IN WHICH LADY MELTON RECEIVES A STRANGE VISITOR
However harassing and disturbing the events of the past few days had
been to the people particularly interested in them, to the mind of one
the proceedings of all those with whom he had come in contact had been
characterised by an ignorance, not only of the necessities of life, but
even of the very etiquette that lends a becoming dignity to existence,
which seemed almost pitiful. Not since the elephant left his native
shore had he received what he considered to be proper, or even
intelligent, attention. On the voyage, indeed, though his quarters were
crowded, and denied by the proximity of low-caste beasts, his material
wants had been considered; but since yesterday, when he had landed in
the midst of a howling wilderness of iron monsters, who could neither
see nor hear and were no respecters of persons, there had been a
scarcity even of food and water. All night he had been dragged about the
country at a speed unbecoming the dignity of a ruler of the jungle
(without even the company of his mahout, who had lost the train at
Southampton); and, now that the earth had ceased to move past him and
was once more still, he expressed his opinion of the ignorant and
degraded people of this wretched country in no uncertain voice. Then,
finding that the pen in which he was confined was cramped and dirty, and
wholly unfitted for one of his exalted position, he exerted himself to
be free, and in a short time reduced his car to kindling-wood. Being now
at liberty, he naturally desired his breakfast; but what was one to do
when men disfigured the earth with bars of steel over which one tripped,
and stored the fruits of the land in squat yellow bungalows, with fluted
iron roofs which were difficult to tear off? Therefore the elephant
lifted up his voice in rage, whereat many things happened, and a
high-caste man, clad in the blue of the sky and the gold of the sun, ran
up and down upon the earth, and declared that he should forthwith be
taken to the "Court" and delivered to the "Damconsul."
What a "Damconsul" was the elephant did not know; but concluded that it
was the title these barbarous people bestowed on the Maharajah of that
district. Since he lived at a Court, it seemed certain that he would
know how to appreciate and fittingly entertain him. The elephant
therefore consented to follow his attendant slaves, though they
understood not the noble art of riding him, but were fain to lead him
like a beast of burden. On the way he found a spring of sweet water, of
which he drank his fill, despite the protestations of his leaders and
the outcries of the inhabitants of the bungalow of the well, whose
lamentations showed them to be of low caste and little sensible of the
honour done them.
The procession at length reached the gate of the Court; and while the
attendants were in the lodge explaining matters to the astonished
keeper, the elephant, realising that "drink was good but food better,"
determined to do a little foraging on his own account, and so moved
softly off, taking along the stake to which his keepers fondly imagined
he was tethered.
He judged that he was now in the park of the Court of the "Damconsul";
and the fact that there were many clumps of familiar plants scattered
over the grass increased his belief that this was the case. He tried a
few coleus and ate a croton or two; but found them insipid and lacking
the freshness of those which bloomed in his native land. Then turning to
a grove of young palms, he tore a number up by the roots; which he found
required no expenditure of strength, and so gave him little
satisfaction. Moreover, they grew in green tubs, which rolled about
between his feet and were pitfalls for the unwary. He lay down on a few
of the beds; but the foliage was pitifully thin and afforded him no
comfortable resting-place; moreover, there were curious rows of
slanting things which glistened in the sunlight, and which he much
wished to investigate. On examination he found them quite brittle, and
easily smashed a number of them with his trunk. Nor was this all, for in
the wreckage he discovered a large quantity of most excellent
fruit--grapes and nectarines and some very passable plums. Evidently the
"Damconsul" was an enlightened person, who knew how to live; and,
indeed, it is not fitting for even an elephant to turn up his trunk at
espalier peaches at a guinea apiece.
Certainly, thought the elephant, things might be worse. And after a bath
in a neighbouring fountain, which cost the lives of some two score of
goldfish, he really felt refreshed, and approached the palace, which he
considered rather dingy, in order to pay his respects to its owner.
Coming round to the front of the building he discovered a marble
terrace, gleaming white in the sunshine, and flanked by two groups of
statuary--Hercules with his club, and Diana with her bow: though, being
unacquainted with Greek mythology, he did not recognise them as such.
On the terrace itself was set a breakfast-table resplendent with silver
and chaste with fair linen; and by it sat a houri, holding a sunshade
over her golden head. The elephant, wishing to conciliate this vision of
beauty, advanced towards her, trumpeting gently; but his friendly
overtures were evidently misinterpreted, for the houri, giving a wild
scream, dropped her sunshade, and fled for safety to the shoulders of
Hercules, from which vantage-point she called loudly for help.
