In a quarter of Madras where dwelling houses were not separated by so
many acres of garden ground as in the more fashionable suburbs, there
stood, at the corner of a shady road, a white wooden gate. It was a
feature rare in the Belgravia of the town where peeling chunam posts
with rusty iron sockets were often the only traces of the departed gate;
one of the changing tenants having probably demanded that it should be
dispensed with, another that it should be replaced, to be assured by the
obsequious landlord that the order would be executed at once, though the
gate in question was most likely broken up for firewood or eaten by
white ants, the polite Mussulman not having the remotest intention of
replacing it, however much he might assure successions of tenants that
the gate was on its way to be fitted to the old posts.
But what mattered such traces of dilapidation to those often changing
inmates? Were not pleasant homes, trim gateways, verdant lawns, awaiting
them across the sea when the requisite number of rupees had been
amassed, the years of service expired, and the exile only a memory?
Within the precincts of this white gate, however, no change of owners
had interrupted its careful tendance for many a year. No period of
rankness had intervened in the trim compound. Under the tall grey
pillar-like stems of the cocoanut-tope behind the bungalow, the grass,
by means of much watering, was almost as green as an English lawn.
Shapely tamarinds, dark mango, and neem trees brooded over the garden
where a wealth of old-fashioned flowers grew and prospered, sheltered by
various ingenious contrivances from the scorching rays of the sun and
the devastation of the monsoon. Green colonnades of broad-leaved
plantains, with their curious spikes of fruit, made a dividing line
between the flower-beds and the well-kept vegetable garden at the end of
which, beside the tank, a _picotta_ was mounted, where an agile coolie
swung on the primitive pump, propelling the water from below and sending
it along a labyrinth of little intersecting mud-channels percolating the
thirsty earth.
The visitor, who was now opening the white gate, had sprung from his
bandy at the entrance to the avenue, evidently electing to walk towards
the house, a proceeding as novel as it was distasteful to the syce, who
sat sulky and inanimate on his perch for some moments before he decided
to seek the shelter of a shady nook on the road. In fact, he had been
led to expect from Dorai Cheveril's butler--the result of crumbs of news
picked up from the breakfast table--that he was to have a succession of
lively doings; a call at Government House to begin with, then a round of
gay compounds where there would be many of his own species to fraternize
with. But this 'Morpeth house,' he knew, did not offer such
possibilities.
No feature of the carefully-tended garden escaped Mark Cheveril's keen
eye as he made his way to the peaceful bungalow. Its verandah looked
invitingly cool even in the noontide glare, overhung as it was by
graceful creepers. The visitor thought he might see his new friend
seated in its green recesses, but all seemed empty and silent. He was
too recent an arrival to know that bells and knockers are conspicuous by
their absence from an Indian abode. All beyond the verandah was open,
revealing vistas of cool darkness within, but he decided that to enter
unannounced would hardly be permissible even in this land of open
hospitality. Recalling that Mrs. Fellowes had told him Mr. Morpeth was a
lonely bachelor, he came to the conclusion that both he and the servants
must be absent, and was turning to go when he heard a sign of life. A
rich baritone voice broke the silence. Mark could detect in its timbre
the speaking voice of the old East Indian, who, since his arrival in
Madras, had twice cast his spell upon him. The air he was singing was
melodious, and the words fell with clear cadence on the still noontide:
"Light of those whose dreary dwelling
Borders on the shades of death,
Come and all Thy love revealing,
Dissipate the clouds beneath."
Mark listened fascinated. It seemed to him like a solemn invocation, a
passionate prayer uttered by the lonely man. The echo of those simple
words was to come back to him in after years, recalling the day he stood
a young hopeful civilian at the entrance of his life in the land, new
and wonderful to him, listening to the cry of the old pilgrim who had
borne the burden and heat of that land all his years, and whose dearest
aim had been to bring light to some of those "dreary dwellings"
bordering on the shadow of death.
The singing ceased, and Mark mounted one or two of the flat
entrance-steps, deciding to make his way through the open doors and
announce himself. But the old man's sense of hearing was quick.
"I thought I heard a step," he said, coming from the darkness within, a
welcoming smile on his face. "My boys are all away at rice and siesta,
no doubt."
"I hope I'm not intruding, Mr. Morpeth. I thought I should like to begin
my calls by taking advantage of your kind invitation to come and have a
talk with you."
"A kind and gracious thought, Mr. Cheveril. You come to cheer a lonely
old man."
"But you have many interests, many solaces, Mr. Morpeth. I heard you
singing like a true musician as I reached your verandah. In fact, I must
plead guilty to eavesdropping. Both the air and the words were new to me
and held me."
"Yes, it's a favourite of mine. But you from England must be familiar
with all Charles Wesley's hymns?"
"I fear you credit me with more knowledge about many good things than I
can lay claim to, Mr. Morpeth. Hymnology has not been much of a study
with me."
