Eola sat at the tea-table in the verandah. Her brother, punctual to
the stroke of four, came in without haste, crossing the compound from
the college buildings to the private house. Punctuality, he declared,
was his salvation. He could not have stood the rush of work had he not
rigidly adhered to the hours of his meals. Afternoon tea was the one
he liked best. He gave himself exactly thirty minutes for it. It was
thirty minutes of solid rest.
"Where's Alderbury," he asked, as he seated himself in a comfortable
cane chair.
"He has gone to see Ananda."
"You don't mind if I read, do you, Eola? The new magazines came two
days ago and I haven't had time even to open them."
He tore off the cover of an illustrated monthly and handed it to her.
A second magazine was opened for himself, and he was soon deep in an
article professing to give the last word on the chemistry of biology.
Whilst he read he drank his tea. A bell rang and he jumped up,
instantly detaching himself from the magazine and breaking off in the
middle of a paragraph. He hurried away in the direction of the college
without another thought for his visitor. At his departure Mrs. Hulver
appeared.
"When you go out, Miss, will you kindly get some carpet thread for the
tailor. The motor is ready."
"I can't leave the house till Mr. Alderbury has come in. He promised
to be back to tea at four o'clock. He must have been detained."
"Oh, yes, miss, I daresay he has been detained," assented Mrs. Hulver.
"Our master might be kept if he chose to allow it. As William--that
was my third--used to say: 'There are some men who will be in time for
every meal, hungry or not; and there are others who will be in time for
nothing but their own funerals.'"
Eola ignored the implied depreciation of her guest and proceeded to
give orders that would ensure his comfort.
"We shall want another pot of tea, please. Tell the matey to keep the
kettle boiling, and he is not to make the tea until Mr. Alderbury comes
in."
"If you like to go out now, miss, I can see to Mr. Alderbury and give
him his tea. I am sure he won't mind. His head is that full of his
missioning that he won't notice whether it is poured out by you or by
me. As William--that was my first--used to say: 'When a man is
bothered by business he has no room in his head for a woman and can't
tell one from another.' Mr. Alderbury is bothered with this business
of Pantulu Iyer's son coming Christian. It has all been done in a
hurry, as I was telling you. As William--that was my third--used to
say----"
What William the third said was lost in the sudden appearance of the
guest.
"So sorry I'm late, Miss Wenaston. Yes, please, I should like some
tea. What with the dust and the amount of talking I've done, I'm as
thirsty as a fish."
He hurried away to his room to get rid of the powdery ochre blown up
from the laterite roads. Mrs. Hulver glanced after him with as much
disapproval as she dared to show.
"Next to schoolmasters, missionaries should be particular in being
punctual. As William--that was my second--used to say: 'Men should be
valued like watches for the time they keep.'"
"And he was quite right from a military point of view. Will you see
about the tea, please, Mrs. Hulver!"
"It's being made, miss. I've got my eye on the matey. It will be
ready as soon as Mr. Alderbury is ready for it. Like as not he will
read those letters that have come while he has been away and forget all
about his tea." Mrs. Hulver looked at Eola as much as to say, "And you
too." She continued: "A man with a lot of business needs a good head.
As William--that was my second--used to say: 'Drive your business with
a firm hand and a clear head or your business will drive you."
Alderbury's appearance checked the flow of Mrs. Hulver's wisdom, and
she departed to her room. As he received his cup from Eola's hand he
said:
"You would like to hear how I fared, I am sure."
"Yes, please; tell me all about it."
The words did not ring quite true; they were wanting in sympathy, and
seemed to the quick sensitive ear of the missionary to be spoken more
out of polite curiosity than real interest. He glanced at her and
tried to swallow some of the scalding liquid with the aid of the
teaspoon. The innate love of fighting in a good cause rose within him,
and he determined to try conclusions with her. She should become
interested, and more. He would conquer her indifference and rouse her
sympathy.
"I had no end of a difficulty in seeing the parents. It was the father
I wanted to get at and he was very inaccessible."
"You had an interview with Ananda, of course. I knew him in England,
and should like to hear how he is getting on. I don't care a bit about
his stupid old father. Why can't the father let the son alone, and
allow him to take his own line?"
"The step involves so much."
"If that is so, then Ananda shouldn't have taken it."
Alderbury put down his cup suddenly, his mind entirely diverted from
the business of tea-drinking by her words.
"You don't mean that you really think he ought not to have become a
Christian?" he inquired, in a grave voice that had lost the lightness
with which he had greeted her on arrival home from his visit.
The seriousness of his manner awoke a spirit of perverseness.
"I am of the opinion that he might have had more consideration for his
father's feelings," she said, with a levity that jarred. "Why should
existing relations that seemed so satisfactory be disturbed?" Then, as
Alderbury remained silent, she continued: "There is a time for all
things. It is too soon to ask educated India to accept Christianity;
the way is studded with such colossal difficulties. Don't you often
feel that you are fighting against almost insuperable obstacles?"