Feeling that such conduct was indecorous in the extreme, he ignored her
with a lofty contempt; and, having tested the quality of the masonry,
ventured upon the terrace and inspected the feast. There were more
nectarines--but he had had enough of those--and something steaming in a
silver vessel, the like of which he remembered to have encountered once
before in the bungalow of a sahib. Moreover, he had not forgotten how it
spouted a boiling liquid when one took it up in one's trunk. At this
moment a shameless female slave appeared at a window, in response to
the cries of the houri, and abused him. He could not, it is true,
understand her barbarous language; but the tone implied abuse. Such an
insult from the scum of the earth could not be allowed to pass
unnoticed. He filled his trunk with water from a marble basin near at
hand, and squirted it at her with all his force, and the scum of the
earth departed quickly.
"It would be well," thought the elephant, "to find the 'Damconsul'
before further untoward incidents could occur"; and with this end in
view, he turned himself about, preparatory to leaving the terrace. He
forgot, however, that marble may be slippery; his hind legs suddenly
slid from under him, and he sat hurriedly down on the breakfast-table.
It was at this singularly inopportune moment that Lady Diana appeared
upon the scene.
Her ladyship awoke that morning to what was destined to be the most
eventful and disturbing day of her peaceful and well-ordered life, with
a feeling of irritation and regret that it had dawned, which, in the
light of subsequent events, would seem to have been almost a
premonition of coming evil. She was, though at this early hour she
little knew it, destined to receive a series of shocks of volcanic force
and suddenness, between sunrise and sunset, any one of which would have
served to overthrow her preconceived notions of what life, and
especially life at Melton Court, ought to be.
As yet she knew nothing of all this; but she did know that, though it
was long after the hour appointed, she had heard no sound of her
great-niece's departing footsteps. She waited till she must have missed
the train, and then rang her bedroom bell sharply to learn why her
orders had been disobeyed.
"If you please, my lady," replied her maid in answer to her mistress's
questions, "Bright did not go because we could not find Mrs. Scarsdale."
"Could not find my niece! And why not, pray?" demanded her ladyship
angrily.
"She was not in her room, my lady, or anywhere about the Court; only
this note, directed to your ladyship, on her dressing-table."
"Why didn't you say so to begin with, then?" cried her mistress testily.
"Open the window, that I may see what this means."
The note was short and painstakingly polite; but its perusal did not
seem to please Lady Diana, for she frowned and set her thin lips as she
re-read it. The missive ran as follows:
"DEAR LADY MELTON,
"I write to apologise for the somewhat unconventional manner in
which I am leaving your house; but as your plans for my disposal
to-day did not accord with my own ideas of what is fitting, I have
thought it best to leave thus early, and so avoid any awkwardness
which might arise from conflicting arrangements. I wish you to know
that I shall be with friends by this evening, so that you need feel
no anxiety about my position. Pray accept my thanks for your
hospitality, which I am sure my husband will much appreciate, and
believe me,
"Yours respectfully,
"MABEL SCARSDALE."
This communication her ladyship tore up into small fragments, and then
snapped out:
"Is there anything more?"
"Yes, if you please, my lady," replied the maid; "a note for you from
Mr. Allingford, left in his room."
Lady Melton took it as gingerly as if it were fresh from some infected
district, and, spreading it out on the bed before her, read it with a
contemptuous smile.
"YOUR LADYSHIP," wrote the Consul, "I have the honour to inform you
that I am leaving at the earliest possible moment, not wishing to
impose my company longer than is absolutely necessary where it is
so evidently undesired. That there may be no burden of obligation
between us, I beg you to accept a trunk belonging to me, which will
arrive this morning, as compensation for my board and lodging.
"I remain
"Your Ladyship's Obedient Servant,
"ROBERT ALLINGFORD,
"_U.S. Consul, Christchurch, England_.
"P.S.--I mail you to-day a deed of gift of the property in
question, legally attested, so that there may be no question of
ownership.
"R. A."
"Insolence!" gasped Lady Melton, when she comprehended the contents of
this astonishing communication. Then turning to her maid, she commanded:
"If this person's trunk arrives here, have it sent back to him
instantly." And she fumed with rage at the thought.
