A CHALLENGE
THUS ended the butterfly career of pretty Lena Wilkinson, who looked
surprisingly fair and girlish, as she lay with her hands crossed on
her heart, surrounded by white flowers. She had passed at dawn; sunset
witnessed her interment, and a considerable company—in fact, the whole
station—followed the coffin, which was covered with pale blue and
silver, by the dead woman's particular desire. The ground in the arid
cemetery was almost as hard as rock, and the _cortège_ was compelled
to halt for a time, whilst the grave was made ready and enlarged.
What a depressing scene for a newly-arrived exile! The brick-coloured
ground, weather-stained headstones, haggard clergyman, and wan-faced
assembly—the gay and glittering coffin waiting till inhospitable alien
soil was prepared to receive it. Over all was the stare of a triumphant
red sun, sinking slowly into the arms of a tropical night.
At last the service was concluded, and whilst the earth was noisily
flung upon the blue and silver coffin and the mourners were dispersing,
the station cynic, as he walked towards the gate, pronounced the
epitaph of the deceased:
"Poor Mrs. Wilkinson, she was like some delicate flower without
perfume, and as she never did anything bad, she will soon be forgotten."
A few days after the funeral Colonel Wilkinson was faintly surprised
to receive a visit from Philip Gascoigne. After one or two commonplace
remarks, the latter explained his errand.
"I came to speak to you about Angel," he said. "I do not know if Lena
told you that I am to take charge of her."
"By Jove! No, not a word," rejoined the widower, and his eyes
glistened. "Man alive, you don't mean that you are in _earnest_?"
"Yes," assented his visitor; "I propose to educate her, and as soon as
I can find a school and a travelling companion, to send her to England."
"Uncommonly handsome of you, I must say," exclaimed her stepfather. "It
will cost you a couple of hundred a year."
"Then you are satisfied that I relieve you of the child?" continued
Gascoigne, ignoring the money question.
"Satisfied," repeated his host; "satisfied, my dear fellow,
is not the word that expresses my feelings—devoutly
thankful—happy—enchanted—is more like it. My poor wife and I never
agreed about the child. I may say that she was the only subject on
which we ever disagreed. From my point of view she is a headstrong,
malicious little devil, who cannot be trusted her own length—you never
know what mine she will explode on you! My poor Lena held another
opinion, and believed her to be 'a little saint.'"
"Perhaps she is something between the two extremes," suggested her
cousin drily.
His companion's answer was a doubtful grunt, as he paced the room
tugging at his moustache. "I've been making plans," he resumed, now
pointing to a table littered with letters and officials; "I've decided
to chuck the service. This has been a great blow, and sickened me with
India. How can I soldier, and lug a family about with me? I shall go
and settle on my own property in New Zealand. Of course, I am bound to
marry again—this seems a heartless thing to say, and Lena only dead
a week, but what am I to do with all the children? It is a necessity
from a common-sense point of view—a housekeeper and a governess would
entail no end of bother and er—er——"
"Expense," suggested his companion sarcastically.
"Expense! Just so," seizing the word, "and I've been wondering what
I'm to do with Angel, badgering my brains with all sorts of schemes,
when in you walk and take her off my hands. It seems almost like a
miracle—the interposition of Providence," he added piously; "and now I
understand why Lena was so anxious to see you."
"Yes; it was to talk about Angel, and tell me her wishes respecting
her."
"And what were they?"
"That I was to be her guardian, and have absolute control over the
child," replied the young man. "I intend to educate and provide
for her. Oh yes, by the way, her mother wished her to have all her
jewellery."
"All her jewellery!" repeated Colonel Wilkinson. "Oh, I don't know
about that! I believe it is my property in the eye of the law—there
was no will, you see."
"But you have no girls, and at least you will scarcely care to keep
what Angel's father gave her mother?"
"I suppose you mean the diamond ring?" stammered Colonel Wilkinson, a
little cowed by the young man's manner. "Well, I'll think it over; but
look here, Gascoigne, I'm a firm believer in pen and ink; would you
mind writing me a letter, a formal letter, to say that you propose to
relieve me from all charges or responsibilities connected with Angela
Gascoigne?"
"Certainly, with pleasure; and on your side, I shall expect you to hand
me over any jewellery that belonged to her mother—at least, before she
became your wife."
"Um," grunted Colonel Wilkinson, "that ring is rather a big thing.
I've had it valued, and it's worth a hundred pounds." He took another
turn to the end of the room and back, then he halted in front of his
visitor and said, ungraciously, "Well, it's a bargain—you can have the
ring, and all the bangles, too; it's a cheap exchange for your written
agreement to rid me of a plague."
