THE AUTOCRAT.
There was a little informal gathering at the Haighs’ that evening.
People often dropped in after dinner for some music, for Lady Haigh
had actually brought her piano (without which no self-respecting bride
then left her native land) up to Bab-us-Sahel with her. True, it had
been necessary to float it ashore in its case; but it was unanimously
agreed that its tone had not suffered in the very least. To-night
there was the additional attraction that Lady Haigh had staying with
her a handsome girl just out from home, who was understood, from the
report of the other passengers on the steamer, to play the guitar and
sing like an angel. Lady Haigh herself had no love for music whatever,
and in these days public opinion would have forbidden her to touch an
instrument; but she did her duty as hostess by rattling off one of the
dashing, crashing compositions of the day, and then thankfully left
her guest to bear the burden of the entertainment. The ring of eager
listeners that surrounded Penelope Ross, demanding one song after
another, made her feel that she was justified in so doing; and after
she had seen the obnoxious Captain Ferrers enter, and satisfied
herself that he perceived too late what a treasure he had lightly
thrown away, she slipped out on the verandah to think over the task
she had rashly set herself in her contest with her husband. How was
Major Keeling, who hated women, and had merely been induced to condone
Lady Haigh’s own existence because he had asked for Sir Dugald’s
services without knowing he was married, to be persuaded to allow
Penelope to accompany her to Alibad?
“I know he is dining at Government House to-night,” she reflected
forlornly, “or I might have asked him to come in for some music. But
then he would have been just as likely to send a _chit_ to say that he
disliked music. Men who hate women are such bears! And if I ask him to
dinner another night, he will see through it as soon as he finds
Penelope is here. And yet I must get things settled at once, or
Penelope will think she is unwelcome, and Colin will persuade her to
do something quixotic and detestable--marry Ferrers, or go out as a
governess, or---- Why, surely----”
She ran to the edge of the verandah, and peered across the parched
compound to the road. Above the feeble hedge of milk-bush she could
see the head and shoulders of a horseman, of the very man with whom
her thoughts were busy. The shock of black hair and short full beard
made Major Keeling unmistakable at a time when beards were few,
although there was no “regulation” military cut or arrangement of the
hair. The fiercest-looking officer in Lady Haigh’s drawing-room at
this moment, whose heavy moustache and truculent whiskers gave him the
air of a swashbuckler, or at least of a member of Queen Cristina’s
Foreign Legion, was a blameless Engineer of strong Evangelical
principles. Lady Haigh saw at once the state of the case. The
gathering at Government House had broken up at the early hour exacted
by Lady Lennox, who was a vigilant guardian of her warrior’s health,
and Major Keeling was whiling away the time by a moonlight ride before
returning to his quarters. To summon one of the servants, and send him
flying to stop the Major Sahib and ask him to come and speak to Lady
Haigh, was the work of a moment; for though Major Keeling might be a
woman-hater, he had never yet rebelled against the sway which his
subordinate’s wife established as by right over all the men around
her, for their good. Lady Haigh disliked the idea of putting her
influence to the test in this way, for if Major Keeling refused to
yield there could be nothing but war between them in future; but the
matter was urgent.
“You wanted to speak to me, Lady Haigh?” Major Keeling had dismounted,
and was coming up the steps, looking almost gigantic in the
picturesque full-dress uniform of the Khemistan Horse.
“I want you to do a kindness,” she responded, rather breathlessly.
“I know what that means. I am to break a rule, or relax an order, or
in some other way go against my better judgment.”
“I--I want you to let me bring a friend of mine to Alibad with me.”
Major Keeling’s brow darkened. “I knew this would come. You assured me
you could stand the isolation, but I knew better. Of course you want
female society; it is quite natural you should. But you professed to
understand that on the frontier you couldn’t have it.”
“Not society--just this one girl,” pleaded Lady Haigh.
“Who is she? a sister of yours or Haigh’s?”
“No relation to either of us. She is Mr Ross’s sister--your old
friend’s daughter--an orphan, and all alone.”
“Engaged to any one who is going with me?”
“No--o.” The negative, doubtful at first, became definite. “I won’t
say a word about Ferrers, even to get him to let her come,” was Lady
Haigh’s resolute determination.
“Then she can’t come.”
“Oh, Major Keeling! And if I had said she was engaged, you would have
said that the man would be always wasting his time dangling round
her.”
“But as she isn’t, the whole force would waste their time dangling
round her,” was the crushing reply. “No, Lady Haigh, we have no use
for young ladies on the frontier. It will be work, not play.”