"How dare he suppose that I would for a moment accept a gratuity!"
Indeed, so wrought up was she that it was with difficulty that she
controlled herself sufficiently to breakfast on the terrace. Moreover,
her interview with Bright, the butler, whom she encountered on her way
downstairs and who announced the arrival of her great-nephew and a
strange lady, was hardly soothing; for it forced her to believe that
that faithful servant, after years of probity, had at last strayed from
the temperate paths of virtue. Seeing him dishevelled and bewildered,
she had sternly rebuked him for his appearance, and from his disjointed
replies had only gathered that his astounding state was in some way due
to the Consul.
"Has that insolent person's trunk arrived?" she inquired; when, to her
astonishment, her old retainer, who had always observed in her presence
a respectful and highly deferential demeanour, actually tittered.
"Bright!" she said sternly.
"Beg pardon, my lady," giggled Bright, his face still wreathed in
smiles; "but the way you put it."
"What have you done with this person's belongings? Have my orders been
carried out?"
"You mean in regard to the--the----"
"Trunk. Yes, let it be put off the place immediately."
"Please, your ladyship," he replied, with difficulty restraining his
laughter, "it won't go."
"Will not go?"
"No, my lady; it's been rampaging through the greenhouses, and is now on
the terrace, where it douched Anne most awful."
"Leave me at once, Bright, and do not let me see you again till you are
in a more decent state," she commanded, and swept by him, ignoring his
protestations of innocence and respect.
She found Scarsdale awaiting her in the reception-room, and accorded him
a very frigid greeting, suggesting that they should have their interview
on the terrace, where he had left Mrs. Allingford safely ensconced in an
armchair, while he went to meet his great-aunt.
Her ladyship had been considerably ruffled both by her interview with
Bright and by the arrival of Scarsdale, towards whom, in the light of
recent events, she felt a strong resentment; and a vision of the
Consul's wife perched most indecorously on the shoulders of Hercules,
which she beheld as she emerged on the terrace, did not tend to calm her
already excited nerves. But before she could speak her eyes followed the
direction of the unknown lady's gaze, and she saw, for the first time,
her unwelcome visitor.
When you come suddenly face to face with an elephant seated amidst the
wreck of cherished Chippendale and ancestral Sèvres, it is not
calculated to increase your composure or equalise your temper; and Lady
Diana may be pardoned, as the vastness of the Consul's impudence dawned
upon her, for giving vent to expressions both of anger and amazement,
albeit her appearance produced no less of a disturbance in the breast of
him who sat amidst the ruins of the breakfast-table. The elephant felt
that in the presence of the Maharanee, for such he believed her to be,
his position was undignified. She was, without doubt, the wife of the
"Damconsul," and, as such, should be paid all proper respect and
deference. He, therefore, bowed his head in submission, completing in
the process his work of destruction. Whereat Mrs. Allingford shrieked
and clung more closely to the protecting shoulders of Hercules.
Serious as the situation was, it was not without its humorous side, and
it took all Scarsdale's command of himself to control his face
sufficiently to address his relative with becoming respect.
"Why, aunt," he said, "I didn't know that you had gone in for pets!"
"Harold Stanley Malcolm St. Hubart Scarsdale," replied her ladyship--she
prided herself on never forgetting a name--"you are one of the most
impudent and worthless young men that I have the honour to count among
my relatives; but you have been in India, and you ought to know how to
manage this monster."
"I've seen enough of them," he answered. "What do you want him to do?"
"Do!" she cried wrathfully. "I should think anybody would know that I
wished it to get up and go away."
"Oh," said he, and made a remark in Hindustani to the elephant, whereat
the beast gradually and deliberately proceeded to rise from the wreck of
the breakfast, till he seemed to the spectators to be forty feet high.
Then, in response to Scarsdale's cries of "Mail! mail!" (Go on) he
turned himself about, and, after sending the teapot through the nearest
window with a disdainful kick of one hind leg, he lurched down the steps
of the terrace and on to the lawn, where he remained contentedly
standing, gently rocking to and fro, while he meditatively removed from
his person, by means of his trunk, the fragments of the feast, with
which he was liberally bespattered.
Scarsdale, seeing that his lordship was in an amicable frame of mind,
hastened to assist Mrs. Allingford to descend from her somewhat uneasy
perch.
