THE RESULT OF PLAYING “HOME, SWEET HOME.”
It may appear in a ludicrous light to most people, but it was,
nevertheless, a solemn fact that Mrs. Brande fretted so dreadfully
after her dog, that her medical adviser (Dr. Loyd) suggested to
her husband: “A few days’ change, just to get her mind off it! You
frequently go for a week’s trip among the hills--go now.”
Such an excursion did not mean the wild, trackless jungle, but
a country intersected by good roads and bridle-paths, dotted at
reasonable intervals by comfortable rest-houses. Neither the sympathy
of her friends, nor a neat little grave and head-stone inscribed
“Ben,” had had the smallest effect in taking the keen edge off the
bereaved lady’s grief; and she would have nothing whatever to say to
a sweet little pup which Mark had procured for her, but indignantly
hustled it out to the Ayah’s go-down. No, there was nothing for it but
the prescribed expedition. Mrs. Sladen was to have been one of the
party, but failed (as usual) to obtain leave from home. Mr. Jervis
would gladly have joined them, but he dared not absent himself from
Shirani, in case the expected summons might arrive whilst he was
absent. The long marches would have afforded capital opportunities
for _tête-à-têtes_ with Miss Gordon--he would have told her _all_
as he rode by her side; the only difficulty was, that he was now
rather doubtful as to whether Miss Gordon would be interested in his
confidences? Her indignation when Sweet had blurted out the most sacred
secret of his soul had opened his eyes, and when he had ventured to add
that the child had spoken the _truth_, Miss Gordon had simply withered
him. Yes, Waring was right when he had spoken of her haughty eyes. Her
anger had eventually passed over like a short thunderstorm, and she
had meekly apologized for her outbreak, but without the smallest or
faintest reference to his remark--as possibly being beneath notice.
“You have seen me in a rage before,” she had declared--“not that
_that_ is any excuse for me, but rather the reverse. Of course I had
no business to touch your drawing, and I am exceedingly sorry that I
gave way to such a mad impulse. I wanted to give that wretched child a
lesson, and I caught at the first weapon that I thought would punish
her. I don’t often behave in such a shameful and unladylike way, I do
assure you.”
And he assured himself that he might keep his real identity and
his fine prospects locked for ever in his breast as far as she was
concerned. The two days occupied in preparing for the march he spent
in finishing Ben’s portrait. He held himself a good deal aloof; he
seemed silent and out of spirits; and Mrs. Brande confided to her
husband that she was sure his wrist was hurting him--he had been making
too free with it, and she gave him many instructions on the subject ere
they parted, he to return to Haddon Hall, and she to lead the way out
of the station. He was to go up every day and have a look at Rookwood,
cast his eye over the poultry and ponies, and see that the ferns were
properly watered; in other words, Mr. Jervis was left as caretaker in
charge--a token of unexampled confidence.
What a long time it seemed since he had come to Shirani! he thought,
as he trotted up the cart-road, after having put his friends well on
their journey. The chances were that his father would never send for
him--still, he would remain at his post until October, and then go
home. He would not be sorry to see Uncle Dan once more, to tell him
yarns, and to unpack his collection of presents, to look round the
clubs, and hear all that had been going on during the season, and to
try his young hunters out cubbing.
Yes; it was all very well to have modest ideas, but the pinch of
poverty was another affair, and he and poverty were gradually
establishing quite a bowing acquaintance. He was dunned for joint
bills--unpleasant joint bills--small accounts, that made him feel small
to think that they had been unpaid; shoeing bills, gram bills, gymkana
subscriptions, wood and charcoal, and even milk bills. He would find it
a tight fit to pay off old scores and leave sufficient money for their
passage. He saw his own private funds shrinking daily; nevertheless,
he was resolved not to apply to his uncle for money, nor to exceed
his draft of six hundred pounds. Why should his uncle pay for his
short-sighted folly? he had told him to keep the money in his own name,
and, nevertheless, he had given Clarence a free hand. But then, in his
wildest moments, he had never supposed that the purse that supplied
Captain Waring’s wants, wishes, weaknesses, must be practically
bottomless. “What a fool I have been!” he said to himself. “I have
lived like an anchorite, and Waring like a prince; he has squandered
every penny of my money, and turns about and blames _me_--for--leading
him into temptation!”