“Play! Do you think a girl with that face wants to spend her life in
playing?” demanded Lady Haigh, very much in the tone with which she
had once been wont to crush her family. “Look there!”
She drew him to the open window of the drawing-room and made him look
through the reed curtain. The light fell full on Penelope’s face as
she sang, and Lady Haigh felt that the beholder was impressed.
“What’s that she’s singing?” he growled. “‘County Guy’? Scott? There’s
some good in her, at any rate.”
Lady Haigh forbore to resent the slighting imputation, and Major
Keeling remained watching the singer through the curtain. Penelope’s
contemporaries considered her tall and queenly, though she would now
be thought decidedly under middle height. Her dark hair was dressed in
a graceful old fashion which had almost gone out before the combined
assault of bands and ringlets,--raised high on the head, divided in
front, and slightly waved on the temples,--a style which by rights
demanded an oval face and classical features as its complement. Judged
by this standard, Penelope might have been found wanting, for her
features were at once stronger and less regular than the classical
ideal; but the grey eyes beneath the broad low brow disarmed
criticism, they were so large and deep and calm, save when they were
lighted, as now, by the fire of the ballad she was singing. Those were
days when a white dress and coloured ribbons were considered the only
evening wear for a young girl; and Penelope wore a vivid scarlet sash,
with knots of scarlet catching up her airy white draperies, and a
scarlet flower in her hair. As Major Keeling stood looking at her,
Lady Haigh caught a murmur which at once astonished and delighted her.
“That is a woman who would help a man--not drag him back.” Then,
apparently realising that he had spoken aloud, he added hastily, “Yes,
yes, as you say. But who’s the man with the unlucky face?”
His finger indicated a tall thin youth who stood behind the singer.
The face was a remarkable one, thin and hawklike, with a high forehead
and closely compressed lips. The hair and small moustache were fair
and reddish in tint, the eyes grey, with a curious look of aloofness
instead of the keenness that would have seemed to accord with the rest
of the features.
“That? Why, that’s Colin Ross, Penelope’s brother. What is there
unlucky about him?”
“Oh, nothing--merely a look. Her brother, do you say?”
“Yes, her twin brother. But what look do you mean? Oh, you must tell
me, Major Keeling, or I shall tell Penelope that you say her brother
has an unlucky face.”
“You will do nothing of the kind. Hush! don’t attract their attention.
I can’t explain it: I have seen it in several men--not many,
fortunately--and it has always meant an early and violent death.”
“But this is pure superstition!” cried Lady Haigh. “And, after all, he
is a soldier.”
“Call it superstition if you like: I only speak of what I know, and I
would not have spoken if you had not compelled me. And there are worse
deaths than a soldier’s. One of the men I speak of was poisoned, one
was murdered in Ethiopia, one was lost in the _Nuncomar_. That’s how
it goes. What sort of man is young Ross?”
“Very serious, I believe,” answered Lady Haigh. The word still had its
cant meaning, which would now be expressed by “religious.”
“So much the better for him. I can trust you to say nothing to his
sister about this?”
“Now, is it likely? But the least you can do now is to let her come
with us. His twin sister! you couldn’t have the heart to separate them
when he may have such dreadful things before him?”
“How would it be better if she were there?” he asked gloomily; but, as
if by a sudden impulse, parted the curtain and advanced into the room.
Penelope, her song ended, was toying with the knot of scarlet ribbons
attached to the guitar, while her hearers were trying to decide upon
the next song, when the group was divided by the abrupt entrance of a
huge man, as it seemed to her, in extraordinary clothes. It struck her
as remarkable that every man in the room seemed to stiffen into
attention at the moment, and she rose hesitatingly, wondering whether
this could possibly be Sir Henry Lennox.
“Do me the honour to present me, Lady Haigh,” said the stranger, in a
deep voice which seemed to be subdued for the occasion.
“Major Keeling, Miss Ross,” said Lady Haigh promptly. She was enjoying
herself.
“I hear you wish to come up to Alibad with us,” said Major Keeling
abruptly. “Can you ride?”
“Yes, I am very fond of it.”
“I don’t mean trotting along an English road. Can you ride on through
the sand hour after hour, so as to keep up with the column, and not
complain? Complaints would mean that you would go no farther.”
“I can promise I won’t complain. If I feel I can’t stick on my horse
any longer, I will get some one to tie me into the saddle.” Penelope
smiled slightly. This catechism was not without its humorous side.
“Can you cut down your baggage to regulation limits? Let me see, what
did I promise you, Lady Haigh? A camel? Well, half that. Can you do
with a camel between you?”
“I think so.” Penelope was conscious of Lady Haigh’s face of agony.
