Lâlâ Shunker Dâs having discarded all clothing save a scarf of white
muslin tied petticoat-wise round his loins, lay on a wooden bed
perched high on the topmost platform of his tall house. But even there
the burning breezes of May brought no relief from the heat; and he lay
gasping, while his faithful jackal Râm Lâl pounded away with lean
brown knuckles at his master's fat body. The _massage_ seemed to do
little good, for he grunted and groaned dismally. In truth the Lâlâ
ached all over, both in body and soul. A thousand things had conspired
against him: his last and most expensive wife (after spending a
fortune in pilgrimages) had committed the indiscretion of presenting
him with a girl baby; his grandmother having died, he had been forced
much against his will to shave his head; his greatest rival had been
elevated to the Honorary Magistracy and (adding injury to insult) been
associated with him on a _bunch_ (bench), and justice grown in bunches
is not nearly so remunerative to the grower as single specimens. These
were serious ills, but there was one, far more trivial, which
nevertheless smarted worst of all; perhaps because it was the most
recent.
That very morning Shunker Dâs, as behoved one of his aspirations, had
testified to his loyalty by attending the usual parade in honour of
the Queen's birthday. On previous occasions he had driven thither in
his barouche, but ambition had suggested that an appearance on
horseback would show greater activity, and please the Powers. So he
bought a cast horse from the cavalry regiment just ordered on service,
and having attired himself in glittering raiment, including a
magnificent turban of pink Benares muslin, he took his place by the
flagstaff. People congratulated him warmly on his confidential charger
which, even at the _feu de joie_, seemed lost in philosophic
reflections. Shunker Dâs waxed jubilant over the success of his
scheme, and was just giving himself away in magnificent lies, when the
bugle sounded for "close order" preparatory to a few words from the
General to the departing cavalry regiment. On this the war-horse
pricked up its ears, and starting off at a dignified trot rejoined its
old companions, while the Lâlâ, swearing hideously, tugged vainly at
the reins. Arrived at the line the conscientious creature sidled down
it, trying vainly to slip into a vacant place. Failing of success, the
intelligent beast concluded it must be on orderly duty, and just as
the Lâlâ was congratulating himself on having finished his involuntary
rounds, his horse, turning at right angles, bounded off to rejoin the
General's staff. Away went the Lâlâ's stirrups. He must have gone too,
despite his clutch on the mane, had not the streaming end of his
_pugree_ caught in the high crupper-strap and held fast. So stayed,
fore and aft, he might have reached the goal in safety, had not the
General, annoyed by the suppressed tittering around him, lost
patience, and angrily ordered some one to stop that man. Whereupon a
mischievous aide-de-camp gave the word for the "halt" to be sounded.
Confused out of everything save obedience, the charger stopped dead in
his tracks, and the Lâlâ shot over his head, still in a sitting
posture. On being relieved of his burden, the co-ordination "stables"
apparently came uppermost in the horse's mind, for it walked away
slowly, bearing with it the end of the Lâlâ's turban still fastened in
the crupper. He, feeling a sudden insecurity in his headgear, and
being, even in his confusion, painfully conscious of his baldness,
clung to the lower folds with both hands. At this slight check, the
charger, not to be baulked, set off at a canter, and over rolled the
fat Lâlâ, heels in air. Then, and not till then, one roar of laughter
rent the air. For as he lay there on his back, kicking like a turned
turtle, the _pugree_ began to unwind like a ball of thread, while the
Lâlâ held on like grim death to the lower portion. Not until the last
fold had slipped through his fingers and a quarter of a mile or so of
pink muslin was fluttering across the parade ground, did he realise
the position, and struggling to his seat pass his hand over his bald
head with a deprecating smile.
"Go out, Raby, and pick him up," gasped the General aching with
laughter. "You're in political charge, aren't you?"
But Philip Marsden, who happened to be on staff duty that day, was
already pouring in oil and wine to the Lâlâ's hurt dignity when the
young civilian came up with nonchalant courtesy. "_Shâhbâsh, sahib!_"
he said, "you sat him splendidly, and that last prop would have undone
a Centaur."
