The Project Gutenberg eBook of Mr. Jervis, Vol. 1 (of 3)
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Title: Mr. Jervis, Vol. 1 (of 3)
Author: B. M. Croker
Release date: December 3, 2023 [eBook #72300]
Language: English
Original publication: London: Chatto & Windus, 1894
Credits: MWS and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MR. JERVIS, VOL. 1 (OF 3) ***
MR. JERVIS
NEW NOVELS AT ALL LIBRARIES.
=AT MARKET VALUE.= By GRANT ALLEN. 2 vols.
=RACHEL DENE.= By ROBERT BUCHANAN. 2 vols.
=A COUNTRY SWEETHEART.= By DORA RUSSELL. 3 vols.
=DR. ENDICOTT’S EXPERIMENT.= By ADELINE SERGEANT. 2 vols.
=IN AN IRON GRIP.= By MRS. L. T. MEADE. 2 vols.
=LOURDES.= By E. ZOLA. 1 vol.
=ROMANCES OF THE OLD SERAGLIO.= By H. N. CRELLIN. 1 vol.
=A SECRET OF THE SEA.= By T. W. SPEIGHT. 1 vol.
=THE SCORPION.= A Romance of Spain. By E. A. VIZETELLY. 1 vol.
LONDON: CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY.
MR. JERVIS
BY
B. M. CROKER
AUTHOR OF
“PRETTY MISS NEVILLE,” “DIANA BARRINGTON,” “A BIRD OF PASSAGE,”
“A FAMILY LIKENESS,” ETC.
[Illustration]
_IN THREE VOLUMES_
VOL. I.
London
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICCADILLY
1894
“Lord of himself, though not of lands;
And having nothing, yet hath all.”
SIR H. WOTTON.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. A GIRL IN A THOUSAND 1
II. “TELL ME ALL THE NEWS” 18
III. “OTHER PEOPLE HAS NIECES TOO” 27
IV. THE THREE YOUNG MAIDS OF HOYLE 44
V. AN INDIAN LETTER 58
VI. “ROWENA”--FULL LIFE SIZE 71
VII. FAIRY RELENTS 91
VIII. DANIEL POLLITT, ESQ., AND FAMILY 103
IX. PERMISSION TO TRAVEL 118
X. MAJOR BYNG’S SUGGESTION 144
XI. A RESERVED LADY 158
XII. TWO GOOD SAMARITANS 176
XIII. TOBY JOY 191
XIV. STEALING A MARCH 208
XV. A PROUD MOMENT 221
XVI. A MESSAGE FROM MISS PASKE 242
MR. JERVIS.
CHAPTER I.
A GIRL IN A THOUSAND.
“I suppose I must write, and say she may come. Personally, I shall be
delighted to have her; but I’m afraid Granby will think a girl in the
house rather a bore. Three _is_ such an awkward number in India!”
“And sometimes in other places,” added a lady who sat on the
fender-stool, blowing a great wood fire, with a preposterously small
pair of bellows.
“You know what I mean, Milly,” retorted her companion, a handsome,
indolent-looking woman, who reclined in an easy-chair, with an open
letter in her lap. “Houses out here are only built for two, as a
rule--especially in cantonments. A victoria or pony-cart holds but
two, and two is a much more manageable number for dinners and tiffins.
Still, I shall be glad to have a girl to chaperon; it will give me an
object in life, and more interest in going out.”
“Could you take more?” asked the lady with the bellows, casting a sly
smile over her shoulder.
“To be sure I could, you disagreeable little creature! When a woman is
no longer quite young, and her days of romance are at an end, the hopes
and prospects of a pretty companion give her another chance in the
matrimonial lucky-bag--a chance at second-hand, but still sufficiently
exciting. Alas! life after a certain age is like a bottle of flat
soda-water.”
“I do not think so,” rejoined the lady with the bellows, stoutly.
