They cantered merrily for a time. Then said the subaltern: "Listen to
the mare's beat a minute, will you? Seems to me that you've sold me two
horses."
Behind the mare was plainly audible the cadence of a swiftly trotting
horse. "D'you hear anything?" said Guj. "No--nothing but the regular
triplet," said Hordene; and he lied when he answered. Guj looked at
him keenly and said nothing. Two or three months passed and Hordene
was perplexed to see his old property running, and running well, under
the curious title of "_Sleipner_--late _Thurinda_." He consulted the
Great Major, who said: "I don't know a horse called _Sleipner_, but
I know _of_ one. He was a northern bred, and belonged to Odin." "A
mythological beast?" "Exactly. Like _Bucephalus_ and the rest of 'em.
He was a great horse. I wish I had some of his get in my stable."
"Why?" "Because he had eight legs. When he had used up one set, he let
down the other four to come up the straight on. Stewards were lenient
in those days. _Now_ it's all you can do to get a crock with _three_
sound legs."
Hordene cursed the red-haired Guj in his heart for finding out the
mare's peculiarity. Then he cursed the dead man Jale for his ridiculous
interference with a free gift. "If it was given--it was given," said
Hordene, "and he has no right to come messing about after it." When Guj
and he next met, he enquired tenderly after _Thurinda_. The red-haired
subaltern, impassive as usual, answered: "I've shot her." "Well--you
know your own affairs best," said Hordene. "You've given yourself
away," said Guj. "What makes you think I shot a sound horse? She might
have been bitten by a mad dog, or lamed." "You didn't say that." "No,
I didn't, because I've a notion that you knew what was wrong with her."
"Wrong with her! She was as sound as a bell----" "I know that. Don't
pretend to misunderstand. You'll believe _me_, and I'll believe _you_
in this show; but no one else will believe _us_. That mare was a bally
nightmare." "Go on," said Hordene. "I stuck the noise of the other
horse as long as I could, and called her _Sleipner_ on the strength
of it. _Sleipner_ was a stallion, but that's a detail. When it got to
interfering with every race I rode it was more than I could stick.
I took her off racing, and, on my honour, since that time I've been
nearly driven out of my mind by a grey and nutmeg pony. It used to trot
round my quarters at night, fool about the Mall, and graze about the
compound. You _know_ that pony. It isn't a pony to catch or ride or
hit, is it?" "No," said Hordene; "I've seen it." "So I shot _Thurinda_;
that was a thousand rupees out of my pocket. And old Stiffer, who's got
his new crematorium in full blast, cremated her. I say, what _was_ the
matter with the mare? Was she bewitched?"
Hordene told the story of the gift, which Guj heard out to the end.
"Now, that's a nice sort of yarn to tell in a messroom, isn't it?
They'd call it jumps or insanity," said Guj. "There's no reason in it.
It doesn't lead up to anything. It only killed poor Marish and made you
stick me with the mare; and yet it's true. Are you mad or drunk, or am
I? That's the only explanation." "Can't be drunk for nine months on
end, and madness would show in that time," said Hordene.
"All right," said Guj recklessly, going to the window. "I'll lay that
ghost." He leaned out into the night and shouted: "Jale! Jale! Jale!
Wherever you are." There was a pause and then up the compound-drive
came the clatter of a horse's feet. The red-haired subaltern blanched
under his freckles to the colour of glycerine soap. "_Thurinda's_
dead," he muttered, "and--and all bets are off. Go back to your grave
again."
Hordene was watching him open-mouthed.
"Now bring me a strait-jacket or a glass of brandy," said Guj. "That's
enough to turn a man's hair white. What did the poor wretch mean by
knocking about the earth?"
"Don't know," whispered Hordene hoarsely. "Let's get over to the Club.
I'm feeling a bit shaky."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 16: "Week's News," May 12, 1888.]
A SUPPLEMENTARY CHAPTER[17]
Shall I not one day remember thy Bower--
One day when all days are one day to me?
Thinking I stirred not and yet had the power,
Yearning--ah, God, if again it might be!
--_The Song of the Bower_.
This is a base betrayal of confidence, but the sin is Mrs. Hauksbee's
and not mine.
If you remember a certain foolish tale called "The Education of Otis
Yeere," you will not forget that Mrs. Mallowe laughed at the wrong
time, which was a single, and at Mrs. Hauksbee, which was a double,
offence. An experiment had gone wrong, and it seems that Mrs. Mallowe
had said some quaint things about the experimentrix.
