THE LOVE-SONG OF HAR DYAL
The bugler was sounding the second mess-call as the Resident's carriage
drew up before the steps of the Mess verandah on which stood all the
officers of the regiment, dressed in the white drill uniform worn at
dinner in India during the hot weather. From the carriage Major Norton,
a stout, middle-aged man in civilian evening dress, descended stiffly
and shook hands with the Commandant of the battalion, Colonel Trevor,
who had come down the steps to meet him and whose guest he was to be.
On the verandah Wargrave was introduced to him by the Colonel and took
his outstretched hand with reluctance; for Frank felt stirring in him a
faint jealousy of the man who was Violet's legal lord and an indefinite
hostility to him for not appreciating his charming wife as he ought. And
while the Resident was shaking hands with the others Wargrave looked at
him with interest.
Major Norton was a very ordinary-looking man, more elderly in appearance
than his years warranted. He was bald and clean-shaved but for scraps of
side-whiskers that gave him a resemblance to the traditional
stage-lawyer of amateur theatricals, a likeness increased by his heavy
and prosy manner. It was hard to believe that he had ever been a young
subaltern, though such had once been the case, for the Indian Political
Department is recruited chiefly from officers of the Indian Army. But he
was never the gay and light-hearted individual that most junior subs.
are at the beginning of their career. Even then he had been a sober and
serious individual, favourably noted by his superiors as being earnest
and painstaking. And now he was well thought of by the Heads of his
Department; for his plodding and methodical disposition and his slavish
adherence to rules and regulations had earned him the reputation of
being an eminently "safe" man. How such a gay, laughter-loving,
coquettish and attractive woman as Violet Dering came to marry one so
entirely her opposite puzzled everyone who did not know the inner
history of a girl, one of a large family of daughters, given "her chance
in life" by being sent out to relatives in Calcutta for one season, with
a definite warning not to return home unmarried under penalty of being
turned out to face the world as a governess or hospital nurse. And
Violet liked comfort and hated work.
During dinner Wargrave found himself instinctively criticising Norton's
manner and conversation, and rapidly arrived at the conclusion that
Raymond had described him accurately. The Resident, though a very worthy
individual, was undoubtedly a bore; and Colonel Trevor, beside whom he
sat, strove in vain to appear interested in his conversation. For he had
heard his opinions on every subject on which Norton had any opinions
over and over again. As the Resident was the only other European in the
station he dined regularly at the Mess on the weekly Guest Night with
one or other of the officers. He was not popular among them, but they
considered it their duty to be victimised in turn to uphold the
regiment's reputation for hospitality; and in consequence each resigned
himself to act as his host.
After dinner, as the Resident played neither cards nor billiards, the
Colonel sat out on the verandah with him, all the while longing to be at
the bridge-table inside; and, as his guest was a strict teetotaller, he
did not like to order a drink for himself. So he tried to keep awake and
hide his yawns while listening to a prosy monologue on insects until the
Residency carriage came to take Major Norton away.
When his guest had left, the Colonel entered the anteroom heaving a sigh
of relief.
"Phew! thank God that's over!" he exclaimed piously. "Really, Norton
becomes more of a bore every day. I'm sick to death of hearing the
life-story of every Indian insect for the hundredth time. I'll dream of
_coleoptera_ and Polly 'optera and other weird beasties to-night."
The other officers looked up and laughed. Ross rose from the
bridge-table and said:
"Come and take my place, sir; we've finished the rubber. Have a drink;
you want something to cheer you up after that infliction. Boy!
whiskey-soda Commanding Sahib _ke wasté lao_. (Bring a whiskey and soda
for the Commanding officer.)"
"You've my entire sympathy, Colonel," said Major Hepburn, the Second in
Command. "It's my turn to ask the Resident to dinner next. I feel
tempted to go on the sick-list to escape it."
"I say, sir, I've got a good idea," said an Irish subaltern named Daly,
who was seated at the bridge-table. "Couldn't we pass a resolution at
the next Mess meeting that in future no guests are ever to be asked to
dinner? That will save us from our weekly penance."