Mrs. Brande, in her comfortable Mussouri dandy, Mr. Brande and Honor
riding in advance, wound along the steep sides of forests--over passes
and down ravines--travelling all the time through exquisite scenery
in the clear hill air, where everything looks fresh, and the outlines
of the trees and mountains are sharply defined against a cloudless
sky. They halted each night at a different bungalow, marching about
fifteen miles a day, and arriving at their resting-place early in the
afternoon. On the third day, they came to a small out-of-the-way forest
hut, which contained but a verandah, and three rooms, and two of these
were already occupied.
Such a state of affairs was unparalleled. The earlier arrivals were two
engineers on survey, and a lady travelling alone. Mr. Brande looked
excessively blank, he would have to rig up some kind of shelter in the
verandah, for they had not brought tents, and whilst he was conferring
with Nuddoo, Honor strolled away with her violin. She liked to play in
solitary places--where all kinds of musical vagaries, and occasionally
her own compositions, were unheard by mortal ears.
She climbed the long sloping hill at the back of the bungalow, and
sitting down below a great clump of bamboos and elephant grass, began
to play soft melancholy music, that seemed to have exquisite words.
She played away dreamily for quite three-quarters of an hour, now
stopping to fill her eyes with the landscape--the rolling hills, the
glitter of the sunset on a distant deep-set mountain tarn, the faint
far-away line of the plains.
At length it was time to be going; one star was out, and a thin silver
moon had sailed into the sky. She played as a final “Home, Sweet Home,”
a tribute to Merry Meetings and its inmates. As the last note died
away, her trained and sensitive ear caught a faint sound in the tall
grass and jungle behind her. Was it the sound of a human sigh? She
started and glanced round. Just in time to see a thin hand withdrawn
and the grass quiver all over, as something--somebody--crept stealthily
away. Every scrap of colour had sunk from Honor’s face, as she stood
gazing into the still gently waving grass. No; she had not the nerve to
make a search. Common sense whispered, why should she?
The place was extremely lonely, isolated, silent; there was already,
or was it imagination, a weird and ghostly look about the hills and
woods. In another moment Miss Gordon, violinist and coward, was running
down hill towards the smoke of the bungalow, as fast as her pretty feet
could carry her--and that was at a surprisingly rapid pace.
She arrived breathless, just as the lamps were being carried into their
room; but, for a wonder, she kept her adventure to herself. It might
have been all fancy--and she knew Uncle P.’s stolid way of taking
things to pieces!
Uncle Pelham did not contemplate a night passed in an open verandah
with much pleasure. He was somewhat subject to chills, and the keen
mountain air had a searching effect on his rheumatic bones. Mrs. Brande
had suggested his sending in a polite note to their fellow-travellers
and asking for a share of their quarters.
“They can only say ‘No,’” she urged encouragingly.
“I do not like to run the chance of their only saying ‘No,’” was the
somewhat tart answer.
“I am certain they will be only too glad to oblige a man in your
_position_, P. What is a corner of a bed-room, after all? and I have
a notion that I have met one of them somewhere--the one with the pale
face and the fishing-basket. It was down at Ŏrai. Don’t you remember
him, P.--a very stupid young man?”
“My dear, I’m afraid you must give me a more exact description. I know
so many stupid young men,” rejoined Mr. Brande in his dryest manner.
At this moment, Nuddoo, the superb, stalked in and said with a salaam--
“The Mem Sahib in other room, offers half room to our Miss Sahib.”
“There you are, Honor!” cried her uncle gleefully: thinking of the
certain cold he had so narrowly escaped.
“But who _is_ the Mem Sahib?” inquired his wife, with her most
authoritative air.
“One native lady--very rich,” was the totally unexpected reply.
“Native!” echoed Mrs. Brande and Honor in a breath. Then Honor said,
“Well, it is extremely kind of her, and you can say, Nuddoo, that if I
am not putting her to inconvenience, I accept with great pleasure.”
“Honor!” gasped her aunt.