"I am not angry," said Mrs. Hauksbee, "and I admire Polly in spite
of her evil counsels to me. But I shall wait--I shall wait, like the
frog footman in _Alice in Wonderland_, and Providence will deliver
Polly into my hands. It always does if you wait." And she departed
to vex the soul of the "Hawley boy," who says that she is singularly
"_uninstruite_ and childlike." He got that first word out of a Ouida
novel. I do not know what it means, but am prepared to make an
affidavit before the Collector that it does not mean Mrs. Hauksbee.
Mrs. Hauksbee's ideas of waiting are very liberal. She told the "Hawley
boy" that he dared not tell Mrs. Reiver that "she was an intellectual
woman with a gift for attracting men," and she offered another man
two waltzes if he would repeat the same thing in the same ears. But
he said: "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes," which means "Mistrust all
waltzes except those you get for legitimate asking."
The "Hawley boy" did as he was told because he believes in Mrs.
Hauksbee. He was the instrument in the hand of a Higher Power, and
he wore _jharun_ coats, like "the scoriac rivers that roll their
sulphurous torrents down Yahek, in the realms of the Boreal Pole,"
that made your temples throb when seen early in the morning. I will
introduce him to you some day if all goes well. He is worth knowing.
Unpleasant things have already been written about Mrs. Reiver in other
places.
She was a person without invention. She used to get her ideas from the
men she captured, and this led to some eccentric changes of character.
For a month or two she would act _à la_ Madonna, and try Theo for a
change if she fancied Theo's ways suited her beauty. Then she would
attempt the dark and fiery Lilith, and so and so on, exactly as she
had absorbed the new notion. But there was always Mrs. Reiver--hard,
selfish, stupid Mrs. Reiver--at the back of each transformation. Mrs.
Hauksbee christened her the Magic Lantern on account of this borrowed
mutability. "It just depends upon the slide," said Mrs. Hauksbee. "The
case is the only permanent thing in the exhibition. But that, thank
Heaven, is getting old."
There was a Fancy Ball at Government House and Mrs. Reiver came
attired in some sort of '98 costume, with her hair pulled up to the
top of her head, showing the clear outline on the back of the neck
like the Récamier engravings. Mrs. Hauksbee had chosen to be loud, not
to say vulgar, that evening, and went as The Black Death--a curious
arrangement of barred velvet, black domino and flame-coloured satin
puffery coming up to the neck and the wrists, with one of those
shrieking keel-backed cicalas in the hair. The scream of the creature
made people jump. It sounded so unearthly in a ballroom.
I heard her say to some one: "Let me introduce you to Madame Récamier,"
and I saw a man dressed as Autolycus bowing to Mrs. Reiver, while The
Black Death looked more than usually saintly. It was a very pleasant
evening, and Autolycus and Madame Récamier--I heard her ask Autolycus
who Madame Récamier was, by the way--danced together ever so much.
Mrs. Hauksbee was in a meditative mood, but she laughed once or twice
in the back of her throat, and that meant trouble.
Autolycus was Trewinnard, the man whom Mrs. Mallowe had told Mrs.
Hauksbee about--the Platonic Paragon, as Mrs. Hauksbee called him. He
was amiable, but his moustache hid his mouth, and so he did not explain
himself all at once. If you stared at him, he turned his eyes away,
and through the rest of the dinner kept looking at you to see whether
you were looking again. He took stares as a tribute to his merits,
which were generally known and recognised. When he played billiards he
apologised at length between each bad stroke, and explained what would
have happened if the red had been somewhere else, or the bearer had
trimmed the third lamp, or the wind hadn't made the door bang. Also
he wriggled in his chair more than was becoming to one of his inches.
Little men may wriggle and fidget without attracting notice. It doesn't
suit big-framed men. He was the Main Girder Boom of the Kutcha, Pukka,
Bundobust and Benaoti Department and corresponded direct with the Three
Taped Bashaw. Every one knows what _that_ means. The men in his own
office said that where anything was to be gained, even temporarily, he
would never hesitate for a moment over handing up a subordinate to be
hanged and drawn and quartered. He didn't back up his underlings, and
for that reason they dreaded taking responsibility on their shoulders,
and the strength of the Department was crippled.
A weak Department can, and often does, do a power of good work simply
because its chief sees it through thick and thin. Mistakes may be
born of this policy, but it is safe and sounder than giving orders
which may be read in two ways and reserving to yourself the right of
interpretation according to subsequent failure or success. Offices
prefer administration to diplomacy. They are very like Empires.