The others laughed; but the Colonel, whose sense of humour was not his
strong point, took the suggestion as being seriously meant.
"No, no; we couldn't do that," he said in an alarmed tone. "The Resident
would be very offended and might mention it to the General when he comes
here on his annual inspection."
The remark was very characteristic of Colonel Trevor, who was a man who
dreaded responsibility and whose sole object in life was to reach safely
the time when, his period of command being finished, he could retire on
his full pension. He was always haunted by the dread that some
carelessness or mistake on his part or that of any of his subordinates
might involve him in trouble with his superiors and prevent that happy
consummation of his thirty years of Indian service. This fear made him
merciless to anyone under him whose conduct might bring the censure of
the higher authorities on the innocent head of the Commanding Officer
who was in theory responsible for the behaviour of his juniors. It was
commonly said in the regiment that he would cheerfully give up his own
brother to be hanged to save himself the mildest official reprimand.
Perhaps he was not altogether to blame; for he was not his own master in
private life. It was hinted that Colonel Trevor commanded the battalion
but that Mrs. Trevor commanded him. And unfortunately there was no doubt
that this lady interfered privately a good deal in regimental matters,
much to the annoyance of the other officers.
Now, relieved of the incubus that had hitherto spoiled his enjoyment of
the evening, the Colonel gratefully drank the whiskey and soda brought
him by Ross's order and sat down cheerfully to play bridge. He always
liked dining in the Mess, where he was a far more important person than
he was in his own house.
It did not take Wargrave long to settle down again into the routine of
regimental life and the humdrum existence of a small Indian station. But
he had never before been quartered in so remote and dull a spot as
Rohar. The only distractions it offered besides the shooting and
pigsticking were two tennis afternoons weekly, one at the Residency, the
other at the Mess. Here the dozen or so Europeans, who knew every line
of each other's faces by heart gathered regularly from sheer boredom
whether the game amused them or not. Neither Mrs. Trevor nor her
bosom-friend Mrs. Baird, the regimental surgeon's better half, ever
attempted it; but they invariably attended and sat together, usually
talking scandal of Mrs. Norton as she played or chatted with the men.
Mrs. Trevor's chief grievance against her was that the General
Commanding the Division, when he came to inspect the battalion, took the
younger woman in to dinner, for, as her husband the Resident was the
Viceroy's representative, she could claim precedence over the wife of a
mere regimental commandant. No English village is so full of petty
squabbles and malicious gossip as a small Indian station.
Like everyone else in the land Wargrave hated most those terrible hours
of the hot weather between nine in the morning and five in the
afternoon. He and Raymond passed them, like so many thousands of their
kind elsewhere, shut up in their comfortless bungalow, which was
darkened and closely shuttered to exclude the awful heat and the
blinding glare outside. Too hot to read or write, almost to smoke, they
lay in long cane chairs, gasping and perspiring freely, while the
whining _punkah_ overhead barely stirred the heated air. One exterior
window on the windward side of the bungalow was filled with a thick mat
of dried and odorous _kuskus_ grass, against which every quarter of an
hour the _bheestie_ threw water to wet it thoroughly so that the hot
breeze that swept over the burning sand outside might enter cooled by
the evaporation of the water.
But Frank found alleviation and comfort in frequent visits to the
Residency, where Mrs. Norton and he spent the baking hours of the
afternoon absorbed in making music or singing duets. For Violet had a
well-trained voice which harmonised well with his. No thought of sex
seemed to obtrude itself on them. They were just playmates, comrades,
nothing more.
Yet it was only natural that the woman's vanity should be flattered by
the man's eagerness to seek her society and by his evident pleasure in
it. And it was delightful to have at last a sympathetic listener to all
her little grievances, one who seemed as interested in her petty
household worries or the delinquencies of her London milliner in failing
to execute her orders properly as in her greater complaint against the
fate that condemned a woman of her artistic and gaiety-loving nature to
existence in the wilds and to the society of persons so uncongenial to
her as were the majority of the white folk of Rohar.