“Yes, Honor, you are a girl after my own heart,” said her uncle;
“hall-marked silver, and not electro-plate. I dare say most of the
girls we know would have refused to share the chamber of a native lady!”
“I’m not a girl,” burst out his wife, “and I would for one. She will be
chewing betel nut or opium all night, mark my words; and the place will
be choked up by her women, huddled on the floor, staring and whispering
and eating cardamums and spices! Leave _all_ your jewellery and your
watch with me, my dear; and indeed, Pelham, it is not one girl in a
hundred who would turn out to sleep with a begum in order to save your
rheumatic old joints.”
* * * * *
Honor retired at nine o’clock; Mrs. Brande taking leave of her almost
as if she was going to execution. She entered the other room, which was
at the back of the bungalow, with great precaution, for she saw that
her fellow-lodger was apparently asleep. Any way, she was in bed, and
her head covered with a quilt. It was the usual white-washed apartment,
with a pine ceiling, and contained nothing more than the usual cord
matting, table, two chairs, and two beds. A lamp burnt dimly; there was
not a sign of any member of the begum’s retinue!
Honor hastened to undress and get into bed as noiselessly as possible.
She was tired, she had been in the open air all day, and presently she
fell sound, sound asleep. From this sleep, she was unexpectedly awoke
by a light, and a feeling that some one was bending over her. In a
second she realized that a stranger, a woman, was standing beside her
bed, who stammered in a curiously deliberate whisper, “Oh, I beg your
pardon!”
“Then,” said the girl, instantly sitting up and rubbing her eyes, “you
are English?”
It was one of her wildest shots. She had been dreaming of a begum, with
rings in her nose; the woman beside her made no other reply than by
bursting into loud hysterical tears, suddenly kneeling down beside the
bed and burying her face in her hands.
“Oh, tell me,” said the girl, laying an impulsive grasp on her heaving
shoulder. “What is your trouble?”
“Great, great--trouble--such--as you have never dreamt of,” gasped the
figure. “I was sitting in the wood, and I heard you play. When you
played an air I have not heard for more than thirty years, something in
my heart melted. I felt that I _must_ see you--for though I had never
seen you face to face, I loved you! I asked you to share my room, that
I might gaze at you secretly, and carry away the remembrance of your
features in my heart--but,” now raising her head and looking piteously
at Honor, “you awoke and discovered me----”
She was an old woman, to Honor’s surprise--at least her hair was
snow white, her eyes black, and keen as a falcon’s. Her face was thin
and haggard, her features were worn, but they were perfect in form
and outline. This white-haired woman, kneeling beside Honor, and who
was kissing her hands with hasty feverish kisses, must once have been
extraordinarily handsome--nay, she was handsome _now_.
“I watched you asleep,” she continued, speaking in a sort of husky
whisper. “I have not looked on the face of an innocent English girl for
thirty-five years. I was once like you. Your music softened my stony
heart, and I felt that I must see you--ay, and perhaps speak to you,
once--dear God, before I die!”
“But what is your trouble?” urged Honor, squeezing the thin hand which
held hers. “What has happened--who are you?”
“Ay--who am I?--that is the question--a question that will never be
answered. For its own works lieth every soul in pledge--my soul is
pledged to silence. You have heard,” dropping her voice to a whisper
that seemed to chill like an icy blast, “of--the--mutiny--ladies?”
“Yes, poor souls; and proud I am of my countrywomen.”
“I doubt--if you would be proud of _me_. You speak of those who
stood up--ay, as I have seen them--and offered themselves to the
sword--those who were butchered and slaughtered like oxen. I speak
of--of--of--_others_--how can I tell this child?--who were carried away
and lost for ever--in native life. I,” looking steadily into the girl’s
eyes, “I am one of those. Lost honour--lost life--lost soul! God help
me!”
A dead silence, broken only by the angry sputtering of the lamp, and
then she added, in a strange, harsh voice--
“Well, I am waiting for you to spit upon me!”
“Why should I?” murmured Honor, in a whisper.
“Listen! I will put out the light, and sit here on the ground, and you
shall learn my story.”
In another second the room was in utter darkness. Darkness appeared to
give the stranger confidence, for she raised her voice a key, and Honor
could hear every syllable distinctly.