“No; I should be surprised if you did. You are so sympathetic and
energetic. You throw yourself heart and soul into Dorcas meetings,
bazaars, nurse-tending, and other people’s joys or afflictions. Now,
my sympathies and energies rarely extend beyond Granby and myself. I am
becoming torpid. I can scarcely get up the steam for a ball; even the
prospect of cutting out old Mother Brande fails to rouse me. However,
when I have a charming niece to marry--and to marry well--things will
assume a different aspect. How amusing it will be to eclipse the
other girls and their scheming mothers; how gratifying to see all the
best _partis_ in the place grovelling at her feet! Her triumphs will
be mine.” And Mrs. Langrishe slowly closed her heavy eyelids, and
appeared--judging from her expression--to be wrapped in some beatific
vision. From this delicious contemplation she was abruptly recalled by
the prosaic question--
“How old is she?”
“Let me see--dear, dear me! Yes,” sitting erect and opening her fine
eyes to their widest extent, “why, strictly between ourselves, she must
be twenty-six. How time flies! She is my eldest brother’s daughter,
one of a large family. Fanny, my sister in Calcutta, had her out
eighteen months ago, and now she is obliged to go home, and wants to
hand Lalla over to me.”
“I understand,” assented her listener, with a sagacious nod.
“Can you also understand, that, simply because Fanny and I have no
children of our own, our people seem to expect us to provide for their
olive-branches? I don’t quite see it myself, though I do send them my
old dresses. Now let me read you my letter,” unfolding it as she spoke.
“450, Chowringhee, Feb. 22nd.
“DEAREST IDA,
“The doctors here say that Richard must positively go home at once.
He has been out too long, and it is quite time that another member of
the firm took a turn in the East. He has been working hard, and it is
essential for him to have a complete holiday; and I must accompany
him--a step for which I was quite unprepared. I have taken a house at
Simla for the season--that I can easily relet and get off my hands;
but what am I to do with dear little Lalla?
“The poor child only came out last cold weather year, and cannot
endure the idea of leaving India--and no wonder, with any number of
admirers, and a box of new dresses just landed by the mail steamer!
I had intended giving her such a gay season, and sending Dick home
alone; but now all my nice little schemes have been knocked on the
head--how soon a few days, even a few hours, out here alters all
one’s plans! And now to come to the gist of my letter--will you take
Lalla? I would not trust her with any one but her own aunt, though I
know that Mrs. Monty-Kute is dying to have her. You will find her a
most amusing companion; no one could be dull with Lalla in the house.
She is a pretty girl, and will do you credit, and is certain to be
the belle of the place. She has rather a nice little voice, plays
the banjo and guitar, and dances like a professional. As to her
disposition, nothing in this world is capable of ruffling her serene
temper--I cannot think who she takes after, for it is not a _family_
trait--I have never once seen her put out, and that is more than
can be said for a girl in a thousand. In fact, she _is_ a girl in a
thousand. I can send her to you with a lovely outfit, a new habit and
saddle, and her pony, if you wish. I am sure, dear, you will receive
her if you can possibly manage it; and do your best to get her well
_settled_, for you know poor Eustace has Charlotte and Sophy now quite
grown up; even May is eighteen. You are so clever, so popular, so full
of sense, dearest Ida--so superior to my stupid self--that if you do
consent to take Lalla under your wing, her fortune is practically
made. We have engaged passages in the _Paramatta_, which sails on the
twelfth, so write by return of post to
“Your loving sister,
“FANNY CRAUFORD.”
“Fanny is quite right,” said Mrs. Langrishe, with a slight tinge of
contempt in her tone. “She is by no means clever--just an impulsive,
good-natured goose, without a scrap of tact, and is taken in and
imposed on on all sides. I won’t have the pony, that is positive, and
gram ten seers for the rupee.”
“Then you have quite decided to take the young lady?” exclaimed her
companion incredulously.
“Yes;” now leaning back and clasping two long white hands behind her
head. “Pretty, amusing, accomplished, good-tempered--I don’t see _how_
I can possibly say no this time, though hitherto I have steadily set my
face against having out one of my nieces. I have always said it was so
dreadfully unfair to Granby. However, this niece is actually stranded
in the country, and it would look so odd if I declined; besides, I
shall like to have her; we shall mutually benefit one another. She will
amuse me--rejuvenate me; be useful in the house--arrange flowers,
write notes, read to me, dust the ornaments, make coffee and salad, and
do all sorts of little odd jobs, and ultimately cover me with glory by
making the match of the season!”
“And on your part--what is to be your _rôle_?”