The Lâlâ, grinned a ghastly smile, and Philip Marsden turned
impatiently, saying aside: "Get him home, do! He looks so helpless
with his bald head; it seems a shame to laugh."
John Raby raised his eyebrows. "The General shall lend him his
carriage. That will soothe his wounded vanity."
So the Lâlâ, with his head tied up in a red pocket-handkerchief, went
home in the big man's barouche, and the spectators of his discomfiture
laughed again at the recollection of it.
"You ought to be the editor of a native newspaper, Marsden," remarked
John Raby. "You would be grand on the unsympathetic Anglo-Indian. But
if I'd seen the Viceroy himself being unwound like a reel of cotton I
must have chuckled."
"No doubt," replied the other laughing himself. "Yet I am sure a keen
sense of the ludicrous is unfortunate in a conquering race. We English
always laugh when policy should make us grave; that is why we don't
succeed."
"Perhaps; for myself I prefer to grin. As some one says, humour is the
religion of to-day. Those who believe in eternity have time for tears.
We others,--why we cry '_Vogue la galère!_'"
Lâlâ Shunker Dâs, however, without any abiding belief in a future
state, was in no laughing mood as he lay under Râm Lâl's
manipulations, listening captiously to his items of bazaar rumour.
"And they say, Lâl-ji, that the Sirkar thinks of transferring Colonel
Estuart _sahib_."
Shunker Dâs sat up suddenly and scowled. "Transfer Estuart
_sahib!_--why?"
Râm Lâl redoubled his exertions on the new portion of the Lâlâ's frame
thus brought within reach, until the latter, uttering dismal groans,
sank back to his former position. "They say," he continued calmly,
"that the Sirkar is beginning to suspect."
"Fool! idiot! knave!" growled his master, gasping at the furious
onslaught on his fat stomach. "'Tis all thy bungling. Have I not bid
thee not go so fast? Times have changed since the Commissariat
_sahibs_ sat in their verandahs, and one could walk a file of twenty
camels round and round the house until they counted the proper number.
But remember! 'Tis thou who goest to the wall, not I. That's the
compact. Shunker finds the money, Râmu runs the risk."
"Have I forgotten it, Lâlâ-ji?" replied the other with some spirit.
"Râmu is ready. And 'tis Shunker's part to look after the wife and
children when I'm in jail; don't forget that! The master would do
better if he were bolder. This one would have made much in that fodder
contract, but your heart was as water; it always is."
"And if Estuart is transferred; what then?"
"If the branch be properly limed, the bird sticks. Is it limed? Such
things are the master's work, not mine."
"Ay! limed right enough for _him_. But the money, Râmu, the money! It
will take months to lay the snare for a new man, and the war will be
over." The Lâlâ positively wept at the idea.
Râm Lâl looked at him contemptuously. "Get what is to be got from this
_sahib_, at any rate; that's my advice."
The very next day Lâla Shunker Dâs drove down to the Commissariat
office, intent on striking a grand blow.
Things had been going on better than could have been expected in the
large, empty house, where Belle, thinner and paler as the days of
intense heat went by, did the honours cheerfully. It was not without a
struggle that she had been allowed to remain with her father. Mrs.
Stuart had prophesied endless evil, beginning with a bad reputation
for herself as stepmother; but prudential reasons had given their
weight in favour of the girl's earnest desire. To make light of the
heat, and avoid flight to the hills, was a great recommendation for a
civilian's wife, and that, Mrs. Stuart had decreed, was to be Belle's
fate. So with many private injunctions to the _khansamah_ not to allow
the Miss _sahib_ to interfere too much in the management, the good
lady had, as usual, taken herself and her family to Mussoorie. Shortly
after they left Fate played a trump for Belle by sending a slight
attack of malarious fever to the Colonel. He was always dreadfully
alarmed about himself, and a hint from the doctor about the
consequences of over-free living, reduced him to toast and water for a
week, and kept him from mess for three. Belle was in a heaven of
delight; and she was just enjoying the sight of her father actually
drinking afternoon tea, when Budlu came in to say the Lâlâ-ji wanted
to see the Colonel.
"Don't go, father," pleaded Belle. "It's only that horrid fat man;
tell him to come again."