“Thirty-four years ago I was not more than your age, but I had been
married a year. We were very happy, my husband and I. He was an
officer--in no matter what corps. The mutiny broke out; but we never
dreamt that it would touch _us_--oh no, not _our_ station! That was the
way with us all. One Sunday we were all at church--I remember well;
we were in the middle of the Litany, praying to be delivered from
‘battle, murder, and from sudden death,’ when a great noise of shouting
and firing began outside, and people rushed, too late, to close the
doors, and some were cut down--ah, I see them now”--Honor felt her
shudder--“and many others and myself escaped into the belfry, whilst
our husbands held the stairs. They kept the wretches at bay so long
that they were out of patience, and after setting fire to the church,
rushed off to the cantonments and the treasury; and then we all came
down and found our carriages and ponies and syces just waiting (most of
them), as usual, where we had left them. We got in and drove away at a
gallop to a neighbouring rajah, to ask for his protection; but many of
the men, including my husband, remained behind to try and collect some
troops, and to save the arsenal and treasury. The rajah lived fifteen
miles from our station--we knew him well--he came to all our sports
and races. Fifty of us sought his protection, but he pretended he was
afraid to shelter us, and he turned us all out the following day.
“We drove on--oh, such a melancholy cavalcade!--hoping to reach another
station in safety; but, alas! ere we had gone five miles we met two
native regiments who had mutinied--met them face to face. We were
ordered out in turn, just as we drove up; and, as each man or woman or
child alighted, unarmed, and quite defenceless, they were shot or cut
down. Oh, the road--I shall never forget it--that red, red road between
two crops of sugar-cane! Miss Miller--how brave she looked! just like
what one pictures a martyr--she quietly stepped out and took off her
hat, and never uttered word or cry as she faced her horrible death.
“Mrs. Earl and her two little children, and poor young Clarke, who
had been wounded in the church. I was among the last; I had fainted,
and they thought I was dead, I believe, and threw me into a ditch.
Presently I crawled out, and crept into the sugar-cane; but a sowar
discovered me; he saw my white dress, and he came with a bloody,
upraised tulwar; but something arrested his arm--my beauty, I suppose.
I was the belle of the station--and he offered me my life, and I took
it. Oh”--and she sobbed hysterically--“remember that I was but twenty!
I had seen the dead. Oh, _don’t_ think so hardly of me as I think of
myself! He came at sundown and brought me a native woman’s dark cloth
to throw over my dress; and when the stars came out he swung me up on
the crupper of his troop horse, and I rode behind him into Lucknow.
In Lucknow we went afoot, to escape notice, and in a crowd I eluded
him and, turning down a narrow lane, fled. I stood inside a doorway
as he ran by, and I breathed freely; but, alas! an old man suddenly
opened the postern door, stared hard at me--a Feringhee, on his very
threshold--and drew me within. Of what avail to cry out! I was in a
veritable den of lions.
“The old man kept me concealed, dressed me in native clothes, called
me his kinswoman, and gave me to his son as a wife--a half-witted,
feeble creature, who died, and I was left a widow--a native widow. Oh,
I know native life! The fierce tyranny of the old women, of the old
mother-in-law, their tongues, their spite, their pitiless cruelty! How
many vengeances were wreaked on _me_! In those days I was stupefied
and half crazy. No, I had no feeling; I was in the midst of a strange
people; those of my own land I never saw--no, not when Lucknow was
captured. The very news of its fall took three years to reach my
ears. I never once crossed that fatal postern. I was, as my kinsfolk
believed--in my grave.
“My mother-in-law died at last, and then the old man, who had ever
been my friend, relaxed. I had more liberty, my wits seemed to
revive, I spoke Hindustani as a native. I went forth as a Mahommedan
woman--veiled. Little did the bazaar folk guess that a Mem Sahib was
among them; they believed that I was a Persian--Persian women are very
fair--only one old woman and her daughter knew the truth. Now and then
they smuggled me an English paper, or a book, or otherwise I must have
forgotten my own tongue. I lived this life for fifteen years, and then
my father-in-law, Naim Khan, died. He had no near kin, and he was
rich, and left me all his money.
