“The landscape seen from our windows is certainly charming,” said
Annabel; “those cherry orchards and green meadows, and the river winding
along the valley, and the church tower peeping out among the elms, they
all make a most effective picture. There’s something dreadfully sleepy
and languorous about it, though; stagnation seems to be the dominant
note. Nothing ever happens here; seedtime and harvest, an occasional
outbreak of measles or a mildly destructive thunderstorm, and a little
election excitement about once in five years, that is all that we have to
modify the monotony of our existence. Rather dreadful, isn’t it?”
“On the contrary,” said Matilda, “I find it soothing and restful; but
then, you see, I’ve lived in countries where things do happen, ever so
many at a time, when you’re not ready for them happening all at once.”
“That, of course, makes a difference,” said Annabel.
“I have never forgotten,” said Matilda, “the occasion when the Bishop of
Bequar paid us an unexpected visit; he was on his way to lay the
foundation-stone of a mission-house or something of the sort.”
“I thought that out there you were always prepared for emergency guests
turning up,” said Annabel.
“I was quite prepared for half a dozen Bishops,” said Matilda, “but it
was rather disconcerting to find out after a little conversation that
this particular one was a distant cousin of mine, belonging to a branch
of the family that had quarrelled bitterly and offensively with our
branch about a Crown Derby dessert service; they got it, and we ought to
have got it, in some legacy, or else we got it and they thought they
ought to have it, I forget which; anyhow, I know they behaved
disgracefully. Now here was one of them turning up in the odour of
sanctity, so to speak, and claiming the traditional hospitality of the
East.”
“It was rather trying, but you could have left your husband to do most of
the entertaining.”
“My husband was fifty miles up-country, talking sense, or what he
imagined to be sense, to a village community that fancied one of their
leading men was a were-tiger.”
“A what tiger?”
“A were-tiger; you’ve heard of were-wolves, haven’t you, a mixture of
wolf and human being and demon? Well, in those parts they have
were-tigers, or think they have, and I must say that in this case, so far
as sworn and uncontested evidence went, they had every ground for
thinking so. However, as we gave up witchcraft prosecutions about three
hundred years ago, we don’t like to have other people keeping on our
discarded practices; it doesn’t seem respectful to our mental and moral
position.”
“I hope you weren’t unkind to the Bishop,” said Annabel.
“Well, of course he was my guest, so I had to be outwardly polite to him,
but he was tactless enough to rake up the incidents of the old quarrel,
and to try to make out that there was something to be said for the way
his side of the family had behaved; even if there was, which I don’t for
a moment admit, my house was not the place in which to say it. I didn’t
argue the matter, but I gave my cook a holiday to go and visit his aged
parents some ninety miles away. The emergency cook was not a specialist
in curries, in fact, I don’t think cooking in any shape or form could
have been one of his strong points. I believe he originally came to us
in the guise of a gardener, but as we never pretended to have anything
that could be considered a garden he was utilised as assistant goat-herd,
in which capacity, I understand, he gave every satisfaction. When the
Bishop heard that I had sent away the cook on a special and unnecessary
holiday he saw the inwardness of the manœuvre, and from that moment we
were scarcely on speaking terms. If you have ever had a Bishop with whom
you were not on speaking terms staying in your house, you will appreciate
the situation.”
Annabel confessed that her life-story had never included such a
disturbing experience.
“Then,” continued Matilda, “to make matters more complicated, the
Gwadlipichee overflowed its banks, a thing it did every now and then when
the rains were unduly prolonged, and the lower part of the house and all
the out-buildings were submerged. We managed to get the ponies loose in
time, and the syce swam the whole lot of them off to the nearest rising
ground. A goat or two, the chief goat-herd, the chief goat-herd’s wife,
and several of their babies came to anchorage in the verandah. All the
rest of the available space was filled up with wet, bedraggled-looking
hens and chickens; one never really knows how many fowls one possesses
till the servants’ quarters are flooded out. Of course, I had been
through something of the sort in previous floods, but never before had I
had a houseful of goats and babies and half-drowned hens, supplemented by
a Bishop with whom I was hardly on speaking terms.”
“It must have been a trying experience,” commented Annabel.
“More embarrassments were to follow. I wasn’t going to let a mere
ordinary flood wash out the memory of that Crown Derby dessert service,
and I intimated to the Bishop that his large bedroom, with a writing
table in it, and his small bath-room, with a sufficiency of cold-water
jars in it, was his share of the premises, and that space was rather
congested under the existing circumstances. However, at about three
o’clock in the afternoon, when he had awakened from his midday sleep, he
made a sudden incursion into the room that was normally the drawing-room,
but was now dining-room, store-house, saddle-room, and half a dozen other
temporary premises as well. From the condition of my guest’s costume he
seemed to think it might also serve as his dressing-room.
“’I’m afraid there is nowhere for you to sit,’ I said coldly; ‘the
verandah is full of goats.’
“’There is a goat in my bedroom,’ he observed with equal coldness, and
more than a suspicion of sardonic reproach.
“’Really,’ I said, ‘another survivor? I thought all the other goats were
done for.’
“‘This particular goat is quite done for,’ he said, ‘it is being devoured
by a leopard at the present moment. That is why I left the room; some
animals resent being watched while they are eating.’
“The leopard, of course, was easily explained; it had been hanging round
the goat sheds when the flood came, and had clambered up by the outside
staircase leading to the Bishop’s bath-room, thoughtfully bringing a goat
with it. Probably it found the bath-room too damp and shut-in for its
taste, and transferred its banqueting operations to the bedroom while the
Bishop was having his nap.”
“What a frightful situation!” exclaimed Annabel; “fancy having a ravening
leopard in the house, with a flood all round you.”
“Not in the least ravening,” said Matilda; “it was full of goat, had any
amount of water at its disposal if it felt thirsty, and probably had no
more immediate wish than a desire for uninterrupted sleep. Still, I
think any one will admit that it was an embarrassing predicament to have
your only available guest-room occupied by a leopard, the verandah choked
up with goats and babies and wet hens, and a Bishop with whom you were
scarcely on speaking terms planted down in your own sitting-room. I
really don’t know how I got through those crawling hours, and of course
mealtimes only made matters worse. The emergency cook had every excuse
for sending in watery soup and sloppy rice, and as neither the chief
goat-herd nor his wife were expert divers, the cellar could not be
reached. Fortunately the Gwadlipichee subsides as rapidly as it rises,
and just before dawn the syce came splashing back, with the ponies only
fetlock deep in water. Then there arose some awkwardness from the fact
that the Bishop wished to leave sooner than the leopard did, and as the
latter was ensconced in the midst of the former’s personal possessions
there was an obvious difficulty in altering the order of departure. I
pointed out to the Bishop that a leopard’s habits and tastes are not
those of an otter, and that it naturally preferred walking to wading; and
that in any case a meal of an entire goat, washed down with tub-water,
justified a certain amount of repose; if I had had guns fired to frighten
the animal away, as the Bishop suggested, it would probably merely have
left the bedroom to come into the already over-crowded drawing-room.
Altogether it was rather a relief when they both left. Now, perhaps, you
can understand my appreciation of a sleepy countryside where things don’t
happen.”