John Raby, who often strolled across about tea-time, looked at Colonel
Stuart and smiled. He knew most things in the station; among others
how unpleasant a visitor Shunker Dâs might be to his host, and not
being ill-natured, he chimed in with the girl by offering to see the
man himself.
The Lâlâ, leaning back magnificently in his barouche, felt a sudden
diminution of dignity at the sight of John Raby. "Bruises all right,
Lâlâ?" asked the young man cheerfully, and Shunker's dignity sank
lower still. "They ought to give you that _Rai Bâhâdur_-ship for the
way you stuck to him; by George, they should! We don't often get men
of your stamp, Lâlâ, with estates in every district,--do we? So you
want to see the Colonel; what for?" he added suddenly and sternly.
"_Huzoor!_" bleated the fat man. "I,--I came to inquire after his
honour's health."
"Much obliged to you! He is better; and I really think if you were to
come, say this day fortnight, he might be able to see you."
Shunker Dâs hesitated, fear for his money making him brave. "There
were rumours," he began, "that my good patron was about to be
transferred."
"Sits the wind in that quarter," thought Raby, amused. "My dear Lâlâ,"
he said, "it's absolutely untrue. Your eighty thousand is quite safe,
I assure you."
"_Huzoor!_"
"Good-bye, Lâlâ-ji--this day fortnight," and he returned to his cup of
tea in high good-humour. Then he sat and played _écarté_ with the
Colonel for an hour while Belle worked and watched them carelessly.
"That makes fifteen," remarked the young man as he rose to go,
whereupon Colonel Stuart assented cheerfully, for he had won that
evening; and Belle looked up with a smiling farewell, unconscious and
content. She lived in a fool's paradise, hugging the belief that her
presence was the charm; as though Niagara was to be stemmed by a
straw, or the habit of years by a sentiment. As time wore on, the few
remaining ladies fled before that last awful pause ere the rains
break, when a deadly weariness settles on all living things. Belle,
feeling shy among so many men, ceased to go out except on the rare
occasions when she could persuade her father to accompany her. But,
though he still adhered to his habit of dining at home, he was moody
and out of sorts. He, too, had heard rumours of transfer, and that
meant the possibility of disaster not to be faced with composure.
Restless and irritable, he began to relieve the great craving which
took possession of him by all sorts of stimulant and narcotic drugs.
And one day came an almost illegible note from him, bidding Belle not
wait dinner for him. She felt instinctively that this was the
beginning of trouble; nor was she wrong, for though Colonel Stuart was
full of excuses the next evening, he never even sent a note the day
after that. So Belle ate her solitary dinners as best she might, and
though she often lay awake till the small hours of the morning brought
an altercation between Budlu and her father, she never sat up for him,
or made any effort to meet him on his return. From this time, brutal
though it may seem to say so, poor Belle's presence in the house, so
far from being an advantage, became a distinct drawback. But for it,
Colonel Stuart would have yielded to the mad craze for drink which
generally beset him at this time of the year; and after a shorter or
longer bout, as the case might be, have been pulled up short by
illness. Instead of this, he tried to keep up appearances, and drugged
himself with chloral and laudanum till the remedy grew worse than the
disease so far as he himself was concerned. It served, however, to
hide the real facts from his daughter; for he met her timid protests
by complaints of ill-health, assertions that he knew what was best for
him, and absolute refusal to call in a doctor.
She grew alarmed. The long, silent days spent in brooding over her
father's altered demeanour were too great a strain on her nerves, and
she began to exaggerate the position. Her thoughts turned again and
again to Dick; if he were there! ah, if he were only there! No one who
has not had in extreme youth to bear anxiety alone, can fully
understand the horror of silence to the young. Belle felt she must
speak, must tell some one of her trouble; it seemed to her as if her
silence was a sort of neglect, and that some one must be able to do
something to set matters straight. But who? She hesitated and shrank,
till one day her father broke down and began to cry piteously in the
middle of his ordinary abuse of the servants at lunch. A stiff glass
of whisky-and-water restored his anger effectually, and he made light
of the incident; but that evening, when Philip Marsden came in late to
dress for dinner he found a note awaiting him from Belle.