“I came away with the two servants and an old man. I remembered
Shirani, and I found a little hut in the hills where I live. These
hills are to me heaven, as the plains were hell. Think--no, do _not_
think--of the stifling life in a tiny courtyard in the densest city
quarter, the putrid water, the flies, the atmosphere. I _ought_ to have
died long ago, but it is those who are good and beloved who die. Even
death scorned me! I have a considerable income, and once a year I am
obliged to appear, and draw it in person. I am returning from a short
journey now, and this is the first time I have ever met a soul. This
lonely little bungalow is generally quite empty.”
“Where do you live?” asked Honor, eagerly.
“In these hills, miles away, I have my books, flowers, poultry, and the
poor. I work among the lepers.”
“Alone?”
“Yes, for ever alone; and my story is for _your_ ears alone.”
“And your own people?”
“Believe me dead; and so I am. Did I not die thirty-four years ago?
Is there not a very handsome window to my memory in the church where
we were first attacked? I saw a description of it in the paper--‘the
beloved wife of So-and-so, aged twenty years.’ My husband is married.”
“Married!” repeated the girl in a startled voice.
“Why not? His family is growing up--he has a son in the service; his
eldest girl is twenty. She is called after his first wife. His first
wife--poor young thing!--was killed in the Mutiny, massacred on the
Bhogulpore road. Was it not sad?” she added, in a hard, emotionless
voice.
“Very, very sad!” said Honor, in a totally different tone.
“I have no name, no people, no friend.”
“You will let me be your friend?”--pressing her hand sympathetically.
“What is your name, my child?”
“Honor Gordon.”
“Honor--a fine name! _You_ would have laid down your life--I saw it in
your eyes. Alas, I never was brave, I never could bear pain. Life was
sweet--any life, not death; anything but a sharp, horrible, violent
death! Oh, if death was but a painless sleeping out of life, how many
of us would leave it!”
“And what is your name?” inquired the girl in her turn.
“Nussiband.”
“But your _real_ name? Will you not tell me?”
“I have forgotten it--almost. It shall never be known now--not even
when I am dead. People know me as the Persian woman, who lives near
Hawal Ghât.”
“Let me do something for you. Oh, you will--you must!”
“What could you do, my dear?” she asked in a hopeless tone.
“You will allow me to write to you. Let me go too and see you. Permit
me to brighten your life in some way.”
“Impossible. It has done me good to have seen you. I have poured my
story, once before I die, into the ear of a fellow-countrywoman. May
you be ever happy and blessed. Give me some little token, not to
remember you by, but to keep because it was yours.”
“What can I give you?”--thinking with regret of her few trinkets that
were elsewhere.
“A little cornelian ring, I noticed on your finger.”
Honor pulled it off. She felt a long, fervent kiss pressed upon her
hand. Then she said--
“You will give me leave to write to you and send you books? You must. I
will take no refusal. But we can talk about that in the morning, can we
not?”
There was no answer beyond another kiss upon her hand and a profound
sigh.
In the very early dawn Honor awoke, and sat up and looked about her
eagerly. The other charpoy was bare and empty. She jumped out of bed,
and nearly upset her ayah, entering behind the door chick, with her
early morning tea.
“Where is the other lady?” she asked excitedly.
“Oh, that Persian woman, she went when it was as yet dark. Behold her
on her journey.”
And she pointed to a narrow road at the other side of the valley, up
which a dandy with bearers was rapidly passing out of sight.
* * * * *
After this experience, Honor felt that she had suddenly become years
older. She looked unusually pale and grave as she joined the Brandes at
breakfast.
“Well, dear, and how did you get on?” asked her aunt. “Did she smoke a
huka all night?”
“No, auntie.”
“Was she very dark and fat, and did she chew betel nut?”
“No”--rather shortly.
“And is that all you have to say?”--in a tone of keen disappointment.
“Good gracious, Sara!” exclaimed her husband, impatiently, “you don’t
suppose that they carried on any conversation, unless they talked in
their sleep.”
“And here are your bangles and things, dear,” continued her aunt. “But
I don’t see your little cornelian ring anywhere! I really--it’s not
worth a penny--but I don’t see it.”
No--nor was she ever likely to see it again.