To a man the rôle of confidant to a pretty woman is pleasant and
flattering; and Wargrave felt that he was highly favoured by being made
the recipient of her confidences. It never occurred to him that there
might be danger in the situation. He regarded her only as a friend in
need of sympathy and help. His chivalry was up in arms at the thought
that she was not properly appreciated by her husband, who, he began to
suspect, was inclined to neglect her and treat her as a mere chattel.
The suspicion angered him. True, Violet had never definitely told him
so; but he gathered as much from her unconscious admissions and revered
her all the more for her bravery in endeavouring to keep silent on the
subject.
Certainly Major Norton did not seem to him to be a man capable of
understanding and valuing so sweet and rare a woman as this. After their
introduction in the Mess Frank's next meeting with him was at his own
table at the Residency, when in due course Wargrave was invited to
dinner after his duty call. Raymond was asked as well; and the two
subalterns were the only guests.
Their hostess looked very lovely in a Paris-made gown of a green shade
that suited her colouring admirably. England did not seem to the young
soldiers so very far away when this charming and exquisitely-dressed
woman received them in her large drawing-room from which all trace of
the East in furniture and decoration was carefully excluded. For the
English in India try to avoid in their homes all that would remind them
of the Land of Exile in which their lot is cast.
Major Norton came into the room after his guests, muttering an
unintelligible apology. He shook hands with them with an abstracted air
and failed to recall Wargrave's name. At table he asked Frank a few
perfunctory questions and then wandered off into his inevitable subject,
entomology, but finding him ignorant of and uninterested in it he
engaged in a desultory conversation with Raymond. He soon tired of this
and for the most part ate his dinner in silence. He never addressed his
wife; and Wargrave, watching them, pitied her if her husband was as
little companionable at meal-times when they were alone. He pictured her
sitting at table every day with this abstracted and uncommunicative man,
whose thoughts seemed far from his present company and surroundings and
who was scarcely likely to exert himself to talk to and entertain his
wife when he made so little effort to do so to his guests.
Determined that on this occasion at least his hostess should be amused
Frank did his best to enliven the meal. He described to her as well as
he could all that he remembered of the latest fashions in England, told
her the plots of the newest plays at the London theatres, repeated a
few laughable stories to make her smile and provoked Raymond, who had a
dry humour of his own, to a contest of wit. Between them the two
subalterns brightened up what had threatened to be a dull evening. Mrs.
Norton laughed gaily and helped to keep the ball rolling; and even the
host in his turn woke up and actually attempted to tell a humorous
story. It certainly lacked point; but he seemed satisfied that it was
funny, so his guests smiled as in duty bound. But Wargrave noted Mrs.
Norton's look of astonishment at this new departure on the part of her
husband and thought that there was something very pathetic in her
surprise. When the meal was ended she laughingly declined to leave the
men over their wine and stayed to smoke a cigarette with them.
When they all quitted the dining-room the Resident asked his guests to
excuse him for returning to his study, pleading urgent and important
work; and his wife led the subalterns up to the drawing-room and out on
to the verandah that ran alongside its French windows. Here easy chairs
and a table with a big lamp had been placed for them. As soon as they
were seated one of the stately _chuprassis_ brought coffee, while
another proffered cigars and cigarettes and held a light from a silver
spirit-lamp. Then both the solemn servitors departed noiselessly on bare
feet.
After some conversation Mrs. Norton said to the adjutant:
"Do you remember, Mr. Raymond, that you have promised to take me out
shooting one day?"
"I haven't forgotten," he replied; "but I was not able to arrange it, as
the Maharajah had pigsticking meets fixed up for all our free days. But
I don't think we'll have another for some time; for I hear that His
Highness is laid up from the effects of his fall. So we might go out
some day soon."
"Good. When shall we go?" asked Wargrave. "Let's fix it up now."
"What about next Thursday?" said his friend, turning to Mrs. Norton.
