AN UNTIMELY CALL.
It was this same custom which caused discomfiture to X. on the following
day, when having received the promised special permit, a document
calling upon all officials to assist him, in the name of the
Governor-General himself, he decided that it would be only right that he
should present himself at the house of the ruler who had signed it, and
in token of gratitude and respect inscribe his name in his book. As the
traveller had no intention of seeing anyone or attempting to enter the
gorgeous palace which stands in the midst of the famous gardens, there
seemed no need to trouble about the time for the call, and therefore it
seemed well to make it the excuse for a walk and fit it in with his
afternoon stroll. Accordingly about 5 o'clock found him walking up the
broad avenue, on either side of which were browsing deer in great
numbers--a very novel feature to anyone who for years had only seen such
creatures wild excepting one time when--but no I must withhold the
temptation to wander off the broad avenue which leads the visitor up to
the stately pile in front of him as, like he did a little further on, I
would wish to get it over. For it is not pleasant even to record the
admittedly awkward situations in which X., who had always prided himself
on his _savoir faire_, now so often found himself.
As he approached the portico (it reminded him much of Gorhambury, the
seat of Lord Verulam, in Hertfordshire) the stranger became aware,
rather than actually saw, that there were two figures seated on the main
verandah having tea. He almost felt their eyes upon him in wonder and
amusement, and, as he gradually neared the steps without in any way
looking up, it was in some mysterious manner conveyed to him that these
figures were ladies, and their dress, the sarong and kabaya! What was he
to do. He could not turn and fly, nor could he diverge from the broad
path and wander across the grass like any common trespasser--and, even
while he wondered, his steps took him deliberately on, feeling
self-conscious in the most literal understanding of the word--and
inexorably each moment took him nearer, though in the endeavour to put
off the evil moment he had, perhaps unknown to himself, slowed down his
previously deliberate saunter until his feet were now doing little more
than marking slow time. However, the visitor gazed alternately at the
tops of the trees and the roof of the palace, as though things of
absorbing interest were there taking place, and at last he was obliged
to realize that he had reached the lowest step of the imposing
staircase.
X. assures me that it is a fact, he never once lowered his eyes or
focussed the little party before him, although ultimately the tea table
could not have been more than a few yards off. There stood the stranger
with a vacant expression which would have made the fortune of a
performer in a waxwork show, and hoped and almost prayed that a servant
of some kind would appear, receive his signature or his card and allow
him to return to the comfortless obscurity of his hotel. There was no
bell, and no servant came, and the silence at length became unbearable.
Relief came at last from the tea party for the voice of a lady suddenly
fairly shrieked for a "boy." After this explosion the tension of the
situation was relieved, and there was a sound as of chairs hastily
pushed back and the patter of little feet and the rustle of sarongs,
which led X. to infer that there had been some sort of a retreat. Then a
flurried native appeared, he seemed a kind of gardener hastily fetched
from his duties, possibly the mowing machine, and pouring forth words in
a strange dialect he pointed wildly to another flight of steps and
another door. Following this menial, a veritable _deus ex machina_, X.
was led down those palatial steps and up another flight round the
corner. There the gardener threw open a door and seemed disposed to
resign his custody of the stranger, preparing to return again to his
machine. But X. steadily declined to enter alone into that vast hall,
nor would he even stay to look for a book in which to write his name,
for he felt that the hasty retreat he had heard was not carried beyond
the nearest pillars, and each moment he tarried, the fugitives were
wondering what he could be doing while, alas, their tea was getting
cold. And so he thrust his card, his only guarantee of good faith, into
the soiled hand of the solitary attendant of this Eastern palace and
fled--but fled he hoped with dignity. As he walked down the avenue with
conscious and deliberate steps--admiring the view on the right of him
and the view on the left of him--never looking back, though the desire
for one glance was so overpowering that the nape of his neck actually
ached, he conquered, and finally emerged from those great gates without
any further satisfaction to the curiosity aroused by his first
involuntary glimpse. But so long as he remained in Java he never paid
another call before dusk, a more convenient time, when such
_contretemps_ are not likely to occur.