BOMBAY
For Jan the next two days passed as in a more or less disagreeable
dream. She could never afterwards recall very clearly what happened,
except that Sir Langham Sykes seemed absolutely omnipresent, and made
her, she felt, ridiculous before the whole ship, by proclaiming far and
wide that she had bestowed upon him the healing gift of sleep.
He was so effusive, so palpably grateful, that she simply could not
undeceive him by telling him that after they parted the night before she
had never given him another thought.
When he was not doing this he was pursuing, with fulminations against
the whole tribe of missionaries, two kindly, quiet members of the
Society of Friends.
In an evil moment they had gratified his insatiable curiosity as to the
object of their voyage to India, which was to visit and report upon the
missionary work of their community. Once he discovered this he never let
them alone, and the deck resounded with his denunciations of all
Protestant missionaries as "self-seeking, oily humbugs."
They bore it with well-mannered resignation, and a common dislike for
Sir Langham formed quite a bond of union between them and Jan.
There was the usual dance on New Year's Eve, the usual singing of "Auld
Lang Syne" in two huge circles; and Jan would have enjoyed it all but
for the heavy foreboding in her heart; for she was a simple person who
responded easily to the emotions of others. Before she could slip away
to bed Sir Langham cornered her again, conjuring her to "will" him to
sleep and "to go on doin' it" after they parted in Bombay. He became
rather maudlin, and she seized the opportunity of telling him that her
best efforts would be wholly unavailing if he at all relaxed the
temperate habits, so necessary for the cure of his gout, that he had
acquired during the voyage. She was stern with Sir Langham, and her
admonitions had considerable effect. He sought his cabin chastened and
thoughtful.
The boat was due early in the morning. Jan finished most of her packing
before she undressed; then, tired and excited, she could not sleep. A
large cockroach scuttling about her cabin did not tend to calm her
nerves. She plentifully besprinkled the floor with powdered borax, kept
the electric light turned on and the fan whirring, and lay down
wide-awake to wait for the dawn.
The ship was unusually noisy, but just about four o'clock came a new
sound right outside her porthole--the rush alongside of the boat bearing
the pilot and strange loud voices calling directions in an unknown
tongue. She turned out her light (first peering fearfully under her
berth to make sure no borax-braving cockroach was in ambush) and knelt
on her bed to look out and watch the boat with its turbaned occupants:
big brown men, who shouted to one another in a liquid language full of
mystery.
For a brief space the little boat was towed alongside the great liner,
then cast off, and presently--far away on the horizon--Jan saw a streak
of pearly pinkish light, as though the soft blue curtain of the night
had been lifted just a little; and against that luminous streak were
hills.
In spite of her anxiety, in spite of her fears as to the future, Jan's
heart beat fast with pleasurable excitement. She was young and strong
and eager, and here at last was the real East. A little soft wind
caressed her tired forehead and she drank in the blessed coolness of the
early morning.
Both day and night come quickly in the East. Jan got up, had her bath,
dressed, and by half-past six she was on deck. The dark-blue curtain was
rolled up, and the scene set was the harbour of Bombay.
Such a gracious haven of strange multi-coloured craft, with its double
coast-line of misty hills on one side, and clear-cut, high-piled
buildings, domes and trees upon the other.
A gay white-and-gold launch, with its attendants in scarlet and white,
came for certain passengers, who were guests of the Governor. The police
launch, trim and business-like with its cheerful yellow-hatted sepoys,
came for others. Jan watched these favoured persons depart in stately
comfort, and went downstairs to get some breakfast. Then came the rush
of departure by the tender. So many had friends to meet them, and all
seemed full of pleasure in arrival. Jan was just beginning to feel
rather forlorn and anxious when the Purser, fussed and over-driven as he
always is at such times, came towards her, followed by a tall man
wearing a pith helmet and an overcoat.
"Mr. Ledgard has come to meet you, Miss Ross, so you'll be all right."