"Yes; that will suit me. Where shall we go?"
"There are a lot of partridge and a few hares, I'm told, near the tank
at Marwa, where there is a good deal of cultivation," answered Raymond.
Then turning to his friend he continued:
"You are not very keen on small game shooting, Frank; so you can bring
your rifle and try for _chinkara_. I saw a buck and a couple of doe
there not very long ago. A little venison would be very acceptable in
Mess."
"The tank is about eight miles away, isn't it?" said the hostess. "I'll
write to the Maharajah and ask him to lend us camels to take us out. My
cook will put up a good cold lunch for us."
She rose from her chair and continued:
"Now, Mr. Wargrave, come and sing something. I've been trying over
those new songs of yours to-day."
She led the way into the drawing-room and Raymond was left alone on the
verandah to smoke and listen for the rest of the evening, while the
others forgot him as they played and sang.
Suddenly he sat up in his chair and with a queer little pang of jealousy
in his heart stared through the open window at the couple at the piano.
He watched his friend's face turned eagerly towards his hostess.
Wargrave was gazing intently at her as in a voice full of feeling and
pathos, a voice with a plaintive little tone in it that thrilled him
strangely, she sang that haunting melody "The Love Song of Har Dyal."
Wistfully, sadly, she uttered the sorrowful words that Kipling puts into
the mouth of the lovelorn Pathan maiden:
"My father's wife is old and harsh with years,
And drudge of all my father's house am I.
My bread is sorrow and my drink is tears,
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!
Come back to me, Beloved, or I die!"
And the singer looked up into the eager eyes bent on her and sighed a
little as she struck the final chords. Out on the verandah Raymond
frowned as he watched them and wondered if this woman was to come
between them and take his friend from him. Just then the bare-footed
servants entered the room, carrying silver trays on which stood the
whiskies and sodas that are the stirrup-cups, the hints to guests that
the time of departure has come, of dinner-parties in India.
As the two subalterns drove home in Raymond's trap through the hot
Indian night under a moon shining with a brilliance that England never
knows, Wargrave hummed "The Love Song of Har Dyal."
Suddenly he said:
"She's wonderful, Ray, isn't she? Fancy such a glorious woman buried in
this hole and married to a dry old stick like the Resident! Doesn't it
seem a shame?"
The adjutant mumbled an incoherent reply behind his lighted cheroot.
Arrived in their bungalow they undressed in their rooms and in pyjamas
and slippers came out into the compound, where on either side of a table
on which was a lighted lamp stood their bedsteads, the mattress of each
covered with a thin strip of soft China matting. For in the hot weather
in many parts of India this must be used to lie upon instead of a linen
sheet, which would become saturated with perspiration. Looking carefully
at the ground over which they passed for fear of snakes they reached and
lay down on their beds, over each of which a _punkah_ was suspended from
a cross-beam supported by two upright posts sunk in the ground. One rope
moved both _punkahs_, and the motive power was supplied by a coolie
who, salaaming to the sahibs and seating himself on the ground, picked
up the end of the rope and began to pull. Raymond put out the lamp.
Wargrave stared up at the moon for a while. Then he said:
"I say, Ray; didn't Mrs. Norton look lovely to-night? Didn't that dress
suit her awfully well?"
"Oh, go to sleep, old man. We've got to get up in a few hours for this
confoundedly early parade. Goodnight," growled the adjutant, turning on
his side and closing his eyes.
But he listened for some time to his friend humming "The Love Song of
Har Dyal" again! and not until Frank was silent did he doze off. An hour
later he woke up suddenly, bathed in perspiration and devoured by
mosquitoes; for the _punkahs_ were still--the coolie had gone to sleep.
He called to the man and aroused him, then before shutting his eyes
again he looked at his companion. The moon shone full on Wargrave's
face. He was sleeping peacefully and smiling. Raymond stared at him for
a few minutes. Then he muttered inconsequently:
"Confound the woman!"
And closing his eyes resolutely he fell asleep.
