A PROUD MOMENT.
Captain Waring envied his comrade, who, with Miss Gordon, sauntered on
a few paces ahead of him and, what he mentally termed, “his old woman
of the sea.” She never ceased talking, and could not endure him out of
her sight. The others appeared to get on capitally; they had plenty to
say to one another, and their frequent laughter excited not alone his
envy, but his amazement.
Mark was not a ladies’ man; this squiring of dames was a new departure.
Such an avocation was far more in his own line, and by all the laws of
the fitness of things, _he_ should be in Mark’s place--strolling by
moonlight with a pretty girl along the shores of this lovely mountain
tarn. What were they talking about? Mark never could find much to
say to girls--straining his ears, not from the ungentlemanly wish to
listen, but merely from pure friendly curiosity--he paid but scant
attention to Mrs. Brande’s questions, and gave her several misleading
answers.
“His cousin had no profession--he was a gentleman at large--yes--his
_protége_--yes. He himself was a man of leisure--yes.” Yes--yes--yes;
he said “Yes” to everything indiscriminately; it is so easy to say
“Yes!”
“It is strange that we should come across one another twice on the same
journey,” remarked Jervis to his companion.
“If you had not come across me the first time, I suppose I should be
sitting in that train still!”
“Oh no; not quite so long as all that.”
“You won’t say anything to aunt about----”
“Good gracious, Miss Gordon! Do you think I look like a lunatic?”
“You see, I have such a dreadful way of coming out with things, that I
imagine that what is an irresistible temptation to _me_, might be the
same to other people!”
“You need not be afraid, as far as I am concerned. I can answer
for myself that I can hold my tongue. And how are you getting on?
Still counting the hours until your departure?” with an air of gay
interrogation.
“No, indeed. At first I was desperately home-sick; but I am getting
over that now.”
And gradually she was led on to talk of Jessie’s stories, of their
celebrated mulberry tree, and of the various quaint local characters.
Surely there was some occult influence in the scene; or was it the
frank air and pleasant voice of this young man, that thus unlocked her
lips? She felt as if she had known him quite a long time; at any rate,
he was her first acquaintance in India, and she once more repeated to
herself the comforting fact that he was also a poor relation--that
alone was a strong bond of sympathy. As they paced the narrow road
that edged the lake of Nath Tal, they laughed and talked with a mutual
enjoyment that filled the mind of Captain Waring and Mrs. Brande (who
were not so happily paired) with dismay on the part of the lady, and
disgust on the side of the gentleman. Captain Waring would no doubt
have found their conversation insipid to the last degree; it contained
no sugared compliments, and not the smallest spice of sentiment or
flirtation.
“I have a bargain to propose to you two gentlemen,” said Mrs. Brande,
ere they parted for the night. “We are going the same marches, and
to the same place; I shall be happy to provide the commissariat, if
you will be our escort and protect us. What do you say?” appealing to
Captain Waring with a smirk.
“My dear madam, I say that we close with your offer on the spot; it is
altogether in our favour,” was his prompt reply.
Mrs. Brande beamed still more effulgently. There was no occasion to
consult the other young man.
“Then we will consider it all settled; it is a banderbust,” and taking
Honor’s arm, she nodded quite an affectionate good night, and retired
into her own quarters.
Precisely at six o’clock the next day the party made a start--the
men on sturdy hill ponies, the ladies in dandies. What can be more
exquisite than a clear April morning on the lower slopes of the
Himalayas? The lake was still and lay half in shadow; the dew glittered
among the cherry blossoms, as if they were set in diamonds; the
low rush-covered marshes were sprinkled with herds of cattle, and
the doves were cooing in the dense woods that overlooked the misty
blue plains. The travellers encountered many groups of hill folk,
going to work among the cultivated patches lower down, or in the
neighbouring tea-gardens, as they passed through a village, a flock
of delightful little brown children sallied out and tossed freshly
plucked monthly roses into the ladies’ laps, “so charmingly Arcadian
and simple,” thought Honor. But she was disillusioned, by the same
little brown elves pursuing them for half a mile, with shrill demands
for “Bucksheesh! bucksheesh!”