It was amazing how easy everything became. Mr. Ledgard's servants
collected Jan's cabin baggage and took it with them in the tender and,
on arrival, in a tikka-gharri--the little pony-carriage which is the
gondola of Bombay--and almost before she quite realised that the voyage
was over she found herself seated beside Peter in a comfortable
motor-car, with a cheerful little Hindu chauffeur at the steering-wheel,
sliding through wide, well-watered streets, still comparatively empty
because it was so early.
By mutual consent they turned to look at one another, and Jan noted that
Peter Ledgard _was_ thin and extremely yellow. That his eyes (hollow and
tired-looking as are the eyes of so many officials in the East) _were_
kind, and she thought she had never before beheld a firmer mouth or more
masterful jaw.
What Peter saw evidently satisfied him as to her common sense, for he
plunged _in medias res_ at once: "How much do you know of this
unfortunate affair?" he asked.
"Very little," she answered, "and that little extremely vague. Will you
tell me has Hugo come to total grief or not?"
"Officially, yes. He is finished, done for--may thank his lucky stars
he's not in gaol. It's well you should know this at the very beginning,
for of course he won't allow it, and poor Fay--Mrs. Tancred (I'm afraid
we're rather free-and-easy about Christian names in India)--doesn't know
the whole facts by a very long way. From what she tells me, I fear he
has made away with most of her money, too. Was any of it tied up?"
Jan shook her head. "We both got what money there was absolutely on my
father's death."
"Then," said Peter, "I fear you've got the whole of them on your hands,
Miss Ross."
"That's what I've come for," Jan said simply, "to take care of Fay and
the children."
Peter Ledgard looked straight in front of him.
"It's a lot to put on you," he said slowly, "and I'm afraid you'll find
it a bit more complicated than you expect. Will you remember that I'd
like to help you all I can?"
Jan looked at the stern profile beside her and felt vaguely comforted.
"I shall be most grateful for your advice," she said humbly. "I know I
shall need it."
The motor stopped, and as she stepped from it in front of the tall block
of buildings, Jan knew that the old easy, straightforward life was over.
Unconsciously she stiffened her back and squared her shoulders, and
looked very tall and straight as she stood beside Peter Ledgard in the
entrance. The pretty colour he had admired when he met her had faded
from her cheeks, and the face under the shady hat looked grave and
older.
Peter said something to the smiling lift-man in an extremely dirty dhoti
who stood salaaming in the entrance.
"I won't come up now," he said to Jan. "Please tell Mrs. Tancred I'll
look in about tea-time."
As Jan entered the lift and vanished from his sight, Peter reflected,
"So that's the much-talked-of Jan! Well, I'm not surprised Fay wanted
her."
The lift stopped. An elderly white-clad butler stood salaaming at an
open door, and Jan followed him.
A few steps through a rather narrow passage and she was in a large light
room opening on to a verandah, and in the centre stood her sister Fay,
with outstretched arms.
A pathetic, inarticulate, worn and faded Fay: her pretty freshness
dimmed. A Fay with dark circles round her hollow eyes and all the living
light gone from her abundant fair hair. It was as though her face was
covered by an impalpable grey mask.
There was no doubt about it. Fay looked desperately ill. Ill in a way
not to be accounted for by her condition.
Clinging together they sat down on an immense sofa, exchanging trivial
question and answer as to the matters ordinary happy folk discuss when
they first meet after a long absence. Jan asked for the children, who
had not yet returned from their early morning walk with the ayah. Fay
asked about the voyage and friends at home, and told Jan she had got
dreadfully grey; then kissed her and leant against her just as she used
to do when they were both children and she needed comfort.
Jan said nothing to Fay about _her_ looks, and neither of them so much
as mentioned Hugo Tancred. But Jan felt a wild desire to get away by
herself and cry and cry over this sad wraith of the young sister whose
serene and happy beauty had been the family pride.
And yet she was so essentially the same Fay, tender and loving and
inconsequent, and full of pretty cares for Jan's comfort.