"Ah, but you must make the acquaintance of Charles Wesley. There is real
poetry in his hymns, much more than in his brother John's. They have a
beautiful haunting power which the others lack. I was glad to find that
pearl among English deans--Stanley--acknowledging this in one of his
books lately. But what am I thinking about, Mr. Cheveril? This is not
the hour to linger in the verandah! Come and seek the coolness of my
homely den here."
Mr. Morpeth led the way into the drawing-room of the house which had
been fitted up as a library. In the rows of teakwood dwarf-bookcases,
raised from the ground by carved lions _couchants_ high enough above the
matting to protect them from the ravages of white ants, were well-filled
shelves of books. A case from home lay half unpacked on the floor. A
roomy writing-table with well-filled pigeon-holes showed traces of
manifold labours. The furnishing of the room evidently belonged to a
period when it was possible to get good wood, before so many of the
great forest trees were cut down. The polished chunam of the walls told
of days when coolies were plentiful and lent the strength of their
sinewy arms to rub the shell-lime till it gleamed like marble, even in
the light of day.
"What a delightful room!" exclaimed Mark. "It looks more English than
anything I've seen here, and yet you've never been----" He paused
without finishing his sentence as he glanced at the brown-skinned man.
"Never been in England? No, and I fear I never shall be, though it used
to be my dream in the years when I was too poor to carry it out. Yet I
see now there came a time when I ought to have gone to England--but
regrets are vain," he added, and a look of trouble stole into his eyes.
Habituated from his childhood to respect the English as a superior race,
David Morpeth had suffered himself to be perhaps unduly crushed by that
aristocracy of colour which he had so long reverenced. He had bent the
knee before the prejudice against those of mixed blood, conscious of
having neither the will nor the power to contend against it. His life
therefore had flowed into other channels. A solitary man, he had
attached himself to the domiciled community with all the fervour of a
true vocation. But for occasional friendly souls like Mrs. Fellowes, he
had hitherto experienced a great loneliness. He had begun life in
Calcutta attached to a wealthy merchant firm, and by virtue of his high
character, was eventually received as a valued partner. When he retired
from active business, he elected to make his home in an old family house
in Madras which had long been let, and around which was a colony of his
own people.
Freyville, Vepery, soon became a centre of kindly offices for the
Eurasians. David Morpeth would indeed have been welcomed in other
circles, but, as Mrs. Fellowes had explained to Mark that morning, he
had given himself body and soul to the despised race.
Mark Cheveril had been quick to note the chivalry of his heart, and it
found an echo in his own.
"Mrs. Fellowes told me you are so immersed in work for our people that
you don't even take a holiday to the hills."
"Ah, you see I have a large family to look after, but there is good
cheer in the work. You must not believe all you hear about the
inevitable degradation of the mixed race."
"I should be the last to believe anything of the kind. It would be a
death-knell to my hopes of helping them, but I must be a learner for
some time to come."
"Ah, but a sympathetic one! That makes all the difference! It is the
cruel inveterate prejudice against the whole class that has led to their
degradation. They have accepted the verdict passed on them by the pure
races, and it has crushed them. Their tendency is to look down on manual
labour, and yet in industrial callings they cannot hold their own with
the inhabitants of the soil. The poor among them have sunk so low,
wearing out hopeless lives in wretched crowded dens. Often only a shed
with a mat as covering suffices for a home. They have neither physical
nor mental energy to strike out careers for themselves. Inevitable
pauperism we have, of course, as in England, and it is often encouraged
by indiscriminate giving that plays into the hands of loafers, many of
them pure Europeans who will not work, preferring to become beggars.
It's easy enough to throw a bone to a dog and be done with it, and the
well-wishers of our people are well to watch with jealous eye those
trouble-hating Europeans, ay, even among the clergy, who would salve
their consciences by merely giving alms."
"Yes, Mrs. Fellowes told me she used to be one of those till you
enlightened her."
"And now she proves a priceless helper to a class that troubles me even
more than the loafers, and for which neither you nor I can do anything,"
said Mr. Morpeth, with a frank smile. "Those scores of young women who
live sordid, useless, aimless lives, the daughters perhaps of decent,
hard-working fathers. Those girls ought to be earning a livelihood, but
false notions of 'shabby gentility'--shall we call it?--impels them to
lounge about all day with the proverbial idle hands which the Evil One
finds so handy. From poor warrens of homes they come forth bedecked in
tawdry finery that they spend their lives in sticking together. Faugh,
it makes one ill to see them lolling about their pandals and ogling at
passers-by," Mr. Morpeth added, with a truly British shrug of his
shoulders which brought a smile to Mark Cheveril's face. "It is these
eyesores," he went on, "that Mrs. Fellowes and one or two like-minded
helpers have tackled. Some of them don't even know how to write or add
up a sum, though they are full-grown women, and their powers of reading
are so lame that many among them cannot read the simplest story with
ease or pleasure, though, I understand, some are great readers and
devour 'yellow backs.' Mrs. Fellowes has instituted sewing classes, and
we are beginning to have higher ambitions. We mean to get them bred as
printers. The compositor's trade seems specially suited for women; and
Mrs. Fellowes has great plans of having them properly trained as ladies'
nurses, and is already trying to enlist the Medical Staff on their
behalf. Then we have a little pet scheme of getting the more
deft-fingered apprenticed to watchmakers and jewellers. We think they
might be in requisition for the zenanas where jewellery is so all
important."
