uncalled for, was totally
lost on the Mirza. He scowled after her, and muttering something as he
tossed off the curacoa, went off to bestow his favours elsewhere.
A minute or two afterwards, George Keene ran up to the empty _dandy_
and pushed something under the cushion.
'She won't mind,' he said half aloud, 'and it's safer there than in the
tent. Wouldn't do to lose it here, of all places in the world. All
right, Markham, I'm coming! Spin for court. Rough? Rough it is. If I'd
only known they were going to put me up in the doubles, I'd have come
in flannels.'
With coat and waistcoat off, however, his white shirtsleeves rolled up,
showing young, white round arms, and his Cooper's Hill scarf doing duty
as a belt, George looked workman-like enough to play in the impromtu
match of civil against military; and being of wholesome mind and person
straightway forgot the round world in the effort to keep one ball
a-rolling.
The sun hung in the west above a frilled edging of lilac-tinted hills,
the snows began to glisten, the valleys on either side grew fathomless
as the mist rose from the streams dashing through them. On the ridge
itself the deodars sent long shadows eastward, though the yellow
sunshine still seemed to crisp the tufted parsley-fern among which
civilisation grouped itself in cliques and sets for afternoon tea, and
in which the servants, decked in gorgeous liveries for the occasion,
flitted about like gay butterflies. A great content was on all; perhaps
the memory of an excellent lunch lingered with the men, the gratifying
consciousness of being well-dressed with the women, but the most of
them felt that it was good to be there, transfigured, as it were, on a
hill-top, forgetful even of Simla, whose shingled roofs showed on a
jagged outline to the south. Yet Gwen Boynton, who, as a rule, would
have shown at her best in such a scene, a situation, a society, pleaded
a headache as an excuse for getting away early; so that when George
came back to where he expected to find her _dandy_, she was already on
her way back to Simla.
'What is it, Mr. Keene?' asked Rose, who was mounting her pony close
by.
'Oh, nothing; only I put my watch and keys under the cushion of Mrs.
Boynton's _dandy_, and now she has gone off. If you see her on the
road, you might tell her. I have to play a return match--bad luck to
it!'
'You don't look very unhappy,' laughed the girl, as he finished the
task of putting her up by professional little tugs at her habit to make
it sit wrinkle-less. 'And oh! by the way, it's all right about your
leave. Father has arranged it; he told me so just now.'
'How good you are! If I could only leave my interests in your hands,
always, the future would have no terrors for me, as they say in the
melodramas. Good-bye, Miss Tweedie, till dinner-time, and--you won't
forget about the watch, will you? I don't want Mrs. Boynton----'
'I'll take care she doesn't make off with it,' interrupted Rose,
wilfully unsympathetic, as she moved away at a walk. A hundred yards or
so along the broad ride--which had been cut for the occasion in the
hill-side from the high road to the picnic place--a zigzag bridle-path
led down into the valley. Rose had never ridden that way, but she knew
that, once at the stream below her, a recognised short cut would take
her direct to her destination. At the worst, she might have to dismount
and lead her horse for a while, and there was something decidedly
fascinating in a downward path at all times, more especially when every
step showed something new stealing into vision out of a blue mist. In
addition, she would avoid the rush of people, and of late Rose Tweedie
had found a large proportion of her fellow-creatures very tiresome;
perhaps because humanity is only gifted with a certain capacity for
liking, and she expended too much of hers on one person. The first mile
or so fully justified her choice; the path, if steep, was safe, and,
after passing over a small bridge, she was about to follow a track,
apparently leading down the right side of the ravine to the road below,
when she heard a faint shout behind her to the left. With her
experience of the Himalayas, she stopped instantly, knowing she must be
on the wrong track, and retraced her steps, expecting, after a few
turns, to come on the shepherd or coolie, who, having seen her from
above, had raised the warning cry. Instead of this she came on Lewis
Gordon, riding at what was really a breakneck pace for the style of the
path. He pulled up suddenly.
'Miss Tweedie! you don't mean to say it was you I saw on the other
bank? I had half a mind not to shout, for a man with a clever pony
could do it easily. What a piece of luck for you I did!'
She flushed up at once. 'I'm afraid I don't see it in that light. I've
no doubt I could have done it as easily as a man, and it is annoying to
be brought back half a mile out of your road for nothing.'