Philip Gascoigne experienced a most disagreeable sensation; he felt
precisely as if he had just purchased the child for a hundred pounds.
He instantly rose to end the interview, and said, "I will send you the
document as soon as I go home."
"And when will you be prepared to take over charge?" inquired the
anxious stepfather.
"Whenever I can make arrangements for her passage."
"And mourning," supplemented the other sharply; "you will provide
mourning, of course?"
"Yes; Mrs. Rattray will perhaps undertake her outfit for me. There is a
good deal to be done—we must wait until after the monsoon has broken;
but I think I can promise you that in six weeks you will have seen the
last of Angela."
"Thank God!" was the fervent rejoinder; "that will suit me down to
the ground. I won't be moving until the cold weather, not for several
months. I say, you won't forget the document, like a good fellow? Oh,
must you go? I say, have a lime and soda? No, by the way, we are out
of soda-water. Well, then, good-bye—I've a heap of business to get
through—you know your way out? Ta, ta."
As the visitor was about to cross the verandah a little figure issued
from a side door, and sprang on him and seized his arm in her grasp.
"I've been waiting for you for ages, Phil. Why did you stay with him so
long?"
"I've been telling Colonel Wilkinson that you are to be my charge,
Angel," responded her cousin, "and that in a few weeks' time I hope to
send you to England."
"And how much are you to pay?" she demanded bluntly.
"Pay," repeated the young man; "why should I pay anything?"
"Because he never gives without something in exchange." Angel had a
bad opinion of her fellow-creatures, and a piercing eye for a hidden
motive. "What do you think Ayah Anima is doing now by his orders?"
"She gave them some broth without any bread,
She whipped them——"
"No," interrupting the quotation with angry emphasis, "but selling all
my mummy's pretty frocks and hats in the patchery and bazaar! She is
taking them round among the soldiers' wives in barracks, _now_."
Gascoigne made no comment on this pitiful illustration of Colonel
Wilkinson's thrift; in his mind's eye, he already beheld various
reproductions of Mrs. Wilkinson at band and race meeting.
He diplomatically opened a fresh subject by asking, "How will you like
to go to England, Angel?"
"Oh, I shall be glad to get away from hateful Ramghur," she answered,
"but dreadfully sorry to leave you. I've no one but you now—have I,
Phil?"
"Oh, you'll make heaps of friends when you get home," was his evasive
reply.
"Who is to take me to England?" she asked sharply.
"I'm not certain," he replied, "and I've not had time to make
inquiries, but perhaps Mrs. Dawson."
"Mrs. Dawson," she echoed with an odd, elfish laugh; "she does not
like me—lots of people don't like me, cousin Phil," and she looked at
him wistfully—such a frail, friendless little creature, his heart was
filled with pity as he answered:
"I like you, Angel—that is something to begin with? Would you care to
come over and have tea with us this afternoon at four o'clock?"
"Oh yes, yes!" dancing up and down as she gleefully accepted; "and may
I pour it out?"
"You may, if we can raise a small teapot. Now there's the bell; run
away to your dinner."
A proud, not to say puffed-up, child was that which ran across to the
big bungalow in a newly starched frock and wide black sash. In the
verandah Angel found the two young men, who welcomed her cordially,
and made her sit between them and pour out tea. And what a pouring out
it was; what a slopping of milk it entailed, a dropping of the lid
of the teapot into the sugar-basin, and a spoon into the hot water!
Hosts and guest made tea and made merry together. There was a cake,
too, in which "the three" evinced a profound interest, and Angel
chattered incessantly to them and to her companions. Her satisfaction
was complete when she was conducted all over the premises and into the
stables, where Sally Lunn condescended to eat a piece of sugar-cane
from her hand. This visit was the precursor of many. Angel was accorded
the freedom of the bungalow, and spent many happy hours within its
walls, looking at pictures, making tea, or mending gloves for her
bachelor hosts.
Discipline at home was considerably relaxed. Colonel Wilkinson was
feverishly busy making ready for his move, and Great Sale, getting old
furniture re-covered, glued up, and varnished. Already the catalogue
was in the printer's hands, and the adjectives "splendid," "unique,"
"handsome," and "magnificent" were in extraordinary prominence.
Thanks to the preparations, which were going forward, Angel was spared
to her neighbours for many an afternoon. She was not a tiresome child,
as Shafto freely admitted; she was noiseless, the dogs liked her, the
bearer tolerated her, and when Gascoigne was absent she was content to
curl herself up in a chair with a book or a stocking.