As they toiled upwards, the day grew perceptibly warmer, the ascent
steeper. At twelve o’clock they halted by a mountain stream under some
evergreen oaks, and there found an excellent repast awaiting them. Mrs.
Brande’s portly cook had girded up his loins, and hastened by short
cuts and by-paths, and now lay in ambush with this welcome repast of
fowl, cold pie, rolls and coffee; claret and hock were cooling in a
neighbouring stream.
There was _some_ satisfaction in being escort to Mrs. Brande, who sat
on a box, presiding over the table-cloth, and looking the embodiment
of gratified hospitality. When the meal had come to an end and the men
were smoking, she said--
“What’s that in your dandy, Honor? I see you taking as much care of it
as if it was some great treasure; not your new hats, I _hope_?” in a
tone of real concern.
“No, aunt; it is my violin--a much more important affair.”
“Nonsense, child! Why did you not leave it with the heavy baggage?”
“Because it might have been smashed.”
“Well, if it was, it could be mended. We have a very clever Maistry
carpenter at Shirani. I often give him little jobs. My butler--a
Goanese--has a fiddle, too, and of an evening I hear him giving the
other servants a benefit.”
“Perhaps he and I may play duets,” remarked Honor, demurely.
“My dear child!” with a deeply horrified air. “How can you talk in such
a wild way? Captain Waring is shocked--ain’t you, captain?”
“Dreadfully scandalized; and I will only condone the outrage to my
feelings on one condition, that Miss Gordon plays us a solo. Will you,
Miss Gordon? This is the hour and the place.”
Mrs. Brande naturally expected that her niece would require at least
a quarter of an hour’s incessant pressing; and, indeed, in spite of
what the Hodsons had told her, this benighted old person was not at
all sure that it was the correct thing for a woman to play the fiddle.
“Would Mrs. Langrishe allow her girl to do it?” and visions of her own
fat black butler, squatting outside the house in the cool of the day
playing jigs and reels to a circle of enraptured syces and chuprassis,
rose before her mind’s eye!
This vision was quickly dispelled by another. Honor longed for the
sound of her beloved violin, her present audience were not formidable,
and she was not the least nervous. Last time she had held her fiddle
and bow it had been a dull wet afternoon at home--a type of the
worst grey, sullen, English weather. She had played to them in the
drawing-room Schubert’s “Adieu.” Yes, and her mother had wept. Now,
what a different scene, and different listeners! Two men, almost
strangers, prone on the grass, lazily expectant, and, as far as Captain
Waring was concerned, condescendingly ready to be entertained; a stout
lady sitting on a wine-case, with her napkin on her knee, and her topee
quite at the back of her head; a distant group of scarlet-and-white
clad servants; and all around a scene fit to encircle Orpheus himself.
Range after range of purple-blue hills, rising out of rhododendron
and oak forests, a rival across the valley in the shape of a cuckoo,
otherwise a waiting, sympathetic silence.
As the girl took the violin out of its case, Captain Waring could see
that it was in hands that loved it; and noted, moreover, that the said
hands were beautiful--the wrists most daintily modelled. Soon the bow
began to call forth heavenly sounds.
Honor stood up, leaning carelessly against the trunk of a tree, and
seemed wholly unconscious of her audience; her face, which was turned
towards the hills, gradually assumed a rapt exalted expression, and her
playing was in keeping with her attitude and her eyes. The performance
was a revelation--a mixture of great simplicity, with a distinct note
of human passion in its strain. Surely the music was the voice of this
girl’s sweet soul!
The servants boldly came near to hear this new “Miss Sahib” who drew
such marvellous strains from the “sitar.” The very ponies pricked their
ears, a rambling hill cow halted to listen, the competitive cuckoo was
dumb.
The two young men gradually dropped their cigarettes. Mrs. Brande
dropped her jaw. Why, her niece played as well as a man at a concert!
Even better, in her opinion, for this was a tune that touched her,
and that she could understand; those sweet wailing notes, resembling a
human voice, penetrated her opaque sensibilities, and wafted her to the
very gates of Paradise.
