AN EXOTIC.
AS Robin and his father sat at the small dining-table (which the youth
himself had made out of a packing-case, painting the rough wood which
would not take a polish), conversation flowed freely. Robin, as usual,
engrossed the larger share.
“This fowl, if somewhat tough since it was running about an hour ago, is
to my mind as good as the turkey, with legs tied up with white satin
ribbon, which figured at the wedding breakfast. What a display we had
there!—potted tongues, potted beef, hams, creams and jellies, and a huge
cake, of course, iced and covered all over with fancy designs; it was
such a work of art that it seemed a shame to eat it. The bride’s health
was drunk in sparkling champagne. I think that her health would have had
a better chance if all the rupees gulped down to do honour to the toast
had been kept to give her a better house.”
Mr. Hartley smiled and nodded assent.
“I own that I did grudge the expense,” said Robin, “when I heard the
popping of so many corks. I wondered, also, what the bride would do with
her elegant white satin dress in a jungle like this, with only the kites
and crows to see it! If there had been simpler dressing and plainer
feeding, we might have had a good third room to the little dwelling, and
had the bricks pakka throughout!”
“You seem to have been pleased with your new sister,” observed Mr.
Hartley; “I care less to hear of the dress than of the wearer.”
“I am more than pleased with Alicia. She has one of the sweetest faces
that ever I saw, with eyes soft and large like those of a gazelle, yet
sometimes sparkling with fun. Alicia’s complexion is fair, but a little
too pale, except when she flushes, as she did with fright on the first
evening after my arrival. She certainly has uncommonly weak nerves.”
“What caused her alarm?” asked the father.
“Oh, merely a poor little bat that, attracted by the lights, went
noiselessly wheeling and circling around the room. Alicia started,
trembled, put up her hands, almost screamed when the creature’s shadowy
flight brought it within a foot of her head! It was difficult to keep
from laughing. Then when the intruder had been expelled, Alicia asked me
anxiously whether she would find many snakes at Talwandi. ‘Not till the
weather is warmer,’ said I; ‘at present they keep snug in their holes.’
Alicia did not look reassured. ‘Can you not kill them?’ she asked. ‘I
always do when they come within reach of my arm,’ I replied. ‘I’ll cut a
stick for you to have handy if ever a snake pay you a visit.’ You should
have seen her look!” continued Robin, laughing at the recollection. “I
think that the snakes are in little danger from Alicia’s prowess; I
doubt whether she would be a match for a baby scorpion.”
“I am sorry my new daughter is so timid,” observed Mr. Hartley: “such
nervousness may cause her distress in a wild place like this—twenty
miles from civilized life, and these twenty miles of the roughest of
roads.”
“I wonder how much of the lady’s luggage will survive the jolting and
bumping?” said Robin. “Alicia has a number of wedding presents, enough
to half furnish a shop. They were all put out to be admired, and they
covered three tables and, I think, two chairs besides.”
“Where shall we put them?” asked Mr. Hartley.
“A question I’ve asked myself twenty times, but I have never succeeded
in finding an answer. There is a piano, too, which Alicia is to play on,
and I am to tune, though I have never tuned one in my life! Some of the
presents seemed to me funny. There were three silver fish-knives in
satin-lined cases; but where, oh where shall we find the fish?” Robin
burst into a merry laugh as he added, “If any one had consulted me as to
what would be an acceptable gift, I should have suggested a big kitchen
kettle or a dozen good iron spoons.”
“You must try the jhil [lake] for fish,” said Mr. Hartley.
“One clock (there were two) took my fancy,” continued Robin. “The design
on the top was evidently taken from Moore’s song about the love-lorn
mermaid who was in pity transformed into a harp. There was the siren as
the poet described her:—
‘Her hair, dropping tears from all its bright rings,
Fell over her white arm to make the gold strings.’
I thought, if her lover had been true, and had married the mermaid, how
would the lady have enjoyed her new strange life on shore? After
floating about serenely on summer seas, how would the mermaid have
enjoyed being jolted along in an ekká [a very rough country conveyance],
or even being swung from a camel? It would have been a sad change for
the poor siren, who would have felt like a fish out of water.”
Mr. Hartley saw that his son was not thinking alone of the fabled siren,
and he observed with his quiet smile,—“Sad indeed for her to exchange
her native element for another quite uncongenial, unless she were gifted
with wings to raise her to one higher and purer than either water or
earth.”
“I think that Alicia has such wings,” said Robin more gravely: “she
seems to be truly, earnestly pious. Had she not been so, she would never
have been Harold’s choice. Alicia spoke to me so nicely about helping in
mission work. She has begun to read the Bible to her ayah, and has
learned by heart all the first part of the parable of the Prodigal
Son—in Urdu.”
“Good!” was Mr. Hartley’s laconic comment.
“Alicia speaks the language like—well, of course _not_ like a native,
nor very grammatically neither, but very fairly indeed for a lady who
has been but one cold season in India, and has had only servants on whom
to practise. I daresay that in time she will make herself understood
even by zamindars’ bibis [wives]. Only I’m afraid she’ll have—”
“What?” inquired Mr. Hartley as his son stopped short.
“Headaches,” responded Robin.
“Many missionaries have headaches,” observed his father, who was now
seldom without one.
“Yes; but some can take headaches, and other aches too, as a hunter
takes a hedge: it lies in his way; he goes over it or scrambles through
it, spurs on, and is in at the death. But not every one is a hunter.”
“You think, in short, that our bride has been too delicately nurtured,
is of too soft a nature, too sensitive a frame, to bear the rough life
which is before her?” said Mr. Hartley.
“I think that we’re transplanting an exotic which requires a glass
frame,” replied Robin; “and we’ve nothing for it but a hard, rough wall,
exposed to rude blasts. But I forget,” the youth continued, resuming the
cheerful tone which was natural to him, “our sweet exotic will have a
fine strong pillar to lean on and cling to; and with the sunshine above
and the pure air around her she may—yes, and will—rise higher and
higher, till she may smile down on us all.”
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