The dining-room was behind the sitting-room, with only a curtain
between, and as they sat at breakfast Fay was so eager Jan should
eat--she ate nothing herself--so anxious lest she should not like the
Indian food, that poor Jan, with a lump in her throat that choked her at
every morsel, forced down the carefully thought-out breakfast and meekly
accepted everything presented by the grey-haired turbaned butler who
bent over her paternally and offered every dish much as one would tempt
a shy child with some amusing toy.
Presently Fay took her to see her room, large, bare and airy, with
little furniture save the bed with its clean white mosquito curtains
placed under the electric fan in the centre of the ceiling. Outside the
window was a narrow balcony, and Jan went there at once to look out; and
though her heart was so heavy she was fain to exclaim joyfully at the
beauty of the view.
Right opposite, across Back Bay, lay the wooded villa-crowned slopes of
Malabar Hill, flung like a garland on the bosom of a sea deeply blue and
smiling, smooth as a lake, while below her lay the pageant of the
street, with its ever-changing panorama of vivid life. The whole so
brilliant, so various, so wholly unlike any beautiful place she had ever
seen before that, artist's daughter she was, she cried eagerly to Fay,
"Oh, come and look! Did you ever see anything so lovely? How Dad would
have rejoiced in this!"
Fay followed slowly: "I thought you'd like it," she said, evidently
pleased by Jan's enthusiasm, "that's why I gave you this room. Look,
Jan! There are the children coming, those two over by the band-stand.
They see us. _Do_ wave to them."
The children were still a long way off. Jan could only see an ayah in
her white draperies pushing a little go-cart with a child in it, and a
small boy trotting by her side, but she waved as she was bidden.
The room had evidently at one time been used as a nursery, for inside
the stone balustrade was a high trellis of wood. Jan and Fay were both
tall women, but even on them the guarding trellis came right up to their
shoulders. Neither of them could really lean over, though Fay tried, in
her eagerness to attract the attention of the little group. Jan watched
her sister's face and again felt that cruel constriction of the throat
that holds back tears. Fay's tired eyes were so sad, so out of keeping
with the cheerful movement of her hand, so shadowed by some knowledge
she could not share.
"You mustn't stand here without a hat," she said, turning to go in. "The
sun is getting hot. You must get a topee this afternoon. Peter will take
you and help to choose it."
"Couldn't you come, if we took a little carriage? Does driving tire you
when it's cool?" Jan asked as she followed her sister back into the
room.
"I never go out," Fay said decidedly. "I never shall again ... I mean,"
she added, "till it's all over. I couldn't bear it just now--I might
meet someone I know."
"But, Fay, it's very bad for you to be always indoors. Surely, in the
early morning or the evening--you'll come out then?"
Fay shook her head. "Peter has taken me out in the motor once or twice
at night--but I don't really like it. It makes me so dreadfully tired.
Don't worry me about that, Jan. I get plenty of air in the verandah.
It's just as pretty there as in your balcony, and we can have
comfortable chairs. Let's go there now. _You_ shall go out as much as
you like. I'll send Lalkhan with you, or Ayah and the children; and
Peter will take you about all he can--he promised he would. Don't think
I want to be selfish and keep you here with me all the time."
The flat, weak voice, so nervous, so terrified lest her stronger sister
should force her to some course of action she dreaded, went to Jan's
heart.
"My dear," she said gently, "I haven't come here to rush about. I've
come to be with you. We'll do exactly what you like best."
Fay clung to her again and whispered, "Later on you'll understand
better--I'll be able to tell you things, and perhaps you'll understand
... though I'm not sure--you're not weak like me, you'd never go under
... you'd always fight...."
There was a pattering of small feet in the passage. Little high voices
called for "Mummy," and the children came in.