Hatchett of the Almirah and Thannicutch--a vicious little
three-cornered Department that was always stamping on the toes of the
Elect--had the fairest estimate of Trewinnard, when he said: "I don't
believe he is as good as he is." They always quoted that verdict as
an instance of the blind jealousy of the Uncovenanted, but Hatchett
was quite right. Trewinnard was just as good and no better than Mrs.
Mallowe could make him; and she had been engaged on the work for three
years. Hatchett has a narrow-minded partiality for the more than
naked--the anatomised Truth--but he can gauge a man.
Trewinnard had been spoilt by over-much petting, and the devil of
vanity that rides nine hundred and ninety-nine men out of a thousand
made him behave as he did. He had been too long one woman's property;
and that belief will sometimes drive a man to throw the best things in
the world behind him, from rank perversity. Perhaps he only meant to
stray temporarily and then return, but in arranging for this excursion
he misunderstood both Mrs. Mallowe and Mrs. Reiver. The one made no
sign, she would have died first; and the other--well, the high-falutin
mindsome lay was her craze for the time being. She had never tried it
before and several men had hinted that it would eminently become her.
Trewinnard was in himself pleasant, with the great merit of belonging
to somebody else. He was what they call "intellectual," and vain to
the marrow. Mrs. Reiver returned his lead in the first, and hopelessly
out-trumped him in the second suit. Put down all that comes after this
to Providence or The Black Death.
Trewinnard never realised how far he had fallen from his allegiance
till Mrs. Reiver referred to some official matter that he had been
telling her about as "ours." He remembered then how that word had been
sacred to Mrs. Mallowe and how she had asked his permission to use it.
Opium is intoxicating, and so is whisky, but more intoxicating than
either to a certain build of mind is the first occasion on which a
woman--especially if she have asked leave for the "honour"--identifies
herself with a man's work. The second time is not so pleasant. The
answer has been given before, and the treachery comes to the top and
tastes coppery in the mouth.
Trewinnard swallowed the shame--he felt dimly that he was not doing
Mrs. Reiver any great wrong by untruth--and told and told and continued
to tell, for the snare of this form of open-heartedness is that no man,
unless he be a consummate liar, knows where to stop. The office door of
all others must be either open wide or shut tight with a _shaprassi_ to
keep off callers.
Mrs. Mallowe made no sign to show that she felt Trewinnard's desertion
till a piece of information that could only have come from _one_
quarter ran about Simla like quicksilver. She met Trewinnard at a
dinner. "Choose your _confidantes_ better, Harold," she whispered as
she passed him in the drawing-room. He turned salmon-colour, and swore
very hard to himself that Babu Durga Charan Laha must go--must go--must
go. He almost believed in that grey-headed old oyster's guilt.
And so another of those upside-down tragedies that we call a Simla
Season wore through to the end--from the Birthday Ball to the
"tripping" to Naldera and Kotghar. And fools gave feasts and wise men
ate them, and they were bidden to the wedding and sat down to bake, and
those who had nuts had no teeth and they staked the substance for the
shadow, and carried coals to Newcastle, and in the dark all cats were
grey, as it was in the days of the great Curé of Meudon.
Late in the year there developed itself a battle-royal between the
K.P.B. and B. Department and the Almirah and Thannicutch. Three columns
of this paper would be needed to supply you with the outlines of the
difficulty; and then you would not be grateful. Hatchett snuffed the
fray from afar and went into it with his teeth bared to the gums, while
his Department stood behind him solid to a man. They believed in him,
and their answer to the fury of men who detested him was: "Ah! But
you'll admit he's d----d right in what he says."
"The head of Trewinnard in a Government Resolution," said Hatchett,
and he told the _daftri_ to put a new pad on his blotter, and smiled
a bleak smile as he spread out his notes. Hatchett is a Thug in his
systematic way of butchering a man's reputation.
"What are you going to do?" asked Trewinnard's Department. "Sit tight,"
said Trewinnard, which was tantamount to saying "Lord knows." The
Department groaned and said: "Which of us poor beggars is to be Jonahed
_this_ time?" They knew Trewinnard's vice.
The dispute was essentially not one for the K.P.B. and B. under its
then direction to fight out. It should have been compromised, or at the
worst sent up to the Supreme Government with a private and confidential
note directing justice into the proper paths.