“You must, if you come. Can you do what you are told?”
“I--I believe so. I generally do.”
“If you get orders to leave Alibad in an hour, can you forsake
everything, and be ready for the march? That’s what I mean. If I find
it necessary to send you down, go you must. Can you make yourself
useful? Oh, I daresay you can do pretty things like most young ladies,
but can you put yourself at the surgeon’s disposal after a fight, and
be some good?”
“I would try,” said Penelope humbly. It was before Miss Nightingale’s
days, and the suggestion sounded very strange to her. Major Keeling
stood looking at her, until his black brows relaxed suddenly.
“All right, you can come,” he said. “And,” he added, as he left the
room, “I’ll allow you a camel apiece after all.”
“What an interesting-looking man Major Keeling is!” said Penelope to
her friend the next morning.
“Some people think so. I don’t particularly admire that kind of
swarthy picturesqueness myself,” was the meditative answer. “I won’t
praise him to her on any account,” said Lady Haigh to herself.
“It’s not that so much as his look and his voice. Don’t you know----”
“Why, you are as bad as the girls at Bombay. One of them told me they
all perfectly doated on dear Major Keeling; he was just like a dear
delightful bandit in an opera.”
“Really, Elma!” Penelope’s graceful head was lifted with dignity, and
Lady Haigh, foreseeing a coolness, hastened to make amends.
“I was only in fun. We don’t doat, do we, Pen? or gush, or anything of
that sort. But it was only the happiest chance his letting you come
with us. If he had caught you singing Tennyson, or your dear Miss
Barrett--Mrs Browning, is it? what does it signify?--there would have
been no hope for you. But it happened to be Scott, and that conquered
him at once. They say he knows all the poems by heart, and recites
them before a battle. Dugald heard him doing it at Umarganj, at any
rate. The troopers like it, because they think he is muttering spells
to discomfit the enemy. Isn’t it romantic?”
“How funny!” was Penelope’s disappointing comment.
“He was very fond of Byron once, but he has given him up for
conscience’ sake,” pursued Lady Haigh.
“For conscience’ sake?”
“Yes; Byron was a man of immoral life, and his works are not fit for a
Christian’s reading.”
“He must be a very good man, I suppose. I shouldn’t have guessed----”
“That he was good? No; he might be mysteriously wicked, from his
looks, mightn’t he? But I believe he is really good, and he has the
most extraordinary influence over the natives. Dugald was telling me
last night that at Alibad they seemed inclined to receive him as a
saint--as if his reputation had gone before him, you know. He never
drinks anything but water, for one thing; and he doesn’t dance, and he
never speaks to a lady if he can help it---- Oh, Pen, were you very
much astonished by the catechism he put you through last night?”
“Yes,” admitted Penelope. “He asked me such strange things, and in
such a solemn voice. I should have liked time to think before
answering.”
“Well, it was nothing to what he asked me. I had to promise never to
keep Dugald back--or even to try to--from anything he was ordered to
do. Wasn’t it barbarous? You see, in that fight at Umarganj Dugald had
got his guns up just in time to take part, and they decided the
battle. Major Keeling was so pleased that he said at once, ‘We must
have you at Alibad,’ and of course Dugald was delighted. But when the
Chief found out he was married he almost refused to take him, for he
had sworn he would have no ladies on the frontier. And there was I,
who had said over and over again that I would never stand between
Dugald and his chances! It really looked like a romantic suicide,
leaving pathetic letters to break the cruel Major’s heart, didn’t it?
But Sir Henry Lennox interceded for me, and I told Major Keeling I
would promise anything if he would only let us both go. And now I wake
up at night dreaming that the Chief has ordered Dugald to certain
death, and I mustn’t say a word, and I lie there sobbing, or shaking
with terror, until Dugald hears me, and asks me why I don’t control my
imagination. That’s what husbands are. What with keeping them in a
good temper when they are there, and missing them when they are away,
one has no peace. Don’t invest in one, Pen.”
“I have no intention of doing it--at any rate at present. But,
Elma----”
“Of course I mean it all depends on your getting the right man.” Lady
Haigh was uncomfortably conscious that she might one day wish to
explain away her last remark. “Only find him, and he shall have you
with my blessing. Pen, did you notice anything about Major Keeling’s
eyes? I mean”--she went on, talking quickly to cover her sudden
realisation that the transition must have appeared somewhat abrupt to
Penelope--“did he seem to be able to read your mind? The natives
believe that he can, and say that he can tell when a man is a spy
simply by looking at him. He seems to have funny ideas, too, about
being able to foretell a person’s fate from his face. He was very much
struck by--at least”--she blundered on, conscious that she was getting
deeper and deeper into the mire--“he said something last night about
Colin’s having a very remarkable face.”