Tony, a grave-eyed, pale-faced child of five, came forward instantly,
with his hand held out far in front of him. Jan, who loved little
children, knew in a minute that he was afraid she would kiss him; so she
shook hands with gentlemanly stiffness. Little Fay, on the contrary, ran
forward, held up her arms "to be taken" and her adorably pretty little
face to be kissed. She was startlingly like her mother at the same age,
with bobbing curls of feathery gold, beseeching blue eyes and a
complexion delicately coloured as the pearly pink lining of certain
shells. She was, moreover, chubby, sturdy and robust--quite unlike Tony,
who looked nervous, bleached and delicate.
Tony went and leant against his mother, regarding Jan and his small
sister with dubious, questioning eyes.
Presently he remarked, "I wish she hadn't come."
"Oh, Tony," Fay exclaimed reproachfully, "you must both love Auntie Jan
very dearly. She has come such a long way to be good to us all."
"I wish she hadn't," Tony persisted.
"_I_ sall love Auntie Dzan," Fay remarked, virtuously.
It was pleasant to be cuddled by this friendly baby, and Jan laid her
cheek against the fluffy golden head; but all the time she was watching
Tony. He reminded her of someone, and she couldn't think who. He
maintained his aloof and unfriendly attitude till Ayah came to take the
children to their second breakfast. Little Fay, however, refused to
budge, and when the meekly salaaming ayah attempted to take her, made
her strong little body stiff, and screamed vigorously, clinging so
firmly to her aunt that Jan had herself to carry the obstreperous baby
to the nursery, where she left her lying on the floor, still yelling
with all the strength of her evidently healthy lungs.
When Jan returned, rather dishevelled--for her niece had seized a
handful of her hair in the final struggle not to be put down--Fay said
almost complacently, "You see, the dear little soul took a fancy to you
at once. Tony is much more reserved and not nearly so friendly. He's
very Scotch, is Tony."
"He does what he's told, anyway."
"Oh, not always," Fay said reassuringly, "only when he doesn't mind
doing it. They've both got very strong wills."
"So have I," said Jan.
Fay sighed. "It was time you came to keep them in order. I can't."
This was evident, for Fay had not attempted to interfere with her
daughter beyond saying, "I expect she's hungry, that's why she's so
fretty, poor dear."
That afternoon Peter went to the flat and was shown as usual into the
sitting-room.
Jan and the children were in the verandah, all with their backs to the
room, and did not notice his entrance as Jan was singing nursery-rhymes.
Fay sat on her knee, cuddled close as though there were no such thing as
tempers in the world. Tony sat on a little chair at her side, not very
near, but still near enough to manifest a more friendly spirit than in
the morning. Peter waited in the background while the song went on.
I saw a ship a-sailing, a-sailing on the sea,
And it was full of pretty things for Tony, Fay and me.
There was sugar in the cabin and kisses in the hold----
"Whose kisses?" Tony asked suspiciously.
"Mummy's kisses, of course," said Jan.
"Why doesn't it _say_ so, then?" Tony demanded.
"Mummy's kisses in the hold," Jan sang obediently--
The sails were made of silk and the masts were made of gold.
Gold, gold, the masts were made of gold.
"What nelse?" Fay asked before Jan could start the second verse.
There were four-and-twenty sailors a-skipping on the deck,
And they were little white mice with rings about their neck.
The captain was a duck, with a jacket on his back,
And when the ship began to sail, the captain cried, "Quack! Quack!
Quack! Quack!" The captain cried, "Quack! Quack!"
"What nelse?" Fay asked again.
"There isn't any nelse, that's all."
"Adain," said Fay.
"Praps," Tony said thoughtfully, "there was _some_ auntie's kisses in
that hold ... just a few...."
"I'm sure there were," said a new voice, and Peter appeared on the
verandah.
The children greeted him with effusion, and when he sat down Tony sat on
his knee. He was never assailed by fears lest Peter should want to kiss
him. Peter was not that sort.
"Sing nunner song," little Fay commanded.
"Not now," Jan said; "we've got a visitor and must talk to him."
"Sing nunner song," little Fay repeated firmly, just as though she had
not heard.
"Not now; some other time," Jan said with equal firmness.
"Mack!" said the baby, and suited the action to the word by dealing her
aunt a good hard smack on the arm.