Some people say that the Supreme Government is the Devil. It is more
like the Deep Sea. Anything that you throw into it disappears for
weeks, and comes to light hacked and furred at the edges, crusted with
weeds and shells and almost unrecognisable. The bold man who would dare
to give it a file of love-letters would be amply rewarded. It would
overlay them with original comments and marginal notes, and work them
piecemeal into D.O. dockets. Few things, from a setter or a whirlpool
to a sausage-machine or a hatching hen, are more interesting and
peculiar than the Supreme Government.
"What shall we do?" said Trewinnard, who had fallen from grace into
sin. "Fight," said Mrs. Reiver, or words to that effect; and no one
can say how far aimless desire to test her powers, and how far belief
in the man she had brought to her feet prompted the judgment. Of the
merits of the case she knew just as much as any _ayah_.
Then Mrs. Mallowe, upon an evil word that went through Simla, put on
her visiting-garb and attired herself for the sacrifice, and went to
call--to call upon Mrs. Reiver, knowing what the torture would be.
From half-past twelve till twenty-five minutes to two she sat, her
hand upon her cardcase, and let Mrs. Reiver stab at her, all for the
sake of the information. Mrs. Reiver double-acted her part, but she
played into Mrs. Mallowe's hand by this defect. The assumptions of
ownership, the little intentional slips, were overdone, and so also
was the pretence of intimate knowledge. Mrs. Mallowe never winced. She
repeated to herself: "And he has trusted this--this Thing. She knows
nothing and she cares nothing, and she has digged this trap for him."
The main feature of the case was abundantly clear. Trewinnard, whose
capacities Mrs. Mallowe knew to the utmost farthing, to whom public
and departmental petting were as the breath of his delicately-cut
nostrils--Trewinnard, with his nervous dread of dispraise, was
to be pitted against the Paul de Cassagnac of the Almirah and
Thannicutch--the unspeakable Hatchett, who fought with the venom of a
woman and the skill of a Red Indian. Unless his cause was triply just,
Trewinnard was already under the guillotine, and if he had been under
this "Thing's" dominance, small hope for the justice of his case. "Oh,
why did I let him go without putting out a hand to fetch him back?"
said Mrs. Mallowe, as she got into her 'rickshaw.
Now, _Tim_, her fox-terrier, is the only person who knows what Mrs.
Mallowe did that afternoon, and as I found him loafing on the Mall in
a very disconsolate condition and as he recognised me effusively and
suggested going for a monkey-hunt--a thing he had never done before--my
impression is that Mrs. Mallowe stayed at home till the light fell and
thought. If she did this, it is of course hopeless to account for her
actions. So you must fill in the gap for yourself.
That evening it rained heavily, and horses mired their riders. But not
one of all the habits was so plastered with mud as the habit of Mrs.
Mallowe when she pulled up under the scrub oaks and sent in her name by
the astounded bearer to Trewinnard. "Folly! downright folly!" she said
as she sat in the steam of the dripping horse. "But it's all a horrible
jumble together."
It may be as well to mention that ladies do not usually call upon
bachelors at their houses. Bachelors would scream and run away.
Trewinnard came into the light of the verandah with a nervous,
undecided smile upon his lips, and he wished--in the bottomless bottom
of his bad heart--he wished that Mrs. Reiver was there to see. A minute
later he was profoundly glad that he was alone, for Mrs. Mallowe was
standing in his office room and calling him names that reflected no
credit on his intellect. "What have you done? What have you said?" she
asked. "Be quick! Be _quick_! And have the horse led round to the back.
Can you speak? What have you written? Show me!"
She had interrupted him in the middle of what he was pleased to call
his reply; for Hatchett's first shell had already fallen in the camp.
He stood back and offered her the seat at the _duftar_ table. Her elbow
left a great wet stain on the baize, for she was soaked through and
through.
"Say exactly how the matter stands," she said, and laughed a weak
little laugh, which emboldened Trewinnard to say loftily: "Pardon me,
Mrs. Mallowe, but I hardly recognise your----"
"Idiot! Will you show me the papers, will you speak, and _will_ you be
quick?"
Her most reverent admirers would hardly have recognised the
soft-spoken, slow-gestured, quiet-eyed Mrs. Mallowe in the indignant
woman who was drumming on Trewinnard's desk. He submitted to the voice
of authority, as he had submitted in the old times, and explained as
quickly as might be the cause of the war between the two Departments.
In conclusion he handed over the rough sheets of his reply. As she read
he watched her with the expectant sickly half-smile of the unaccustomed
writer who is doubtful of the success of his work. And another smile
followed, but died away as he saw Mrs. Mallowe read his production.