“I will give her a charming home; I will have all the best men here,
and I will take her everywhere; give her, if necessary, a couple of
smart new ball-dresses, and that too delicious opera-mantle that has
grown too small for me.”
“Or you too large for it--which?” inquired Mrs. Sladen, with a slight
elevation of her eyebrows.
“Milly, how odious you can be!”
“And about Major Langrishe?” continued Milly, unabashed.
“Oh, Granby will be all right; but I must write to Fanny by this post,
and say that I shall be delighted to have Lalla. Pour out the tea like
a good little creature, whilst I scribble a line; the dâk goes down at
six.”
The other lady, who had kindled the fire and was now making tea, was
not, as might be supposed, the mistress of the house, but merely an
old friend who had dropped in for a chat this cold March afternoon.
She was a slight, delicate-looking woman, with dark hair, dark eyes,
and numerous lines on her thin, careworn face, though she was barely
thirty. No one ever dreamt of calling Mrs. Sladen pretty, but most
women voted her “a darling,” and all men “a little brick.” Married
in her teens, before she knew her own mind (but when her relations
had thoroughly made up theirs), to an elderly eligible, she had
become, from the hour she left the altar, the slave of a selfish,
irascible husband, whose mental horizon was bordered by two tables--the
dinner-table and the card-table--and whose affections were entirely
centred in his own portly person. Milly Fraser’s people were on the
eve of quitting India; they were poor; they had a large and expensive
family at home; otherwise they might have hesitated before giving
their pretty Milly (she _was_ pretty in those days) to a man more than
double her age, notwithstanding that he was drawing good pay, and his
widow would enjoy a pension. They would have discovered--had they made
inquiries--that he was heavily in debt to the banks; that he could not
keep a friend or a servant; and that, after all, poor young Hastings,
of the staff-corps, whom they had so ruthlessly snubbed, would have
made a more satisfactory son-in-law.
Mrs. Sladen had two little girls in England, whom her heart yearned
over--little girls being brought up among strangers at a cheap suburban
school. How often had her husband solemnly promised that “next year
she should go home and see the children;” but, when the time came, he
invariably hardened his heart, like Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and would
not let her go. If she went, who was to manage the house and servants,
and see after his dinner and his comforts? _He_ was not going to be
left in the hands of a khansamah! And, moreover, where was the money
for her passage to come from? He had not a rupee to spare (for her).
Colonel Sladen was a shrewd man when his own interests were concerned.
He was alive to the fact that he was not popular, but that things were
made pleasant to him all round for the sake of the unfortunate lady
whom he harried, and bullied, and drove with a tongue like the lash of
a slaver’s whip. Yes; if she went home, it would make a vast difference
in his comfort, socially and physically. Many a rude rebuff she had
saved him; many a kindness was done to him for her sake; and many a
woman fervently thanked her good genius that she was not his wife. In
spite of her uncongenial partner, Mrs. Sladen managed to be cheerful,
and generally bright and smiling, ready to nurse the sick, to decorate
the club for dances, to help girls to compose ball-dresses, to open
her heart to all their troubles, and to give them sympathy and sound
advice. “Oh, do not marry a man simply because your people wish it,”
she might have said (but she never did), “and merely because he is
considered a good match; far better to go home and earn your bread as a
shop-assistant, or even a slavey. Take a lesson from _my_ fate.”
Mrs. Langrishe, on the other hand, ruled her dear Granby with a
firm but gracious sway. _Their_ match had been made in England, and
had proved in one respect a severe and mutual disappointment. Well,
“disappointment” is an ugly word; shall we say “surprise”? Captain
Langrishe had been attracted by Ida Paske’s handsome face, stately
deportment, and magnificent toilettes. He was impressed by her superb
indifference to money--rumour endowed her with a large income, and
rumour had no real grounds for this agreeable assertion. Ida was one
of a numerous family, was good-looking, self-reliant, ambitious, and
eight and twenty. Her dresses were unpaid for, and her face was her
fortune. She, on her part, believed the insignificant-looking little
officer--whose pale profile looked exactly as if it were cut out of
a deal board--to be enormously rich. He, too, affected to despise
outlay, and kept hunters, and talked of his yacht. He was going to
India, immediately, and the wedding was hurried on; but long ere the
happy pair had reached Bombay, they had discovered the real state of
affairs. He knew that his bride was penniless; and she was aware that
the hunters had been hired, the yacht had been a loan, and that three
hundred a year, besides his pay, was the utmost limit of her husband’s
purse. They were a wise couple, and made the best of circumstances;
and by-and-by Captain Langrishe came to the conclusion that he had got
hold of a treasure, after all! His Ida was full of tact and worldly
wisdom, and possessed administrative powers of the highest order.