Whenever he could afford time her cousin treated her to a drive; but in
these, the last days of a truly fearful hot season, driving had ceased
to be a joy. All the world was waiting for the rains, and gazing with
strained expectation at the great bank of black clouds to the westward,
on which the sheet lightning danced every night in dazzling diagrams.
This cloud-bank coming nearer, oh, so slowly! embodied the longed-for
rains.
For advice and guidance respecting his new charge, her cousin repaired
to Mrs. Rattray. Mrs. Rattray had been Mrs. Wilkinson's friend, and she
was a kind-hearted, practical woman. There were other ladies who would
gladly have advised the inexperienced young guardian, but he did not
believe in a multitude of counsellors.
Mrs. Gordon was charming, but she was too young—a mere girl herself!
Mrs. Dawson did not care for children, and was alarmingly stiff and
formal; so when it was possible he snatched half-an-hour in order
to confer with Mrs. Rattray over letters and telegrams, and matters
connected with Angel's passage, outfit, and destination.
Late one afternoon he called on this lady by appointment. Angel was
with him when he drove up to the Rattrays' neat bungalow, which stood
back from the road in a small enclosure, full of pretty shrubs and
flowering trees. It had two gates, both opening into the principal
thoroughfare in Ramghur.
"I'm going in here, Angel," announced her cousin. "I won't be more than
ten minutes, and you can wait in the cart."
"All right," she assented, but tendering two eager hands; "may I hold
the reins?"
"Very well; but only for show, mind," he said as he relinquished them.
"Promise me you won't attempt to drive."
"Yes, I'll promise," she assented reluctantly, for she had entertained
a glorious vision of trotting out at one gate, and whirling in at the
other.
With a brief order to the syce to remain at Sally's head, Gascoigne
went indoors. He had come to decide finally the choice of school for
Angel.
Mrs. Rattray could hardly restrain a smile, as she sat _vis-à-vis_ to
this good-looking young bachelor, who, with his elbows on the table and
his hands in his hair, was anxiously comparing two prospectuses. It was
really astonishing how soon he had accommodated himself to his novel
situation.
"I must say it is very good of you to adopt——"
"Don't!" he protested, raising his hand. "Please, Mrs. Rattray—every
second person I meet tells me the same thing—it is not."
"Very well," she interrupted; "then I will tell you something you have
not heard yet. I think you are rashly adventurous."
"I don't see that at all," he replied.
"You will find that Angela requires a strong hand—she is not the least
like any child I've ever known. I've not known many intimately—it is
true. She will soon pick up an education at home, for she is quick and
bright; but she has another education to forget, the education she has
acquired out here from servants."
"Oh, she's bound to forget that," said her cousin.
"Is she?" rejoined the lady doubtfully; "I hope so. Now I wonder if you
even faintly realise what you have undertaken?"
"I am not sure that I have come down to the bedrock of my
responsibilities—but I will do my best."
"Of course, I know that," said the lady. "But pray bear in mind that it
is not a stray pony or a lost dog to whom you are playing Providence.
You have assumed the charge of a human life, a child with a strange
nature, and who will be an extraordinary woman some day."
"Yes; but at present the woman, thank Heaven, is in the far-away
future, and I have only to do with a child."
"I hope Angel will never give you reason to regret your generosity."
"I'm sure she will be all right. You make far too much of the business.
I'm only sending my poor cousin's little orphan to school. She will
turn out well, if she falls into good hands," and here he held up
several letters and said: "It is for you to choose to whose keeping I
entrust her."
In the meantime the subject of this conversation sat in the cart
outside, enormously impressed by the importance of her position. To
other children who passed the gate she nodded with an air of splendid
condescension; they stared and stared and looked back enviously at the
little Gascoigne girl all alone in a dogcart, holding the reins. Truly,
these were some of Angela's proudest moments.
But one acquaintance, a bare-legged, freckled boy, in a striped cotton
suit, boldly walked up the drive between the shrubs, and proceeded to
interview little Gascoigne. This intruder was Toady Dodd, a youth of
eight, son of an impecunious house, and Angel's mortal enemy.
"Hullo!" he shouted, standing with hands in pockets and legs wide
apart; "what a swell we are, cocked up there!"
"Yes—miles up above you," she retorted sharply; "run away and steal
some more macaroons," a malicious reminder of some past evil deed.
"Are you going to drive?" he inquired, calmly ignoring the rude
suggestion, "or are you just there for show?"
Angel gave a brief nod.