All the old phrases out of which she had so carefully drilled him had
returned; the unpruned fluency of diction was there, the more luxuriant
for being so long cut back; the reckless riotousness of assertion that
sacrificed all--even the vital truth that Hatchett would be so sure
to take advantage of--for the sake of scoring a point, was there; and
through and between every line ran the weak, wilful vanity of the man.
Mrs. Mallowe's mouth hardened.
"And you wrote this!" she said. Then to herself: "_He_ wrote this!"
Trewinnard stepped forward with a gesture habitual to him when he
wished to explain. Mrs. Reiver had never asked for explanations. She
had told him that all his ways were perfect. Therefore he loved her.
Mrs. Mallowe tore up the papers one by one, saying as she did so:
"_You_ were going to cross swords with Hatchett. Do you know your
own strength? Oh, Harold, Harold, it is _too_ pitiable! I thought--I
thought----" Then the great anger that had been growing in her broke
out, and she cried: "Oh, you fool! You blind, blind, _blind_, trumpery
fool! Why do I help you? Why do I have anything to do with you? You
miserable man! Sit down and write as I dictate. Quickly! And I had
chosen _you_ out of a hundred other _men_! Write!" It is a terrible
thing to be found out by a mere unseeing male--Thackeray has said it.
It is worse, far worse, to be found out by a woman, and in that hour
after long years to discover her worth. For ten minutes Trewinnard's
pen scratched across the paper, and Mrs. Mallowe spoke. "And that
is all," she said bitterly. "As you value yourself--your noble,
honourable, modest self--keep within that."
But that was not all--by any means. At least as far as Trewinnard was
concerned.
He rose from his chair and delivered his soul of many mad and futile
thoughts--such things as a man babbles when he is deserted of the gods,
has missed his hold upon the latch-door of Opportunity--and cannot see
that the ways are shut. Mrs. Mallowe bore with him to the end, and he
stood before her--no enviable creature to look upon.
"A cur as well as a fool!" she said. "Will you be good enough to
tell them to bring my horse? I do not trust to your honour--you have
none--but I believe that your sense of shame will keep you from
speaking of my visit."
So he was left in the verandah crying "Come back" like a distracted
guinea-fowl.
* * * * *
"He's done us in the eye," grunted Hatchett as he perused the K.P.B.
and B. reply. "Look at the cunning of the brute in shifting the issue
on to India in that carneying, blarneying way! Only wait until I can
get my knife into him again. I'll stop every bolt-hole before the hunt
begins."
* * * * *
Oh, I believe I have forgotten to mention the success of Mrs.
Hauksbee's revenge. It was so brilliant and overwhelming that she had
to cry in Mrs. Mallowe's arms for the better part of half an hour;
and Mrs. Mallowe was just as bad, though she thanked Mrs. Hauksbee
several times in the course of the interview, and Mrs. Hauksbee said
that she would repent and reform, and Mrs. Mallowe said: "Hush, dear,
hush! I don't think either of us had anything to be proud of." And Mrs.
Hauksbee said: "Oh, but I didn't _mean_ it, Polly, I didn't _mean_ it!"
And I stood with my hat in my hand trying to make two very indignant
ladies understand that the bearer really _had_ given me "_salaam
bolta_."
That was an evil quarter minute.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 17: "Week's News," May 19, 1888.]
CHATAUQUAED[18]
Tells how the Professor and I found the Precious Rediculouses and
how they Chautauquaed at us. Puts into print some sentiments better
left unrecorded, and proves that a neglected theory will blossom in
congenial soil. Contains fragments of three lectures and a confession.
"_But these, in spite of careful dirt,
Are neither green nor sappy;
Half conscious of the garden squirt,
The Spendlings look unhappy._"
Out of the silence under the apple-trees the Professor spake. One leg
thrust from the hammock netting kicked lazily at the blue. There was
the crisp crunch of teeth in an apple core.
"Get out of this," said the Professor lazily. As it was on the
banks of the Hughli, so on the green borders of the Musquash and
the Ohio--eternal unrest, and the insensate desire to go ahead. I
was lapped in a very trance of peace. Even the apples brought no
indigestion.
"Permanent Nuisance, what is the matter now?" I grunted.
"G'long out of this and go to Niagara," said the Professor in jerks.
"Spread the ink of description through the waters of the Horseshoe
falls--buy a papoose from the tame wild Indian who lives at the Clifton
House--take a fifty-cent ride on the _Maid of the Mist_--go over the
falls in a tub."