She understood the art of keeping up appearances, and laid to her
heart that scriptural text which says, “As long as thou doest well
unto thyself, men will speak well of thee.” She ensured her husband a
comfortable home, studied his tastes, flattered his weaknesses, was
always serene, affectionate, and well-dressed. Her dinners were small
but celebrated; her entrées and savouries, a secret between her cook
and herself. She did not dispense indiscriminate hospitalities--no,
she merely entertained a few important officials, smart women, and
popular men, who would be disposed to noise abroad the fame of her
dainty feasts, and to pay her back again with interest. Shabby people,
and insignificant acquaintances, never saw the interior of her abode,
which was the embodiment of comfort and taste. Her dresses were well
chosen and costly; diamonds sparkled on her fingers and on her neck;
and though but till recently a captain’s wife, her air and manner of
calm self-approval was such, that the wives of higher officials meekly
accepted her at her own valuation, and frequently suffered her to
thrust them into the background and usurp their place. Such was her
ability, that people took the cue from her, and valued an invitation to
afternoon tea with Mrs. Langrishe far above an elaborate dinner with
less exclusive hostesses.
Neither the furious attacks of her enemies (and she had not a few),
nor the occasional indiscretions of her friends, ever ruffled the even
temperament of this would-be “grande dame.” It was an astonishing
but patent fact that she invariably occupied, so to speak, a chief
seat; that she was always heralded on her arrival at a station--met,
entertained, and regretfully sped. Whilst ladies as worthy languished
in the dâk bungalow, and drove in rickety ticca gharries, she had
the carriages of rajahs at her disposal, and was overwhelmed with
attentions and invitations. Surely all this was amply sufficient to
make these women “talk her over” and hold her at arms’ length. Men who
knew Captain Langrishe’s resources marvelled amongst themselves, and
said, “Gran has very little besides his pay; how the deuce does he do
it? Look at his wife’s dresses! And they give the best dinners in the
place. There will be a fine smash there some day!” But years rolled on,
and there was no sign of any such crisis. The truth was that Granby
Langrishe had married an exceedingly able woman--a woman who thoroughly
understood the art of genteel pushing and personal advertisement. She
had persistently edged--yea, driven her husband to the front, and he
now enjoyed an excellent appointment at the price of the two dewy tears
that stood in his Ida’s expressive eyes when bemoaning his bad luck
to an influential personage. The Langrishes were drawing two thousand
rupees a month,--and were held in corresponding esteem.
Mrs. Langrishe does not look forty--far from it. She has taken
excellent care of herself--no early rising, no midday visiting, for
this wise matron. She is tall, with a fine figure, alas! getting
somewhat stout; her brows are straight and pencilled; beneath them
shine a pair of effective grey eyes; her features are delicately cut;
if her face has a fault, it is that her jaw is a _little_ too square.
Whatever people may say of Ida Langrishe, they cannot deny that she is
remarkably handsome, and as clever as she is handsome. As a spinster,
she had not been entirely successful in her own aims; but it would
go hard, if, with her brains, her circle of acquaintances, and her
valuable experience, she did not marry her niece brilliantly.
CHAPTER II.
“TELL ME ALL THE NEWS.”
The French windows of Mrs. Langrishe’s drawing-room opened into a
deep stone verandah embowered in honeysuckle and passion flowers, and
commanded a matchless view, irrespective of the foreground, in which
Mrs. Sladen’s rickshaw is the chief feature, or the gravel sweep, grass
garden, and beds of pale wintry roses; but beyond the pineclad hills,
among which red roofs are peeping, beyond the valley of rhododendrons,
and a bold purple range, behold the snows! a long, long barrier of
the everlasting hills, to such as the eyes of the psalmist had never
been lifted. People may whisper that they were disappointed in the
Taj, that Delhi was a delusion, and the marble rocks a snare; but who
can declare that the snows were beneath his expectations? And if he
were to say so, who would be found to believe him? The evening breeze
is raw and chill, it has travelled sixty miles from those icy slopes,
it creeps up the khud, and warns the shivering roses that the sun has
set--it stirs the solemn deodars as they stand in dark outline against
the sky.