She, having received no answer, had been expecting him all the
afternoon, and as time passed began to wonder at her own temerity in
writing. Dick, it is true, had bidden her look on Major Marsden as one
willing to help if needs be; but what could Dick know? She went out,
after a pretence of dinner, to the little raised platform in the
garden where chairs were set every evening for those who preferred it
to the house. Belle liked it far better; the purple arch of sky,
spangled with stars save where the growing moon outshone them, rested
her tired eyes, and the ceaseless quiver of the cicala prevented her
from thinking by its insistence. Suddenly her half-doze was
interrupted by a voice asking for the Miss _sahib_, and she stood up
trembling and uncertain. Why had she sent for him, and what should she
say now that he had come?
"I came as soon as I could, Miss Stuart," said Major Marsden,
formally, as their hands met. "But I was out all day, and had a guest
to entertain at mess." He stopped, dismayed at her appearance, and
added in quite a different tone, "I am afraid you are ill."
She did indeed look ghastly pale in the moonlight, her eyes full of
appeal and her lips quivering; yet her shyness had gone with the first
look at his face, and she felt glad that she had sent for him. "It is
father," she began, then could say no more for fear of breaking down.
The trivial words brought back the recollection of that first meeting
with her months before, when she had made the same reply to his offer
of help; and as he stood waiting for her to master the fast-rising
sobs, a remorse seized him with the thought that surely some of this
pain might have been prevented somehow, by some one.
"You must think me very silly," she murmured hastily.
"I think you are overdone," he replied, "and I don't expect you've had
any dinner. Now have you?"
A smile struggled to her face. "I don't think I had,--much."
"Then I will tell the _khansamah_ to bring you something now."
The full-blown tragedy of life seemed to have departed. She even
wondered at her own tears as she sipped her soup, and told him of her
troubles with a lightening heart. "Budlu says he never saw father like
this before," was the climax, and even that did not seem a hopeless
outlook.
"Could he not take leave?" suggested Major Marsden at once; leave
being the panacea for all ills in India.
"That's what I want to know. I begged him to go, but the very idea
excites him. Would it harm him officially? Is there any reason why he
should not?"
Dick's words of warning recurred to Major Marsden unpleasantly. "None
that I know of," he replied. "I will go round to Seymour's to-morrow,
and get him to bundle you both off to the hills. You want change as
much as your father. In a month's time you will be laughing at all
these fears."
"I think you are laughing at them now," said Belle wistfully.
"Am I? Well, I promise not to laugh at you any more, Miss Stuart." He
stood up, tall and straight, to say good-bye.
"Isn't that rather a rash promise, Major Marsden?"
"I don't think so. Anyhow I make it, and I'm very glad you sent for
me. Considering how little you knew of me,--and how disagreeable that
little had been--it was kind."
"I know a great deal of you," she replied, smiling softly. "Dick has
told me a lot,--about the brevet,--and the intelligence-work--and the
Afghan sepoy--"
"And the men in buckram too, I suppose? I'm afraid Dick is not to be
trusted. Did he tell you how the man escaped next day, and I got a
wigging?"
"No!" cried Belle indignantly. "Did he?--Did you, I mean?--what a
shame!"
"On the contrary, it was quite right. I'll tell you about it some day,
if I may. Meanwhile, good-bye, and don't starve; it really doesn't do
any good!"
She watched him jingle down the steps, thinking how like an overgrown
school-boy he looked in his mess-jacket. So life was not a tragedy
after all, but a serio-comedy in which only the monologues were
depressing and dull. She went in and played the piano till it was time
to go to bed. Yet nothing had really changed, and Fate marched on
relentlessly as before. We make our own feelings, and then sit down to
weep or smile over them.
The very next afternoon Colonel Stuart was brooding silently over
nothing at all in his private office-room, passing the time, as it
were, out of mischief, till he went to dine with John Raby. For the
latter, with a sort of contemptuous kindness, put the drag of an
occasional game of _écarté_ on to the Colonel's potations. Sitting in
the dusk his face looked wan and haggard, and, despite his profound
stillness, every nerve was wearied and yet awake with excitement; as
might be seen from his unrestrained start when Shunker Dâs came into
the room unannounced; for the office-hours being over the _chuprassie_
had departed.