Captain Waring surveyed with unaffected curiosity this fair young
musician, with his elbows dug into the grass, his chin resting on his
hands. He knew something about music; the girl played with faultless
taste and absolute purity of tone. He was listening to “linked
sweetness long drawn out” rendered with truly expressive charm. Here
was not the common or ordinary Indian spin, but a modern Saint Cecilia!
He glanced at Mark, to see how this unexpected transformation had
affected him; but Mark’s face was averted, and he gave no sign, though
in reality he was enjoying a debauch of exquisite musical thoughts.
Presently the spell, a weird Russian air, died away in a long sobbing
sigh, and, save for a murmur among the servants, there ensued quite a
remarkable pause, broken at length by Mrs. Brande, who exclaimed as if
she had suddenly awoke--
“_Very_ pretty indeed! And how did you like it, Captain Waring?”
“Like it!” he echoed indignantly. “My dear madam, what a feeble and
inadequate expression! Miss Gordon plays magnificently.”
“Oh indeed, no,” she protested. “I can play music that I can feel--and
that is easy, and I began to learn the violin when I was four years
old, so that my fingers are pretty supple; but when I think of other
people’s playing, such as Sarasate, I realize that I am nothing
more than a well-meaning amateur, and never will be otherwise.
I cannot master any excessive technical difficulties. I have no
brilliancy--still,” with a happy little sigh, “I am glad that you liked
it.”
“Yes, my dear,” said her aunt, nodding her head approvingly. “And now
let us have something lively. Suppose you play a polka?”
But the violin was already in its case. Honor had laid it there with
the air of a mother consigning an infant to its rest.
“Oh, Miss Gordon, what a shame!” expostulated Mark Jervis. “I could
lie on this sunny slope, under the rhododendrons, listening to you for
_days_.”
“You would not find it very comfortable in the _rains_,” remarked Mrs.
Brande, with some asperity. She did not approve of penniless young men
thus launching compliments at her accomplished niece. “And now we had
better be getting on, if we are to reach Binsa before dark.”
The next and last day of their march the party were proceeding as
usual in pairs; Honor and Captain Waring led the van, whilst Jervis
and Mrs. Brande, who was a heavy load, lagged behind. The further they
journeyed, the steeper grew the precipices, the wilder the scenery,
the narrower the paths. At one place in the woods, high above them,
grazed a herd of so-called tame buffaloes--tame with natives, wild
with Europeans. The huge bull, with his hairy head and enormous
horns--though he carried a bell--was tame with no one! Hearing strange
voices below, he lifted up his hideous china-blue eyes, stared fiercely
about him, and then came crashing downhill for some dozen yards, but
his prey--Honor and her escort--had already passed by, and were out of
reach. He stood still in a meditative attitude, and gave vent to an
angry and disappointed bellow.
After a considerable interval, another group came into view. Mrs.
Brande’s gay jampannis and scarlet dandy rug settled the question. In
half a moment he had blundered through the undergrowth, and placed
himself in a warlike attitude upon the path--exactly six yards ahead
of the party. The unanimity with which Mrs. Brande’s bearers dropped
her, and fled up trees, was only equalled by the agility displayed by
the lady herself, in leaping out of the dandy and scrambling down the
khud! Nothing remained on the track but the empty vehicle, the buffalo,
and Jervis.
He promptly jumped off his pony, snatched up a jampanni’s pole, on the
end of which he raised the red rug, and boldly advanced like a matador
in the arena. When the bull lowered his ponderous head to charge, he
threw the rug over his horns with as much coolness and dexterity as
if he had merely to deal with a stuffed animal! But this animal was
dangerously animated. Rushing furiously forward, he tumbled blindly
over the dandy, and with a loud crash, rolled down the khud, which,
luckily for him (and Mrs. Brande) was not of sheer descent. The lady’s
piercing screams attracted the notice of her niece, and--of what
was far more to the purpose--the boy who was in charge of the herd.
Probably he had been fast asleep, but he now came racing through the
brushwood, routed up the buffalo, whose fall had undoubtedly quenched
his spirit, and drove him away, laden with the hearty curses of the
jampannis. These valiant gentlemen had now descended to mother earth,
as brave as lions. The rug was in ribbons, the dandy in matchwood, but
no one was injured. “What was to be done?” inquired Captain Waring,
vainly struggling to preserve a grave countenance, as he saw Mrs.