Mrs. Langrishe, rising from her writing-table, letter in hand, sweeps
back to her friend, who is again sitting on the fender-stool, staring
into the fire, thinking, perchance, of those bygone days when _she_ was
a girl whose friends were anxious to get her settled.
“Milly,” said her hostess, “you are passing the post-office, and you
can post this for me; you had better go now, dear, as you know you have
had a sore throat, and it is getting late.”
Mrs. Sladen rose at once; she was accustomed to being sent on errands
and to being made use of by her intimates. She pulled on her cheap
gloves, twisted her stringy boa round her neck, and held out her hand
for the letter that was to bring Miss Paske to Shirani. As her friend
stooped and kissed her, she looked up at her wistfully, and said--
“Ida, if this girl comes to you, you won’t think of her only as a
marketable article, will you? You will allow her to marry--if she does
marry--to please herself, won’t you, dear?”
“You silly, romantic little person!” exclaimed the other, patting her
cheek with two solid taper fingers. “What an absurd question. As if any
girl is ever married against her will in these enlightened days!”
Mrs. Sladen made no answer beyond an involuntary sigh. She went out
to the verandah, and got into her rickshaw without another word and
ere she was whirled away, nodded a somewhat melancholy farewell to
her handsome, prosperous-looking friend who, clad in a rich tea-gown,
had framed herself for a moment in the open doorway, and called out
imperiously--
“The post goes at six; you have just ten minutes.” Then, with a shiver,
Mrs. Langrishe closed the window and returned to her comfortable
fireside. “Poor Milly!” she muttered, as she warmed one well-shod foot.
“She was always odd and sentimental. Marry to please herself--yes, by
all means--but she must also marry to please _me_!”
* * * * *
A rickshaw (the popular conveyance in the Himalayan hill-stations) is
a kind of glorified bath-chair or grown-up perambulator, light and
smart, and drawn and pushed by four men; it flies along flat roads and
down hills as rapidly as a pony-cart, especially if your Jampannis are
racing another team.
Mrs. Sladen’s rickshaw was old; the hood, of cheap American leather,
was cracked and blistered, it had a list to one side, and her
Jampannis wore the shabby clothes of last year--but, then, their
mistress did the same! As they dashed down hill, they nearly came into
collision with a smart Dyke’s cee-spring vehicle, and a quartette of
men in brilliant (Rickett’s) blue and yellow liveries. The rickshaw
contained an elderly lady of ample proportions, with flaxen hair and
a good-humoured handsome face surmounting two chins. This was Mrs.
Brande, the wife of Pelham Brande, Esq., a distinguished member of the
Civil Service.
“Kubbardar, kubbardar!--take care, take care!” she shrieked. Then to
Mrs. Sladen, “My gracious! how you do fly! but you are a light weight.
Well, come alongside of me, my dear, and tell me all the news; this
place is as dull as ditch-water, so few people here. Next year, I
shan’t come up so early.”
“I believe every house is taken,” said Mrs. Sladen, cheerfully, as they
rolled along side by side. “Even the Cedars, and the Monastery, and
Haddon Hall.”
“You don’t say so! The chimneys smoke beyond anything. I pity whoever
is going there.”
“A bachelor, I believe, a Captain Waring, has taken it for the season,
as it’s close to the mess.”
“In the regiment that’s marching up--the Scorpions?”
“No; I believe he is out of the service, and coming up for the hot
weather, and to try and get some shooting in Thibet later on.”
“Then he must have money?” wagging her head sagaciously.
“Yes, I dare say he has. I’m told it is going to be a gay season.”
“That’s what they always say,” replied Mrs. Brande, impatiently. “I’ll
believe it when I see it. But I did hear that Mrs. Kane is expecting
a brother that is a baronet: he’s coming up to see the hills; he has
been globe-trotting all winter. And so you have been up with the
Duchess--she’s all alone, isn’t she?”