"In short you think it would be more expedient for the missionary to
run away or temporise, instead of buckling on his armour and standing
up to the enemy. What about our responsibilities and lending a helping
hand to our fellow-men? The marsh is a good enough place for the horse
to wallow in, and the man enjoying the firm ground of the meadow has no
duty towards the poor beast! Miss Wenaston, that is a poor creed."
"Are you so sure that the Hindu is in the mud?" she asked, more in a
spirit of provocation than honest inquiry.
There was a fearful fascination in rousing him, and she took the risk
of his anger for the pure pleasure of seeing him come up to the
fighting line. The eyes that met hers shone with the light of battle,
and she inwardly trembled at the spirit she had wantonly raised.
"Am I sure, you ask?" he cried derisively. "If you knew what Hinduism
meant you would never put such a question to a man of my profession.
You cannot realise how encrusted it is with insidious error appealing
mischievously to the sensual part of humanity. You know nothing of the
practices at the worship of Kali--of the life led by the dasis in the
temples of Southern India----" he stopped abruptly, conscious of having
been led in his excitement and enthusiasm a little too far. It was
impossible to pursue such an unsavoury subject with an English woman.
"I don't know much about the worship of Kali; and I am sure that I
never heard the word dasi before. What is a dasi?"
"Oh! never mind," he exclaimed, the fire subdued. "Please give me
another cup of tea, and I will tell you about Ananda. Perhaps when you
hear what has driven him out of the faith of his ancestors, you will be
able to sympathise."
He explained the theory of transmigration, and how Ananda had revolted
against it on the loss of his friend; how he put himself under
instruction in England and took the step voluntarily and without
pressure. From the story of his conversion he passed on to the
description of all that had followed since Ananda arrived in India.
"The man is being persecuted in all kinds of ways. They have supplied
him with food, but they have employed an out-caste sweeper to carry it
to him. The prejudice of fifty generations is not to be conquered all
at once, and Ananda cannot bring himself to receive his food at the
hands of a man whom he holds more unclean than we should consider an
unwashed workman who had just emptied a sewer."
"How has he been existing?"
"On biscuits and milk, a poor diet for a healthy hungry man. It has
kept him from starvation however. Your brother did wisely in sending
for me after receiving Ananda's letter. He needs advice and support,
and he will require help of another kind when the small amount of cash
in his pocket is finished."
"I suppose you talked to him--and prayed with him?" said Eola,
conscious of the banality of her words even as she spoke them.
"Dear lady! does a man stop to fall on his knees when he sees a comrade
drowning? You will think me a poor sort of missionary, perhaps, when I
confess that I forgot to pray with him. I was too busy chucking
life-belts to the poor chap. Already he was assailed with doubts as to
the wisdom of the step he had taken. 'I have been too hasty,' he said.
'I did not consider how seriously it would affect my father's peace of
mind and his health.' Then he drew a picture of the old man's feeble
appearance as he came to him two or three mornings ago in the compound.
'He was so bowed and bent he might have been seventy instead of fifty.'
It gave him a shock, and he seems to have entertained a suggestion made
by his father which was nothing less than the contemplation of partial
apostacy. I fought against the weakness. I preached free-will and
choice. I appealed to his honesty and combated the cowardice that
prompted retrogression. He admitted that he could never again accept
the Hindu doctrine of transmigration. Then I pointed out the
responsibility that falls on a man's shoulders when his eyes are opened
and the choice of road lies with him. I dug away and rooted about to
find a little courage. He has more obstinacy than courage at present.
I hope that the one will breed the other."
While he talked he drank tea and devoured bread and butter with the
wholesome hunger of a schoolboy. Mrs. Hulver appeared once more.
"The motor is waiting, miss. I'm afraid I can't do without the carpet
thread."
"I will go at once," replied Eola, rising from the tea-table to put on
her hat. "Will you come for a run in the car, Mr. Alderbury?"
"I should like it immensely," he replied with a promptness that did not
escape the ears of the housekeeper.
She was not satisfied with the result of her interruption to the
conversation. By despatching Miss Wenaston on a shopping errand she
had aimed at putting an end to the _tete-a-tete_. The guest, she
supposed, would be driven to his room or into the garden until Dr.
Wenaston was released from his duties and could join him. As Eola
disappeared in the direction of her room Alderbury turned in his
impulsive way to Mrs. Hulver.
"I haven't had a moment to ask you after yourself. How have you been
since we last met?"
"I've been keeping pretty well, thank you, sir. All that troubles me
is the haricot veins in my legs. If I stand about too much, they swell
and become very painful."
"How is your son?"
Mrs. Hulver beamed suddenly, and the severe expression that she had
worn since he appeared in the verandah vanished. Next to talking about
her late husbands she loved to expand on the subject of her boy.
