“It was all very well for _him_, poor man, to want to be buried in that
hole-and-corner kind of way—where he fell, I suppose, doing his duty:
very simple and proper, I’m sure; and I should have felt just the same
about it in his place—but on _her_ account he ought to have made it
possible for them to have taken him back to Calcutta and given him a
public funeral.”
Mrs. Daye spoke feelingly, gently tapping her egg. Mrs. Daye never could
induce herself to cut off the top of an egg with one fell blow; she
always tapped it, tenderly, first.
“It would have been something!” she continued. “Poor dear thing! I _was_
so fond of Mrs. Church.”
“I see they have started subscriptions to give him a memorial of sorts,”
remarked her husband from behind his newspaper. “But whether it’s to be
put in Bhugsi or in Calcutta doesn’t seem to be arranged.”
“Oh, in Calcutta, of course! They won’t get fifty rupees if it’s to be
put up at Bhugsi. _Nobody_ would subscribe!”
“Is there room?” asked Miss Daye meekly, from the other side of the
table. “The illustrious are already so numerous on the Maidan. Is there
no danger of overcrowding?”
“How ridiculous you are, Rhoda! You’ll subscribe, Richard, of course?
Considering how _very_ kind they’ve been to us I should say—what do you
think?—a hundred rupees.” Mrs. Daye buttered her toast with knitted
brows.
“We’ll see. Hello! Spence is coming out again. ‘By special arrangement
with the India Office.’ He’s fairly well now, it seems, and willing to
sacrifice the rest of his leave ‘rather than put Government to the
inconvenience of another possible change of policy in Bengal.’ _That_
means,” Colonel Daye continued, putting down the Calcutta paper and
taking up his coffee-cup, “that Spence has got his orders from Downing
Street, and is being packed back to reverse this College Grants
business. But old Hawkins won’t have much of a show, will he? Spence
will be out in three weeks.”
“I’m very pleased,” Mrs. Daye remarked vigorously. “Mrs. Hawkins was bad
enough in the Board of Revenue; she’d be un_bear_able at Belvedere. And
Mrs. Church was so _per_fectly unaffected. But I don’t think we would be
quite justified in giving a hundred, Richard—seventy-five would be
ample.”
“One would think, mummie, that the hat was going round for Mrs. Church,”
said her daughter.
“Hats have gone round for less deserving persons,” Colonel Daye
remarked, “and in cases where there was less need of them, too. St.
George writes me that there was no insurances, and not a penny saved.
Church has always been obliged to do so much for his people. The widow’s
income will be precisely her three hundred a year of pension, and no
more—bread and butter, but no jam.”
“Talking of jam,” said Mrs. Daye, with an effect of pathos, “if you
haven’t eaten it all, Richard, I should like some. Poor dear thing! And
if she marries again, she loses even that, doesn’t she? Oh, no, she
doesn’t, either: there was that Madras woman that had three husbands and
three pensions; they came altogether to nine hundred a year in the end.
Of course, money is out of the question; but a little offering of
something useful—made in a friendly way—she might even be grateful for.
I am thinking of sending her a little something.”
“What, mummie?” Rhoda demanded, with suspicion.
“That long black cloak I got when we all had to go into mourning for
your poor dear grandmother, Rhoda. I’ve hardly worn it at all. Of
course, it would require a little alteration, but——”
“_Mummie!_ How beastly of you! You must not _dream_ of doing it.”
“It’s fur-lined,” said Mrs. Daye, with an injured inflection. “Besides,
she isn’t the wife of the L.G. _now_, you know.”
“Papa——”
“What? Oh, certainly not! Ridiculous! Besides, you’re too late with your
second-hand souvenir, my dear. St. George says that Mrs. Church sails
to-day from Calcutta. Awfully cut up, poor woman, he says. Wouldn’t go
back to Belvedere; wouldn’t see a soul: went to a boarding-house and
shut herself up in two rooms.”
“How un_kind_ you are about news, Richard! Fancy your not telling us
that before! And I think you and Rhoda are _quite_ wrong about the
cloak. If _you_ had died suddenly of cholera in a a dâk-bungalow in the
wilds and _I_ was left with next to nothing, I would accept little
presents from friends in the spirit in which they were offered, no
matter _what_ my position had been!”
“I daresay you would, my dear. But if I—hello! Exchange is going up
again—if I catch you wearing cast-off mourning for me, I’ll come and
hang around until you burn it. By the way, I saw Doyle last night at the
Club.”
“The barrister? Did you speak to him?” asked Mrs. Daye.
“Yes. ‘Hello!’ I said: ‘thought you were on leave. What in the world
brings you up here?’ Seems that Pattore telegraphed askin’ Doyle to
defend him in this big diamond case with Ezra, and he came out. ‘Well,’
I said, ‘Pattore’s in Calcutta, Ezra’s in Calcutta, diamond’s in
Calcutta, an’ you’re in Darjiling. When I’m sued for two lakhs over a
stone to dangle on my tummy I won’t retain you!’”
“And what did Mr. Doyle say to that, papa?” his daughter inquired.
“Oh—I don’t remember. Something about never having seen the place before
or something. Here, khansamah—cheroot!”
The man brought a box and lighted a match, which he presently applied to
one end of the cigar while his master pulled at the other.
“Well,” said Mrs. Daye, thoughtfully dabbling in her finger-bowl, “about
this statue or whatever it is to Mr. Church—if it were a mere question
of inclination—but as things are, Richard, I really don’t think we can
afford more than fifty. It isn’t as if it could do the poor man any
good. Where are you going, Rhoda? Wait a minute.”
Mrs. Daye followed her daughter out of the room, shutting the door
behind her, and put an impressive hand upon Rhoda’s arm at the foot of
the staircase.
“My dear child,” she said, with a note of candid compassion, “what do
you think has happened? Your father and I were discussing it as you came
down, but I said ‘Not a word before Rhoda!’ They have made Lewis Ancram
Chief Commissioner of Assam!”
The colour came back into the girl’s face with a rush, and the
excitement went out of her eyes.
“Good heavens, mummie, how you—— Why shouldn’t they? Isn’t he a proper
person?”
“Very much so. _That_ has nothing to do with it. Think of it, Rhoda—a
Chief Commissioner, at his age! And you _can’t_ say I didn’t prophesy
it. _The_ rising man in the Civil Service I always told you he was.”
“And I never contradicted you, mummie dear! My own opinion is that when
Abdur Rahman dies they’ll make him Amir!” Rhoda laughed a gay,
irresponsible laugh, and tripped on upstairs with singular lightness of
step. Mrs. Daye, leaning upon the end of the banister, followed her with
reproachful eyes.
“You seem to take it very lightly, Rhoda, but I must say it serves you
perfectly right for having thrown the poor man over in that disgraceful
way. Girls who behave like that are generally sorry for it later. I knew
of a chit here in Darjiling that jilted a man in the Staff Corps and ran
away with a tea-planter. The man will be the next Commander-in-Chief of
the Indian Army, everybody says, and I hope she likes her tea-planter.”
“Mummie!” Rhoda called down confidentially from the landing.
“Well?”
“Put your head in a bag, mummie. I’m going out. Shall I bring you some
chocolates or some nougat or anything?”
“I shall tell your father to whip you. Yes, chocolates if they’re
fresh—_insist_ upon that. Those crumbly Neapolitan ones, in
silver-and-gold paper.”
“All right. And mummie!”
“What?”
“Write and congratulate Mr. Ancram. Then he’ll know there’s no
ill-feeling!”
Which Mrs. Daye did.