Brande, who presented a truly distressing spectacle, emerging from the
bushes, on her hands and knees. The back of her dress was split right
across the shoulders, her veil hung round her neck, and she was covered
with sand and bits of twigs.
Mark had hastened to her assistance, and her niece, as she picked up
her topee and umbrella, asked anxiously “if she was hurt?”
“No,” she panted, sitting down and dusting herself with her
handkerchief, “I’m not a bit the worse.”
“But your dandy is in smithereens!” said Captain Waring. “What is to
be done?”
“I know what _has_ been done. Young man,” solemnly addressing herself
to Jervis, “you saved my life, as sure as I sit here, and you stand
there. If you had not had the courage to throw the rug over his head,
he would have come down the khud, and gored me to death--I’m not a
woman of many words” (fond delusion) “but I won’t forget it--nor will
P.” In moments of unusual excitement, or when with her intimates, she
invariably spoke of her husband as “P.”
“Oh, Mrs. Brande,” he replied, “you think a great deal too much of
it--it was only a buffalo.”
“Only a buffalo!” she repeated. “You little know them; in another
minute I’d have been only a corpse. They are the most dangerous brutes
you can come across, and so cunning. Ha,” changing her voice to another
and sharper key, “Jait Sing, you base coward! I shall cut every one’s
pay two rupees. I’ve a mind to stop your wood tickets. What a contrast
to _you_,” she pointed her fat finger straight at Jervis. “Lions,
indeed, as all these Sings call themselves--pretty lions--you are the
bravest young man I ever saw!”
“Oh come, I say, Mrs. Brande,” expostulated Waring, playfully. “You
don’t know what _I_ could do if I tried.”
“Well, as you did _not_ try, I cannot say,” she answered dryly.
“It’s not such a marvellous feat, driving off an old buffalo----”
“Depends upon the humour the buffalo is in; and I’m surprised at you
belittling your own cousin, instead of being proud of him,” pursued
the lady with considerable heat, and entirely forgetting her intended
_rôle_ with respect to this millionaire.
“How are you to get on, aunt?” inquired Honor; “but of course you must
go in my dandy and I can walk.”
“By no means, Miss Gordon; you shall ride my pony,” said Captain
Waring. “He has a grand roomy old saddle and a fine broad back, and I
will hold you from slipping off.”
To this arrangement Mrs. Brande (who had now recovered her composure
and her wits) saw no objection. Quite the contrary, it was a capital
idea. As for herself, she felt so shattered and so nervous, that she
could not allow Mr. Jervis out of her sight.
They were now within seven miles of Shirani, and oh! what interminable
miles--they seemed leagues--leagues of dreary monotonous road, winding
and twisting round barren fawn-coloured hills, and apparently taking
them straight into the very heart of Asia. They wound up and down
valleys, to the crest of a range, which hid, as they fondly hoped,
long-looked-for Shirani. Alas! it but gave them a view of yet another
valley--yet another rounded hill slope. Honor was not surprised to
hear that a lady of her aunt’s acquaintance, on her first visit, had,
after a series of these maddening disappointments, collapsed on the
journey, and given way to a storm of hysterical tears. Sometimes
Honor walked--walked by preference, but at others, she mounted the
pony in deference to her chaperon’s wishes. She did not enjoy her
ride, it consisted of a gradual slide, slide, slide, a recover, then
slide, slide, again. She declined Captain Waring’s eagerly tendered
arm--support was twice as irksome as walking. Would this detestable
road never, never, come to an end?
Ah, there were the pine trees of Shirani at last! In another twenty
minutes, they were among them. As the little party debouched into the
mall, Mrs. Brande heading the procession, Honor bringing up the rear,
with Captain Waring leading her pony, they came face to face with Mrs.
Langrishe, walking with her most stately air, between a soldierly
looking man and a small, beautifully dressed, fair-haired girl.
Yes, she could not have failed to notice and take in the full
significance of Mrs. Brande’s _rentrée_ (indeed she and her rival had
exchanged bows), and dusty, hot, and thirsty, as that lady was, this
was one of the happiest and proudest moments of her life!