"He is very well and grown quite the man. He tells me that he has just
been made a corporal. He's in his father's old regiment, and it has
been ordered out at once. He ought to be landing in less than a week's
time. He has promised to come off and see his old mother the first
minute he can get leave. They say that the regiment is going to
Bangalore. If so I shall see him often."
"I hope he will prove a good son."
"No fear but what he will," said Mrs. Hulver, with the unshaken
confidence of a proud mother. "He is happy in his work and likes
soldiering. As William--that was my second and the boy's own
father--used to say when I talked of the child following any other
trade: 'Bring up the foal to the shafts and don't try to teach him to
drive a wheelbarrow.'"
"He was perfectly right; each man should follow the line for which he
is best suited."
"But they don't do so always. There are many men--and women, too--who,
being square, find themselves in round holes. Now you, sir, I take it,
are in the right-shaped hole. So am I; and so is Miss Wenaston. She
would do badly in my hole, for instance; for she would be cheated every
hour of her life by these budmashes of servants; and she would be still
worse off in your hole. There's nothing of the missionary about her,
as any one can see with half an eye. As William--that was my
third--used to say: 'It doesn't need a uniform to show you who's a born
soldier.' He was a fine figure and had a handsome----"
Miss Wenaston appeared and the car drew up under the portico, cutting
Mrs. Hulver short. She watched the pair drive away with renewed
misgivings. "I don't like that look in her face. She's feeling just
as I used to feel when William, my second and the father of my boy,
took me out walking in the bazaar, he looking so fine in his corporal's
uniform." She called to the butler. "Ramachetty! Come here; I want
you. To-morrow is pay-day. I'm going out into the garden to count the
roses. Where's the gardener?"
She descended the steps of the front verandah and walked slowly,
displaying an imposing dignity, to the spot where the roses stood. She
counted the pots.
"--six--seven--" As she arrived at the seventh the gardener pointed
with feverish anxiety to the eighth. It bore a beautiful double pink
blossom full of fragrance, proclaiming itself a true and genuine _La
France_, "Eight; good! Wasn't it just as I said?" she asked the butler
triumphantly. "With care the roses would turn back to their proper
sort. Why haven't the others turned, too?" she inquired, looking
severely at the gardener.
"They are turning now; all coming nicely if missus will please wait."
"Mind they do come," she replied, lifting a warning finger that
indicated a determination to exact the fulfilment of her demand.
"Missus will let off the fine!" said the gardener in an insinuating
voice.
"Certainly not! There will be four rupees fine to-morrow; four rupees
kept back until the missie has twelve good, sweet-smelling double pink
roses."
"I am a very poor man!" whined the gardener. "I have a large family
and two wives, both big hungry women. What can I do if missus stops my
pay?"
"You should have thought of that before you spoilt the roses," said
Mrs. Hulver, showing no sign of relenting.
"I am not a bad man," pleaded the gardener. "Missus must please
forgive. I am same religion as missus--a Christian----"
"What!" cried Mrs. Hulver, with such startling emphasis that they all
jumped, butler, gardener and gardener's assistants.
"A Christian, a poor worm of a Christian, same religion as missus and
master and missie!"
"How dare you call yourself a Christie?" cried Mrs. Hulver, in deep
indignation. "How dare you say that you belong to the same religion as
me and the master and our missie? You! a spoiler of roses! you! a lazy
idle budmash of a gardener! You! with two big hungry wives!"
The unfortunate bigamist trembled visibly before this outpouring of
wrath. He felt that he had made a false step.
"Ramachetty! is that man a Christian?" she asked, turning to the butler
with an abruptness that upset his self-possession.
"I never heard that he was, ma'am. He doesn't belong to my Church, the
Roman Church."
"Is it true that he has got two wives?"
"Yes, ma'am; one to cook and keep the house, and the other to mind the
field and the buffalo and make the butter. My Church doesn't allow two
wives."
"No; nor any other Christian Church. He calls himself a Christian
because he thinks I shall be sorry for him and let him off his fine.
Tell him that only heathen people marry two wives and turn pink roses
into red. He is the sort of budmash who brings Christianity into
disgrace. I'll double his fine if he dares to say again that he
belongs to my religion. When he has learned to keep pink double roses
pink and double, then we will talk about his being a Christian and
belonging to our religion; but mind! I don't give him much hope. I
never knew any missionary that allowed two wives."
The butler was not indifferent to the pronoun used by Mrs. Hulver when
she spoke of "our religion." He dismissed the gardener to his duties
and followed the housekeeper to the back verandah. She retired to her
room to make out the pay-list for the establishment. Against the
gardener's name she ventured to write the full sum of his wages and
made no note of any fine.
"Those four missing plants will all be back by to-morrow unless I am
very much mistaken. Christian or heathen, I'll keep him and the rest
of them up to the Christian standard or my name is not Maria Hulver.
As William my third used to say, he having been in the Artillery:
'Drive your team straight whether they're horses or mules, and you and
your guns will get over the ground without a spill.'"