In the days that elapsed before the shoot at Marwa, Wargrave rode every
afternoon to the Residency with the _syce_ carrying his violin case,
except when tennis was to be played. In their small community this
could not escape notice and comment--not that it occurred to him to try
to avoid either. The Resident did not object to the frequency of his
visits; and Frank saw no harm in his friendship with Mrs. Norton. But
others did; and the remarks of the two ladies of his regiment on the
subject were venomously spiteful. But their censure was reserved for the
one they termed "that shameless woman"; for like everyone else they were
partial to Wargrave and held him less to blame.
His brother officers, although being men they were not so quick to nose
out a scandal, could not help noticing his absorption in Mrs. Norton's
society. One afternoon his Double Company Commander, Major Hepburn,
walked into the compound of Raymond's bungalow and on the verandah
shouted the usual Anglo-Indian caller's demand:
"Boy! _Koi hai_?" (Is anyone there?)
A servant hurried out and salaaming answered:
"_Adjitan Sahib hai_." (The adjutant is here).
"Oh, come in, Major," cried Raymond, rising from the table at which he
was seated drinking his tea.
"Don't get up," said Hepburn, entering the room. "Is Wargrave in?"
"No, sir; he went out half an hour ago."
"Confound it, it seems impossible ever to find him in the afternoon
nowadays," said the major petulantly. "I wanted him to get up a hockey
match against No. 3 Double Company to-day. He used to be very keen on
playing with the men; but since he came back from England he never goes
near them. Where is he? Poodlefaking at the Residency, as usual?"
This is the term contemptuously applied in India to the paying of calls
and other social duties that imply dancing attendance on the fair sex.
"I didn't see him before he went out, sir," was Raymond's equivocal
reply. He loyally evaded a direct answer.
Hepburn shook his head doubtfully.
"I'm sorry about it. I hope the boy doesn't get into mischief. Look
here, Raymond, you're his pal. Keep your eye on him. He's a good lad;
and it would be a pity if he came to grief."
The adjutant did not answer. The major put on his hat.
"Well, I suppose I'll have to see to the hockey myself."
He left the bungalow with a curt nod to Raymond, who watched him pass
out through the compound gate. Then the adjutant walked over to
Wargrave's writing-table and stood up again in its place a large
photograph of Mrs. Norton which he had hurriedly laid face downwards
when he heard Hepburn's voice outside. He looked at it for a minute,
then turned away frowning.
When the morning of the shooting party arrived Wargrave and Raymond,
having sent their _syces_ on ahead with their guns, rode at dawn to the
Residency. In front of the building a group of camels lay on the ground,
burbling, blowing bubbles, grumbling incessantly and stretching out
their long necks to snap viciously at anyone but their drivers that
chanced to come near them. At the hall-door Mrs. Norton stood, dressed
in a smart and attractive costume of khaki drill, consisting of a
well-cut long frock coat and breeches, with the neatest of cloth gaiters
and dainty but serviceable boots. To their surprise her husband was with
her and evidently prepared to accompany them. For he wore an old coat,
knickerbockers and putties, from a strap over his shoulder hung a
specimen box, and he was armed with all the requisite appliances for the
capture and slaughter of many insects.
Avoiding the camels' vicious teeth the party mounted after exchanging
greetings. Mrs. Norton and Wargrave rode the same animal; and Frank,
unused to this form of locomotion, took a tight grip as the long-legged
beast rose from the ground in unexpected jerks and set off at a jolting
walk that shook its riders painfully. Then it broke into a trot equally
disconcerting but finally settled into an easy canter that was as
comfortable a motion as its previous paces had been spine-dislocating.
The route lay at first over a space of desert which was unpleasant, for
the sand was blown in clouds by a high wind, almost a gale. But the
camels were fast movers and it did not take very long before they were
passing through scrub jungle and finally reached the wide stretch of
cultivation near Marwa.