"Well, what is it now?" he cried sharply. "I saw you this morning.
Haven't you got enough for one day? Am I never to have any peace?"
An angry tone generally reduced his native visitors to submission, but
the Lâlâ was evidently in no mood for silence. He had taken up a small
contract that morning, the earnest-money of which lay for the time in
Colonel Stuart's safe. Since then he had heard casually that a
long-expected source of profit over which he had often talked with the
Colonel, and for which he had even made preparations, had slipped
through his fingers. In other words, that all the mule-transport was
to be bought by a special officer. "I've come, _sahib_," he blurted
out, sitting down unasked, "to know if it is true that Mardsen _sahib_
has the purchase of mules."
"And if he has, what the devil is it to you, or to me?" The man's
arrogance was becoming unbearable, and Colonel Stuart was a great
stickler for etiquette.
"Only this; that if you are not going to deal fairly by me, you
mustn't count on my silence; that's all!"
"Go and tell the whole bazaar I owe you money, you black scoundrel,"
cried his hearer, annoyed beyond endurance by the man's assumption of
equality. "I'll pay you every penny, if I sell my soul for it, curse
you!"
"Eighty thousand rupees is a tall price, _sahib_," sneered the Lâlâ.
"And how about the contracts, and the commission, and the general
partnership? Am I to tell that also?"
The Colonel stared at him in blank surprise. God knows in his queer
conglomerate of morality it was hard to tell what elementary rock of
principle might be found; yet to a certain extent honour remained as
it were in pebbles, worn and frayed by contact with the stream of
life. "General partnership! you black devil, what do you mean?"
"Mean!" echoed the Lâlâ shrilly. "Why, the money I've lent you, _paid_
you for each contract; the commission I've given your clerks; the
grain your horses have eaten; the--"
The Colonel's right hand was raised above his head; the first coarse
rage of his face had settled into a stern wrath that turned it white.
"If you stop here another instant, by God I'll kill you!"
The words came like a steel-thrust, and the Lâlâ without a word turned
and fled before the Berserk rage of the Northman; it is always
terrible to the Oriental, and the Lâlâ was a heaven-sent coward.
"Stop!" cried the Colonel as the wretched creature reached the door.
He obeyed and came back trembling. "Take your money for the contract
with you; it's cancelled. I won't have it in the house. Take it back
and give me the receipt I gave you; give it me, I say." The Colonel,
fumbling at the lock of the safe, stuttered and shook with excitement.
"Take 'em back," he continued, flourishing a roll of notes. "The
receipt!--quick! out with it!--the receipt for the three thousand five
hundred I gave you this morning!"
"_Huzoor! Huzoor!_ I am looking for it; be patient one moment!"
The Lâlâ's quivering fingers blundered among the papers in his
pocket-book.
"Give it me, or, by heaven, I'll break every bone in your body!" His
hand came down with an ominous thud on the table.
"I will give it, _sahib_,--I have it,--here--no--ah! praise to the
gods!" He shook so that the paper rustled in his hand. Colonel Stuart
seized it, and tearing it to bits, flung the pieces in the waste paper
basket at his feet. "There goes your last contract from me, and
there's the door, and there's your money!" As he flung the notes in
the man's face they went fluttering over the floor, and he laughed
foolishly to see them gathered up in trembling haste.
"Gad!" he muttered as he sank exhausted into a chair, "there isn't
much fear of Shunker so long as I've a stick in my hand. Hullo! what's
that? Something rustled under the table. Here, Budlu! quick, lights!
It may be a snake! Confound the servants; they're never to be found!"
He stopped and drew his hand over his forehead two or three times.
Just then Budlu, entering with the lamp, stooped to pick something
from the floor. It was a note for a thousand rupees, crisp and
crackling.
Colonel Stuart looked at it in a dazed sort of way, then burst into a
roar of laughter and put it in his pocket-book. "My fair perquisite,
by Jove! and it will come in useful to-night at _écarté_. Budlu, give
me the little bottle. I must steady my nerves a bit if I'm to play
with Raby."