"St. Hubart," said Lady Melton, who, throughout this trying ordeal, had
lost none of her natural dignity, "you have done me a service. I shall
not forget it."
Scarsdale thought it would be difficult to forget the elephant.
"I will even forgive you," she continued, "for marrying that American."
"It was so good of you to receive my wife," he said. "I trust you are
pleased with her."
"I am not pleased at all," she said sharply. "I consider her forward and
disrespectful, and I am glad she is gone."
"Gone!" he exclaimed.
"You may well be surprised," said his great-aunt, "but such is the
case."
"But where has she gone?"
"That I do not know; she left without consulting me, and against my
advice and wishes."
"Did she go alone?"
"She went," replied her ladyship, "with one of the most insolent persons
it has ever been my misfortune to meet. He is owner of that!" And she
pointed to the elephant.
"But who is he?" demanded Scarsdale, not recognising, from her
description, his friend the Consul.
"He disgraces," she continued, "a public office given him by a foreign
Government."
"You are surely not talking about Allingford!" he exclaimed.
"That, I believe, is his name," replied Lady Melton.
"What, my husband!" cried the Consul's wife, who up to this point had
kept silence. "You dare to call my husband a disgrace----!" Here Mrs.
Allingford became dumb with indignation.
"If he is your husband," returned her ladyship, "I am exceedingly sorry
for you. As for 'daring' to apply to him any epithet I please, I
consider myself fully justified in so doing after the indignity to which
he has condemned me. I am glad, however, to have met you, as I am thus
enabled to return you your husband's property, with the request that you
take your elephant and leave my grounds as quickly as possible."
"Do you mean to say that my husband owns that monster?" gasped Mrs.
Allingford.
"Such is the case," replied Lady Melton, "and I leave it in your hands.
St. Hubart, I trust _you_ will join me at breakfast as soon as another
can be prepared."
"Excuse me," he said apologetically, "but really, you know, I can't
leave Mrs. Allingford in the lurch. Besides, I must follow my wife."
His great-aunt faced round in a fury.
"That is sufficient!" she cried. "Leave my presence at once! I never
desire to see either of you again."
"Don't let us part as enemies, aunt," he said, offering her his hand;
but she swept past him into the house.
Scarsdale gloomily watched her depart, and then became conscious of a
hand laid on his arm.
"I am so sorry!" murmured Mrs. Allingford. "I only seem to bring you
trouble."
"Oh, you mustn't feel badly about this," he said. "We have quarrelled
ever since I was born. I'm much more worried about you."
"What am I going to do with it?" she exclaimed, looking hopelessly at
her husband's property as it stood rocking before her.
"The first thing is to get it off the place," replied Scarsdale,
assuming a cheerfulness which he did not feel. "We may find its keepers
at the lodge, and we can make our plans as we walk along."
"Come on, Jehoshaphat, or whatever you may happen to be called!" he
cried, addressing the elephant, and at the same time grasping the rope
bridle which still dangled from its neck; and the beast, recognising a
kindred spirit speaking to him in his native tongue, followed docilely
where he led.
"I think," continued Scarsdale, as they trudged slowly across the park,
"that our best course will be to take the elephant to Christchurch.
Indeed, we ought to have gone there in the first instance."
"What do you expect to gain by that?" she asked quickly, ready in this
strange dilemma to catch at any straw which gave opportunity of escape.
"Why, your husband's consulate is situated there, and that is his local
habitation in this country, where he is certain to turn up sooner or
later, and where, if the laws of his consular service are anything like
ours, he would be obliged to report every few days."
"You propose to go there and await his return?"
"Yes," he said. "I don't see that we can do better. Ten to one your
husband and my wife will hear of our affair at Winchester, and may be on
their way there now to hunt us up; while if we attempted to follow them,
it is more than likely that they would return here. I, for one, am about
tired of chasing myself around the country; as a steady occupation it is
beginning to pall."
"There is a group of men at the lodge," she said, as they drew near the
gates with the elephant in tow.
"Then let us hope that there are some station people among them, and
that we can arrange for Jehoshaphat's transportation without loss of
time," replied Scarsdale.