The tank, as lakes are called in India, lay in the centre of a shallow
depression, the rim of which all round was about four hundred yards from
the water which, now half a mile across, evidently filled the whole
basin in the rainy season. The strong breeze churned its surface into
little waves and piled up masses of froth and foam against the bending
reeds at one end of the tank, where, about fifty yards from the water's
edge stood a couple of thorny trees, offering almost the only shade to
be found for a long distance around. In the shallows were many yellow
egrets, while a _sarus_ crane stalked solemnly along the far bank, and
everywhere bird-life, rare elsewhere in the State, abounded. The land
all about was green, a refreshing change from the usual sandy and
parched character of most of the country.
But beyond the tank the fields stretched away out of sight. At the edge
of the cultivation the camels were halted and the party dismounted from
them and separated. Mrs. Norton, who was a fair shot and carried a light
12-bore gun, started to walk up the partridges with Raymond, while her
husband went to search the reeds and the borders of the lake for strange
insects. Wargrave armed with a sporting Mannlicher rifle, set off on a
long tramp to look for _chinkara_, which are pretty little antelope with
curving horns. The wind, which was freshening, prevented the heat from
being excessive.
The sport was fairly good. When lunch-time came the adjutant and Mrs.
Norton had got quite a respectable bag of partridges and a few hares.
The entomologist was in high spirits, for he had secured two rare
specimens; and Wargrave had shot a good buck. So in a contented frame of
mind all gathered under the trees near the end of the tank, where lunch
was laid by a couple of the Residency servants on a white cloth spread
on the ground. As they ate their _tiffin_ (lunch) the members of the
party chatted over the incidents of the morning; and each related the
story of his or her sport.
After the meal Mrs. Norton decided to rest; for the ride and the long
walk with her gun had tired her. The servants spread a rug for her under
the trees and placed a camel saddle for her to recline against. Then
carrying away the empty dishes, plates, glasses and cutlery they retired
out of sight.
"Are you sure you don't mind being left alone, Mrs. Norton?" asked
Wargrave.
"Not in the least. Do go and shoot again," she replied, smiling up at
him. "I'm very comfortable and I'm glad to have a good rest before
undertaking that tiresome ride back. It's very pleasant here. The wind
comes so cool and fresh off the water. Isn't it strong, though?"
The breeze had freshened to a gale and under the trees the temperature
was quite bearable. The Resident had already gone out of sight over the
rim of the basin, having exhausted the neighbourhood of the tank and
being desirous of searching farther afield. Wargrave and Raymond now
followed him but soon separated, the latter making for the cultivation
again, while his friend set off for the open plain. Ordinarily the heat
would have been intense, for the hours after noon up to three o'clock or
later are the hottest of the day in India; but the gale made it quite
cool.
To Wargrave, tramping about unsuccessfully this time, came frequently
the sound of Raymond's gun.
"Ray seems to be having all the luck," he thought, as through his
field-glasses he scanned the plain without seeing anything. "I'm getting
fed up."
At last in despair he shouldered his rifle and turned back. After a long
walk he came in sight of the adjutant standing near the edge of the
fields talking to Norton. When Frank reached them he found that his
friend had increased his bag very considerably.
"Well done, old boy, you'd better luck than I had," he said. Then
turning to the Resident he continued: "How have you done, sir?"
"Nothing of any value," replied Norton "Have you finished? We're
thinking of going back now."
"Yes, sir; I'm through. By Jove, I'm thirsty. I could do with a drink,
couldn't you, Ray?"
"Rather. My throat's like a lime-kiln. We'll join Mrs. Norton and then
have an iced drink while the camels are being saddled."
They strolled towards the lake, which was hidden from their view by the
rim of the basin. As they reached the slight ridge that this made all
three stopped dead and gazed in amazement.
"What's happened to the tank?" exclaimed Raymond. "The water's almost up
to the trees."
"Good God; My wife! Look! Look!" cried the Resident.
They stood appalled. The wide body of water had swept up to within a few
yards of the trees under which Mrs. Norton lay fast asleep. And
stealthily emerging from it a large crocodile was slowly, cautiously,
crawling towards the unconscious woman.