'Unless that road happens to be a mile longer to begin with, as it is
in this case,' replied Lewis coolly. 'But you really ought not to have
tried the short cut alone. Your father, of course, had arranged to meet
the Lieut.-Governor, and Keene couldn't get away; but if you had asked
me, I should have been delighted to do my duty--I suppose you won't let
me say pleasure; that is reserved for my juniors.' There was a certain
snappishness in the conclusion of his speech which somehow appeased
Rose's wrath.
The futility of many proverbs has scarcely a better example than that
one which sets the orthodox number for anger at two, when almost
universally it is either one or three. For the spectacle of another man
losing his temper is almost sure to soothe the first offender, unless
dispassionate humanity reappears in the shape of a spectator. So Rose
said sweetly that he was always very kind, and she certainly would have
asked him to pioneer her, had she anticipated any difficulty; since no
one could give a better lead over than Bronzewing and her rider. And
then, having reached the valley and a broader path, they dawdled along
it at a walk beside the very edge of a stream splashing and dashing
over its pebbly bed, and curving round tiny meadows just large enough
to serve as a stand for some huge walnut tree. The soft mist they had
seen from above, now they were in it, only intensified the blueness of
the shadows or the gold of the sunlight following the contours of the
hills. Down in the hollows the maiden-hair fern grew like a forest, out
in the open great turk's-cap lilies rose higher than the blue and white
columbines, and in every cranny the potentilla hung out its bunches of
scarlet, tasteless, strawberry-like fruit.
Side by side they strolled for a mile or more, along a level grassy
path, as if there were no such thing as effort in the world, as if
civilisation and comfort, dinner and bed, all the necessaries of life
in fact, did not lie two thousand feet or so over their heads.
'This way, I'm afraid,' said Lewis at last, turning his pony into a
road joining the path at right angles; an engineered road with drains
and retaining walls, scientific, uninteresting, guiltless of ups and
downs, facing the ascent evenly.
'Oh dear!' cried Rose in tones of regret. And then they both laughed.
But the peace of the valley went with them, so that their gay chatter
echoed up the zigzagging road to where glimpses of a _dandy_ toiling on
ahead showed through the trees. Its occupant looking downwards could
see them far below, the girl in front, the man behind, their voices
becoming clearer and clearer, until just at the last turn where the
zigzag merged into the high road, each careless word was distinctly
audible as they came scrambling up below the retaining wall, which at
this point carried the branch to its junction with the main road. Gwen
Boynton's hand closed tight on the shaft of her _dandy_, partly in
sympathy with her thoughts, partly because the coolies swung round the
last corner sharply. The wall, which was not two feet high at the first
turn sloped rapidly up to some fifteen feet before ending in the one
which supported the big road. As is usually the case, it was built in
steps or terraces giving the required slant of support. Just as the
_dandy_ was at the turn of the road a horseman, followed by two mounted
orderlies, came clattering along it; perhaps this frightened Rose's
pony; perhaps the sudden swerve of the _dandy_ to get out of the
new-comer's way just as the girl was about to pass it, actually forced
her mount into shying and backing. Anyhow, it did. There was a
struggle, a rattle of stones over the edge, a slip, then a jerk back as
the beast found a momentary foothold for its hind legs on the narrow
step some two feet down. A cry of dismay broke from the spectators--for
with the next movement a fall backwards seemed inevitable--but it ended
in one of relief, as Rose wheeled the pony clear round with swift
decision, and giving it a cut with her whip leapt into the road below.
It was a bold stroke for life instead of death, and as the pony came on
its knees with the shock, it seemed for an instant as if both it and
its rider must go rolling over and over down the side of the hill. The
next they had both struggled to their feet, and stood quivering all
over, but safe and absolutely unhurt. Lewis, who had pulled up at the
corner aghast with impotent horror, was back beside them, almost
incoherent in his relief and admiration.
'And--and--I only had a snaffle,' said Rose with a tremulous laugh not
far removed from tears. She felt it imperative, if she were to be calm,
that they should descend to commonplace at once, being aided in this by
Dalel Beg, who having reined in at the sight of a disaster for which he
was partly responsible, was now standing by Gwen's _dandy_ oblivious of
apology.
'Shahbash. Well done indeed. Pretty! pretty. You are rippin' rider,
Miss Tweedie. If you race, you win like Gordon. Aha! Gordon. I
congratulate you for lucky accident of paint. That Crosbie take me in
also. He swore it was foul, Mrs. Boynton, and I thought I saw foul--you
believe that, eh, Gordon?'
Lewis, to whom the temporising decision of the judges, that foul or no
foul, Mr. Crosbie was out of it by having been at the wrong side of
some post at some part of the course, had been irritating, scowled up
at the group above.