"You mustn't do that," said Jan; "it's not kind."
"Mack, mack, mack," in _crescendo_ with accompanying blows.
Jan caught the little hand, while Peter and Tony, interested spectators,
said nothing. She held it firmly. "Listen, little Fay," she said, very
gently. "If you do that again I shall take you to Ayah in the nursery.
Just once again, and you go."
Jan loosed the little hand, and instantly it dealt her a resounding slap
on the cheek.
It is of no avail to kick and scream and wriggle in the arms of a
strong, decided young aunt. For the second time that day, a vociferously
struggling baby was borne back to the nursery.
As the yells died away in the distance, Tony turned right round on
Peter's knee and faced him: "She does what she says," he remarked in an
awestruck whisper.
"And a jolly good thing too," answered Peter.
When Jan came back she brought her sister with her. Lalkhan brought tea,
and Tony went with him quite meekly to the nursery. They heard him
chattering to Lalkhan in Hindustani as they went along the passage.
Fay looked a thought less haggard than in the morning. She had slept
after tiffin; the fact that her sister was actually in the bungalow had
a calming effect upon her. She was quite cheerful and full of plans for
Jan's amusement; plans in which, of course, she proposed to take no part
herself. Jan listened in considerable dismay to arrangements which
appeared to her to make enormous inroads into Peter Ledgard's leisure
hours. He and his motor seemed to be quite at Fay's disposal, and Jan
found the situation both bewildering and embarrassing.
"What a nuisance for him," she reflected, "to have a young woman thrust
upon him in this fashion. It won't do to upset Fay, but I must tell him
at the first opportunity that none of these projects hold good."
Directly tea was over Fay almost hustled them out to go and buy a topee
for Jan, and suggested that, having accomplished this, they should look
in at the Yacht Club for an hour, "because it was band-night," and Jan
would like the Yacht Club lawn, with the sea and the boats and all the
cheerful people.
As the car slid into the crowded traffic of the Esplanade Road, Peter
pointed to a large building on the left, saying, "There's the Army and
Navy Stores, quite close to you, you see. You can always get anything
you want there. I'll give you my number ... not that it matters."
"I've belonged for years to the one at home," said Jan, "and I
understand the same number will do."
She felt she really could not be beholden to this strange young man for
everything, even a Stores number; and that she had better make the
situation clear at once that she had come to take care of Fay and not to
be an additional anxiety to him. At that moment she felt almost jealous
of Peter. Fay seemed to turn to him for everything.
When they reached the shop where topees were to be got, she heard a
familiar, booming voice. Had she been alone she would certainly have
turned and fled, deferring her purchase till Sir Langham Sykes had
concluded his, but she could hardly explain her rather complicated
reasons to Peter, who told the Eurasian assistant to bring topees for
her inspection.
Jan tried vainly to efface herself behind a tailor's dummy, but her back
was reflected in the very mirror which also reproduced Sir Langham in
the act of trying on a khaki-coloured topee. He saw her and at once
hurried in her direction, exclaiming:
"Ah, Miss Ross, run to earth! You slipped off this morning without
bidding me good-bye, and I've been wonderin' all day where we should
meet. Now let me advise you about your topee. _I'll_ choose it for you,
then you can't go wrong. Get a large one, mind, or the back of your nice
little neck will be burnt the colour of the toast they gave us on the
_Carnduff_--shockin' toast, wasn't it? No, not that shape, idiot ...
unless you're goin' to ride, are you? If so, you must have one of
each--a large one, I said--what the devil's the use of that? You must
wear it _well_ on your head, mind; you can't show much of that pretty
grey hair that puzzled us all so--eh, w'at?"
Jan had been white enough as she entered the shop, for she was beginning
to feel quite amazingly tired; but now the face under the overshadowing
topee was crimson and she was hopelessly confused and helpless in the
overpowering of Sir Langham, who, when he could for a moment detach his
mind from Jan, looked with considerable curiosity at Peter.