"But what about the young men? Is it only the women who have sunk to
such a state of do-nothingness?"
"Ah, it is in them my hope lies! They are my sons," said Mr. Morpeth,
with an eager smile. "To make them more manly, more truthful, to make
their souls--that is what I live for now! You may guess then," he added
slowly, fixing his eyes on Mark, "how glad an hour struck for me this
morning when you made yourself known as one brave enough to come to the
rescue!"
"As a humble volunteer only. But I recognise the claim, and here I am! I
was going to ask you, surely there are many among the Eurasians who
ought to make their way into various services? I have wondered, for
instance, why they should be debarred from the army ranks?"
"And many of them have hereditary connection with the British Army too!
I confess it has always seemed to me that connection should be fostered.
The ranks of the Native Infantry are of course impossible. They could
not live as sepoys. Some have distinguished themselves as lawyers,
doctors, magistrates, and are in receipt of incomes that would astonish
their forefathers. But, alas, many of these try to repudiate their
connection with the despised race; from them we often get only sneering
words and black looks."
"Base, I call that! But all the more honour to the chivalrous helper!"
"Well, I often think if they could only see what a short-sighted policy
their attitude is, even from a selfish point of view, I should not
encounter the opposition I do when I seek posts for really capable young
men. Why, they often prefer natives in offices! In fact, it is the
declared policy of the Imperial Government that appointments should be
reserved only for pure Indians. A false policy to my mind, and one that
in the end will not strengthen the British Raj! But I must not preach
sedition to a Covenanted member of the Service! I am forgetting myself!"
"By no means; your point of view is valuable to me. I seek
enlightenment. It does seem the irony of fate that such a state of
matters should exist. I feel it is a good omen, Mr. Morpeth, that I
should so early in my day have met with an inspirer like you. I shall
not be able to give you the help I might had I not been going to
Puranapore. But whatever I can do is at your service. You must let me
help you with your various organisations. My income is much more than
sufficient for my personal wants," said Mark, as he rose to go.
"Well, rupees are needed, as Mrs. Fellowes will tell you. She is an
excellent beggar! But I hold now what I value more than silver and
gold," said David Morpeth, as the young man laid his hand in his. "That
is the clasp of a friendly hand. May it prove a hand that shall undo
heavy burdens, loose the bands of wickedness, to let the oppressed go
free, and break every yoke, as the prophet calls on us to do in a voice
that rings through the ages!"
As Mark Cheveril looked into the face of the lonely man, he felt the
spell of the beauty of holiness, and was more glad than ever that he had
made his first call on one so stimulating, though his name was not on
Mr. Alfred Rayner's visiting list.
As he waited at the white gate while Mr. Morpeth's butler was signalling
to the drowsy syce to bring up the carriage, Mark was accosted by a
young woman who had evidently been hanging about the neighbourhood of
the cactus-hedge which skirted the compound. She was a weedy-looking
girl, with a slender swaying figure dressed in tawdry finery, but her
face was undeniably pretty.
"One of Mrs. Fellowes' _protégées_, no doubt," Mark decided, and was
about to step into the carriage when the girl said breathlessly, keeping
her eye fixed furtively on the white gate evidently in fear lest the
master of the house should put in an appearance:
"I'm awfulee sorry to trouble you, sir, but I saw you in a lovelee
mail-phaeton with Mr. Alf Rayner last night, and when I spied you
steppin' in here I thought I should make so bold as to ask where he's
livin' now--Alf, I mean?"
Mark felt distinctly surprised at this familiar mention of his friend's
husband, all the more as he recalled Mr. Rayner's remarks concerning the
domiciled community to which this girl evidently belonged.
Perceiving his hesitation, the girl hastened to explain:
"You see, sir, I've been away in Calcutta for months and months, so I'm
a bit behind in news of my friends."
"Then Mr. Rayner is your friend?"
"He's all thatt," responded the girl, with a giggle which at once
decided Mark that he was probably dealing with an impostor who might
give trouble to his hostess.
"I don't feel at liberty to give you the address you ask. But if you
know Mr. Morpeth, or Mrs. Fellowes, they will no doubt see you," added
Mark hesitatingly.
"Ho, so you think I'm 'a case,' do you? You want to hand me over to
them, I see! Don't you trouble! I'll find Mr. Rayner on my own account,"
said the girl, tossing her head as she went off with rapid steps.