His hope was, in the first instance, justified; for the station-master
at Salisbury, learning of the Consul's early departure that morning, and
beginning to doubt the wisdom of inflicting the elephant on so important
a personage as Lady Melton, had come up to the Court himself to see how
things were going, and had been horrified beyond measure at the
exaggerated reports of the lodgekeeper as to the havoc the beast had
created. He was therefore unfeignedly relieved at Scarsdale's arrival; a
relief, however, which instantly gave way to stubborn opposition at the
first hint of putting the animal again in his charge.
Elephants were not in his line, he pointed out, and he had no desire to
transport them about the country. Couldn't think of acting without
receiving advices from the main offices of the railway company in
London, an affair of several days; wouldn't assume charge of the
creature during the interval on any account; and shouldn't stir a step
in the matter till the wrecked van had been paid for.
This ended the affair, as far as Scarsdale was concerned. He had no
intention of paying damages for the Consul's elephant, but he wished to
deliver it and the Consul's wife at Christchurch as soon as possible. If
this could not be accomplished one way, it must be another. There were
plenty of horses and carriages to be had; indeed, the landau and pair
which had brought them from Salisbury was still at the gates. The roads
were good, the distance to Christchurch was not excessive--say thirty
miles--and the elephant could walk. It merely remained to find a leader
or driver, and they could start at once on their journey across country.
All this he explained to his fair companion, and she readily acquiesced.
"The only problem to be solved, then, is where to find a mahout," he
said in conclusion.
She threw him an inquiring glance; but he felt it was asking too much,
and said so.
"If it were any other country, I'd ride the beast myself to oblige you;
but in England, and as a representative of one of the first families of
the county, I couldn't. The prejudices of the locality would never
recover from the shock, and I should not be able to show my face in the
streets of Salisbury. But perhaps we can find a substitute. Is there any
one here," he went on, addressing the little group of men, "who
understands an elephant?"
"Tom, 'e knows the bloomin' beasts," said a member of the company; and
Tom, groom to her ladyship, and cockney every inch of him, was pushed
forward for inspection.
One glance at the trim form, concealed though it was by stable costume,
was sufficient to assure Scarsdale that he had found his man.
"You have been a soldier," he said, "and in India?"
"Yes, sir," replied the man, touching the peak of his cap in a military
salute.
"Do you think you could manage him?" continued Scarsdale, indicating
the elephant, which, wearied with the morning's exertions, had knelt
down, and seemed on the point of taking a nap.
"Do I think as 'ow I could manage 'im? I should 'ope so, if I ain't
fergot is 'eathen language, sir."
"I'll give you eighteen pence a mile," said Scarsdale, quick to act on
the man's decision.
"Make it two bob, sir, an' I'll ride 'im ter Inja."
"That's too far," he replied, laughing; "my pocket wouldn't stand the
strain; but I'll give you the price to Christchurch."
"Right you are," replied the hostler, closing the bargain at once. "Me
name's Tom Ropes. What d'yer call 'im, sir?" pointing to his recumbent
charge.
"I don't know what he was christened. I call him Jehoshaphat."
"A Christian name fer a 'eathen brute," commented Tom. "Give me a leg
up, one er yer."
Once astride the beast's neck, with Scarsdale's cane as an improvised
ankus, he poured out a flood of cockney-Indian jargon which no Hindoo
could ever have recognised as his native tongue, but which evidently had
a familiar sound to the elephant, who proceeded to rise, first with his
fore feet and then with his hind feet; after which his novel mahout, who
throughout these manoeuvres had retained a precarious hold by one ear,
hastened to seat himself more firmly upon him.
"All right?" queried Scarsdale, looking up; and on receiving an answer
in the affirmative, added: "Keep your feet well under his ears, and hit
him on the head with your stick if he gets fractious. All you need do is
to follow our carriage. Trust to his judgment about bridges; he knows
what will hold him."
Arrangements, on a liberal scale, having been made for the use of the
conveyance which had brought them from the station, they were ready to
start in a very short space of time; Scarsdale stipulating that they
head towards Southampton, taking the least travelled roads, and in any
event giving Salisbury a wide berth. This was agreed to; and thereupon
commenced one of the most extraordinary progresses that had ever stirred
up a staid and conventional countryside: Scarsdale and Mrs. Allingford
leading off in the landau, since it was necessary to keep the horse well
in front of the elephant, and Tom and his charge plodding on in their
wake.
As they left the lodge behind them and came out into the open country,
the Consul's wife, turning to her companion in misfortune, said, between
tears and smiles:
"What do you think is going to happen next?"