"_What_ a show!" cried Toady, cutting a caper, and making a series of
hideous grimaces. Angel now leant over and lifted the whip out of its
socket, and began to handle it significantly.
"You're afraid to drive, ain't you?" he screamed. No reply; his
adversary was far too proud to record her promise.
"Drive out of the gate and back," urged the tempter, "and I'll never
say you're a coward again."
"I'm not a coward, you ugly, freckled toad," she screamed. "If you
don't mind, I shall hit you with the whip."
"First catch me," he shouted derisively, executing a war dance just out
of reach. Come now—I dare you—dare you—to hit the horse."
To touch Sally with the whip was not driving, argued the child with
herself; and consumed by a feminine desire to show off, and exasperated
by her tormentor, with a force really intended for _him_, she brought
the lash suddenly down on Sally's shining flank.
Instantly there was a vicious bang against the splash-board; Angel
felt herself shot into the air, and remembered no more. The shrieks
of Toady, the yells of the syce, and the sound of thundering hoofs
summoned Gascoigne to the steps. There he saw the syce picking himself
up with great care, he saw a white bunch and two black legs in the
middle of a croton bush, he saw a great cloud of dust flying down the
road—and that was all! He ran to the shrub and disentangled Angel,
who had gone in head foremost and was merely stunned and speechless.
The servant, however, found his tongue, when he discovered that his
injuries were not mortal.
"Missy Baba—beating with whip—horse done gone!"
Such was his brief explanation.
Meanwhile the real cause of all the mischief lurked under a great
creeper, and remained a palpitating spectator of the scene. As soon
as Angel had recovered her senses she began to exculpate herself in
sobbing gasps, "Oh, Philip, I didn't drive—I did _not_ drive. I only
touched Sally with the whip." And she burst into a storm of tears,
whilst the syce ran limping out, in order to raise the station and
catch the runaway.
* * * * *
It was in a second-class "fitton" that Angel returned home. A fitton
is a ramshackle phaeton, drawn by a pair of bony ponies, and a
second-class fitton is precisely what it claims to be. From this lowly
equipage the delinquent was delivered over to her ayah, who awaited
her on the verandah with stolid dignity.
"And the dogcart and big horse," she cried, "what hath befallen
them?" But Miss Gascoigne merely shrugged her shoulders and stalked
off into her own apartment. Her cousin did not escape so easily; he
had dismissed the conveyance, and was proceeding on foot, when he
encountered his chum.
"I say, where are Sally and the trap?" asked Shafto.
"I've no notion," he answered; "in Jericho, for all I know."
"But," pulling up, "I say—bar jokes."
"Oh, yes, I bar jokes," agreed Gascoigne; "I left Angel holding the
reins when I was in at the Rattrays'. I heard a scrimmage, and when
I ran out Angel was in the bush, the syce on his back, and Sally was
nowhere. I believe the child touched her with the whip—at any rate,
she went through the station like greased lightning."
"Great Scotland!" ejaculated his friend, "and with the cart at her
heels—a mare that is worth a thousand rupees, and the trap new from
Dykes' last season. So much for Angel! Has she broken her neck?"
"No, but she is breaking her heart, poor little soul."
"Odious little beast, she has no heart to break—that's where you make
a mistake. Where are you off to?"
"To send out all the syces in the place to chase Sally—she went
towards the railway."
"Oh, I'll run her down; but, mind you, Phil, next time you see her
she'll have broken knees," and with this agreeable prophecy he galloped
away. There was no sign of Sally all that night, but various rumours
respecting her were afloat in the Club. One lady had seen a ghostly
horse and trap dash up at her door at dark, and when a servant ran to
the steps the horse had wheeled sharp round, plunged through a low
hedge, cart and all, and vanished.
Later, an empty vehicle and a galloping steed had been viewed beyond
the jail. At eight o'clock the next morning the syce reappeared with
a quadruped said to be the runaway animal, coated from head to tail
with sweat and red dust; her very eyes were half closed. Who could
believe that this dirty, demoralised, limping creature was smart Sally
Lunn? Yet it was Sally, and, marvellous to relate, her knees were
unblemished. She had been captured five miles out in the open country
on her back in a dry nullah, with the trap under her. The shattered
remains of the vehicle followed soberly on the Ryot's bullock cart—it
was minus a wheel, a shaft, also mats, lamps, cushions, but these were
subsequently collected in various parts of the cantonment—and their
owner came to the conclusion that he had got out of the business far
better than he expected. Sally was terribly nervous and wild for weeks;
the cart was despatched to Lucknow to be repaired—and there were no
more drives for Angel.