Peter stood there silent, aloof, detached; and he appeared quite cool.
Jan felt the atmosphere to be almost insufferably close, and heaved a
sigh of gratitude when he suddenly turned on an electric fan above her
head.
"I think this will do," she said, in a faint voice to the assistant,
though the crinkly green lining round the crown seemed searing her very
brain.
Peter intervened, asking: "Is it comfortable? No ..." as she took it
off. "I can see it isn't. It has marked your forehead already. Don't be
in a hurry. They'll probably need to alter the lining. Some women have
it taken out altogether. Pins keep it on all right."
Thus encouraged, she tried on others, and all the time Sir Langham held
forth at the top of his voice, interrupting his announcement that he was
dining at Government House that very night to swear at the assistant
when he brought topees that did not fit, and giving his opinion of her
appearance with the utmost frankness, till Jan found one that seemed
rather less uncomfortable than the rest. Then in desperation she
introduced Sir Langham to Peter.
"Your sister-in-law looks a bit tucked up," he remarked affably. "We'd
better take her to the Yacht Club and give her a peg--she seems to feel
the heat."
Jan cast one despairing, imploring glance at Peter, who rose to the
occasion nobly.
"You're quite right," he said. "This place is infernally stuffy. Come
on. They know where to send it. Good afternoon sir," and before she
realised what had happened Peter seized her by the arm and swept her out
of the shop and into the front seat of the car, stepped over her and
himself took the steering-wheel.
While Sir Langham's voice bayed forth a mixture of expostulation and
assignation at the Yacht Club later on.
"Now where shall we go?" asked Peter.
"Not the Yacht Club," Jan besought him. "He's coming there; he said so.
Isn't he dreadful? Did you mind very much being taken for my
brother-in-law? He has no idea who he really is, or I wouldn't have let
it pass ... but I felt I could never explain ... I'm so sorry...."
Her face was white enough now.
"It would have been absurd to explain, and it's I who should apologise
for the free-and-easy way I carried you off, but it was clearly a case
for strong measures, or he'd have insisted on coming with us. What an
awful little man! Did you have him all the voyage? No wonder you look
tired.... I hope he didn't sit at your table...."
Once out of doors, the delicious breeze from the sea that springs up
every evening in Bombay revived her. She forgot Sir Langham, for a few
minutes she even forgot Fay and her anxieties in sheer pleasure in the
prospect, as the car fell into its place in the crowded traffic of the
Queen's Road.
Jan never forgot that drive. He ran her out to Chowpatty, where the
road lies along the shore and the carriages of Mohammedan, Hindu and
Parsee gentlemen stand in serried rows while their picturesque occupants
"eat the air" in passive and contented Eastern fashion; then up to Ridge
Road on Malabar Hill, where he stopped that she might get out and walk
to the edge of the wooded cliff and look down at the sea and the great
city lying bathed in that clear golden light only to be found at sunset
in the East.
Peter enjoyed her evident appreciation of it all. She said very little,
but she looked fresh and rested again, and he was conscious of a quite
unusual pleasure in her mere presence as they stood together in the
green garden, got and kept by such infinite pains and care, that borders
the road running along the top of Malabar Hill.
Suddenly she turned. "We mustn't wait another minute," she said. "You,
doubtless, want to go to the club. It has been very good of you to spend
so much time with me. What makes it all so beautiful is that everywhere
one sees the sea. I will tell Fay how much I have enjoyed it."
Peter's eyes met hers and held them: "Try to think of me as a friend,
Miss Ross. I can see you are thoroughly capable and independent; but,
believe me, India is not like England, and a white woman needs a good
many things done for her here if she's to be at all comfortable. I don't
want to butt in and be a nuisance; but just remember I'm there when the
bell rings----"
"I am not likely to forget," said Jan.
Lights began to twinkle in the city below. The soft monotonous throb of
tom-toms came beating through the ambient air like a pulse of teeming
life; and when he left her at her sister's door the purple darkness of
an Eastern night had curtained off the sea.