“Oh dear, I hope he hasn’t second-sight! Colin has it sometimes, and
if two of them get together they’ll encourage one another in it,” said
Penelope wearily. “Colin is not quite sure about its being right, so
he never tries to use it, but sometimes---- Oh, Elma, I must tell you,
and I’m afraid you won’t like it at all. Colin was here before
breakfast, and talked to me a long time about George Ferrers. I think
they had been having a ride together.”
“Colin ought to know better than to have anything to do with Ferrers.
He will get no good from him.”
“Why, Elma, he has always been so devoted to him, and George used to
seem quite different when he was with us. Colin is terribly grieved
about what you--I--did yesterday. He says it was very wrong to break
off the engagement altogether, that I was quite right not to marry
George at once, but that I ought to have put him on probation, giving
him every possible hope for the future.”
“I think I see you putting Captain Ferrers on probation,” said Lady
Haigh grimly, recalling her brief interview with the gentleman in
question. “He would be the last person to stand it, however much he
might wish to marry you----” She broke off suddenly.
“But, Elma, he does,” said Penelope piteously, understanding the “But
he doesn’t” which her friend suppressed for the sake of her feelings.
“That’s the worst of it. He told Colin that he was so taken aback, and
felt himself so utterly unworthy, when you told him I was here, that
he felt the best thing for my happiness was to break off the
engagement at once. But when he came in in the evening, and saw us
both again, and heard the old songs, he felt he had thrown away his
only chance of doing better. Colin always seems to bring out the best
in him, you know, and----”
“Do you know what happened as soon as he had said good night to you?”
asked Lady Haigh coldly. “He was beating one of his servants, who had
made a mistake about bringing his horse, so frightfully that Dugald
had to go and interfere. He said to me when he came back that it was a
comfort to think Ferrers would get a knife into him if he tried that
sort of thing on the frontier.”
“But doesn’t that show what a terrible temper poor George has, and how
hard it must be for him to control it?” cried Penelope. “He says he
feels he should just go straight to the dogs if we took away all hope
from him. I know it’s very wrong of him to say it, but I dare not take
the responsibility, Elma. And Colin says he has always had such a very
strong feeling that in some way or other George’s eternal welfare was
bound up with him or me, or both of us, and so----”
“Now I call that profane,” was the crushing reply. “Oh, I know Colin
would cheerfully sacrifice you or himself, or both of you, as you say,
for the sake of saving any one, and much more George Ferrers, but it
doesn’t lie with him. What if he sacrifices you and doesn’t save
Ferrers? But I know it’s no good talking. Colin will take his own
course in his own meek unbending way, and drag you after him. But I
won’t countenance it, at any rate. What has he got you to do?”
“I know it’s my fault,” sobbed Penelope, “and I must seem dreadfully
ungrateful after all your kindness. I had been so miserable about
George’s silence, that when you told me about him yesterday I felt I
had known it all along, and that it was really a relief the blow had
fallen. And when you said he quite agreed that it was best to break
off the engagement, a weight seemed to be taken off my mind. Of course
I ought to have seen him myself--not shuffled off my responsibilities
on you, and found out what he really felt, so as to keep him from
sacrificing himself for me, and----”
“Stuff and nonsense!” ejaculated Lady Haigh, very loudly and firmly.
“Penelope, will you kindly leave off reproaching yourself and me, and
tell me what the state of affairs is at present between you and George
Ferrers? You don’t care a rap for him; but because he says he can’t
take care of himself without a woman to help him, you are afraid to
tell him that he is a coward to try to thrust his burden off on you.
Are you engaged?”
“No,” explained Penelope; “Colin did not wish that. It is only--only
if he keeps straight, as he calls it, at Alibad, we are to be engaged
again.”
“And suppose you fall in love with some one else?”
“Elma! how could I? We are practically engaged, of course.”
“Not at all,” said Lady Haigh briskly. “You are under my charge, and I
refuse to recognise anything of the kind. Until you’re engaged again
Ferrers is no more to you than any of the other men, and I won’t have
him hanging about. Why”--reading a protest in Penelope’s face--“what
good would it be putting him on probation if he had all the privileges
of a _fiancé_? And nothing is to be said about it, Penelope. I simply
will not have it.”
“I only want to do what is right,” said Penelope, subdued by her
friend’s authoritative tone. “As you say, it will be a truer test for
him if he does not come here often.”
“Trust me to see to that. And Master Colin shall have a good piece of
my mind,” said Lady Haigh resolutely.