'I am sure you saw foul,' he replied. 'Now, Miss Tweedie, if you
please. The beast is all right and the sooner you get home for a quiet
rest the better.'
He was so occupied with the shock to her that he scarcely seemed to
realise that it must have been one to his cousin also, though Rose as
she passed paused to say that she was absolutely unhurt and that it was
nobody's fault but her own for riding an unsteady pony on the hills.
They had gone on nearly half a mile before she recollected George
Keene's message.
'I don't see the necessity for going back at all,' said Lewis crossly,
'but since you are so determined to obey orders, I'll go. If you ride
on at a reasonable pace I'll catch you up again in no time---- What was
it he left in her _dandy_?'
'His watch,' called Rose after him.
As he galloped back his temper was none of the best. He objected to a
great many things. To George's familiarity with Gwen, to Rose's
familiarity with George, and as he came on the _dandy_, to Dalel Beg's
familiarity with it; for the Mirza had dismounted and was walking along
with his hand on the shaft--just like an Englishman. The sight enlarged
the focus of Lewis's displeasure, making it include Gwen.
'It was only a message from Keene,' he said curtly in reply to her
welcoming smile. 'He asked Miss Tweedie to tell you, but she forgot; so
I came back. He put his watch in your _dandy_ to keep it safe.'
'His watch!' echoed Gwen, feeling at the same time among the cushions.
'Yes! here it is. Lewis! what am I to do with it? Won't you take it?'
For, without drawing rein he had turned his pony and was riding off. He
looked back carelessly.
'Keep it, I suppose, till Keene comes to claim it. That won't be long.'
As he rounded the next curve in the road, Mrs. Boynton and Dalel Beg
were left face to face with George Keene's watch between them. It had a
Chubb's key attached to the chain, and Dalel Beg's eyes, as he stood
beside the _dandy_, clothed in a green velvet coat and European
rowdyism, were attached to the key. Gwen's were on Lewis's retreating
figure, and there was real jealousy and anger at her heart.
An hour and a half later, George, galloping the hired pony along the
Mall after the manner of very young men on hired ponies, pulled up at
the side of Mrs. Boynton's _dandy_ in pleased surprise.
'I'm so glad!' she exclaimed before he could say a word; 'there is your
watch.'
As she handed it over to him their eyes met, and his took an expression
of concern.
'I'm afraid your headache is very bad. You should have been at home
hours ago.'
'On the contrary, it is better,' she replied quickly. 'I came by the
low road and dawdled. Besides, I had to call at the dressmaker's, and
she kept me waiting for ages. By the way, Colonel Tweedie says you are
to have another week's leave----'
'So his daughter told me. How good you both are to me! Only, Hodinuggur
will be worse than ever--afterwards.'
He would have liked to say 'after Paradise,' but he refrained. She gave
a nervous little laugh.
'Don't think of it yet. I hate thinking. It does no good, for one never
knows what mayn't happen. You are safe for a week, anyhow.'
As she lay awake that night in defiance of her own wisdom, thinking
over the matter in all its bearings, she told herself that he was safe
for more than a week. Every one was safe. At the worst, Dan might lose
his promotion, but even that would be no unmixed evil if it forced him
into independence. Indeed, if he knew of her worries, of the snare laid
for her, of the covert hints about an _esclandre_ involving both him
and George Keene which were wearing her to death, he would gladly
sacrifice something for the sake of safety. If by any chance the sluice
were to be opened during that week of absence, how it would simplify
the whole business! And, after all, what had she done? nothing. Surely
a woman might go and see her dressmaker sometimes and leave her _dandy_
outside? Was it her fault if the dressmaker lived in a house close to
the bazaar in full view of Manohar Lal's shop? Was it her fault if the
coolies slipped away to smoke their hookahs? Was it her fault that the
key of the sluice was behind the cushions of the _dandy_, and that
Dalel Beg knew it was there? What had she done? What had she said?
Nothing. Had she not set aside the Mirza's suggestion that she should
look in on Manohar Lal's new jewelry on her way home, by saying that
she had no time, that she must go to the dressmaker's? Had she not
hitherto refused to listen to hints or threats? Had she not even defied
Manohar Lal? And now would it really be her fault if any one had taken
advantage of her absence? Gwen turned her face into the pillow and
moaned helplessly, telling herself that never was woman before so beset
by misfortune. She had meant no harm, yet George had given her the pot,
and Dan had taken the jewels to Manohar Lal's. There was no proof, of
course, but the _esclandre_ would kill her, and that must be averted at
all costs.