“Yes, for the present; but she will soon have a niece with her--a niece
from Calcutta.”
“A niece!” sharply, and leaning half out of the rickshaw. “What niece?”
“Her brother’s daughter, Miss Paske; she is said to be very pretty and
accomplished, and attractive in every way.”
“You need not tell me _that_!” in accents of concentrated contempt.
“Is Mrs. Langrishe the woman to saddle herself with an ugly girl?
She’ll be having grand parties now; all the rich young fellows, and the
_baronet_--no poor subalterns, you’ll see--and she will get her off
her hands in no time. Just the sort of thing she will like, and a fine
excuse for having packs of men dangling about the house.”
“Oh, Mrs. Brande, you know that is not her style,” expostulated her
companion.
“Well, well, she is your friend--a school-fellow, too--though _you_
must have been in the infant-school, so I’ll say no more--but you
know I am not double-faced, and I cannot abide her, and her airs,
and her schemes, and her always pushing herself to the front, and
sitting in the general’s pew, and being the first to ask that Austrian
prince to dinner, and getting up at parties and sailing out before
the commissioner’s wife--such impudence!--and people put up with her.
If poor little Mrs. Jones was to do such things--and she has a better
right, being an honourable’s daughter--I’d like to know what would be
said? But there’s no fear of Mrs. Jones; there’s no brass about _her_,”
and Mrs. Brande gave a bounce, that made the cee-springs quiver!
“Now, Mrs. Brande, you forget that Ida is my friend.”
“Ay, and better be her friend than her enemy! Well, here is my turn,
and here we part”; and, with a valedictory wave of her podgy hand,
in another instant Mrs. Brande was thundering down the narrow road
that led to the best house in Sharani--her own comfortable, hospitable
dwelling.
Mrs. Sladen posted her letter, and went on to the club and
reading-room, a long, low building overlooking a series of terraces
and tennis-courts, and the chief resort of the whole station. As she
entered the gate, she encountered an elderly gentleman, with beetling
brows, a coarse grey moustache, and a portly figure, riding a stout
black pony.
“Been looking for you everywhere,” he bellowed; “where the mischief
have you been? Swilling tea as usual, I suppose? Soper and Rhodes are
coming to take ‘pot luck,’ so go home at once--and, I say, I hear there
is fish at Manockjees’, just come up; call in on your way, and fetch it
in the rickshaw.”
Exit Colonel Sladen to his evening rubber; exit Mrs. Sladen to carry
home much-travelled fish, and possibly to cook the chief portion of the
dinner.
CHAPTER III.
“OTHER PEOPLE HAS NIECES TOO.”
Mrs. Sladen had not only given Mrs. Brande a piece of news; she had
introduced her to a grand idea--an idea that took root and grew and
flourished in that lady’s somewhat empty mind, as she sat alone in her
drawing-room over a pleasant wood-fire, which she shared impartially
with a sleek, self-conscious fox-terrier.
All the world admitted that once upon a time “old Mother Brande” must
have been a beautiful woman. Even now her fair skin, blue eyes, and
chiselled features entitled her to rank as a highly respectable wreck.
Who would have thought that refined, fastidious, cynical Pelham Brande
would have married the niece of a lodging-house keeper? Perhaps if he
had anticipated the career which lay before him--how unexpectedly and
supremely successful he was to be, how the fierce light inseparable
from high places was to beat upon his fair-haired Sarabella--he might
have hesitated ere he took such a rash and romantic step. Little did he
suppose that his fair-haired Sally, who had waited so capably on him,
would one day herself be served by gorgeous scarlet-clad Government
chupprassis; or that she was bound to walk out of a room before the
wives of generals and judges, and that she would have a “position” to
maintain! But who is as wise at two and twenty as he is at fifty-two?
At two and twenty Pelham Brande had just passed for the India Civil
Service, and was lodging in London; and whilst preparing for the Bar
he got typhoid fever, and very nearly died. He was carefully tended by
Mrs. Batt, his landlady, and her lovely niece Sarabella, who was as
fair as a June rose, and as innocent as a March lamb.
The best medical authorities assure us, that nothing is so conducive to
convalescence as a skilful and pretty nurse, and under the influence of
Sara’s ministrations Mr. Brande made rapid progress towards recovery,
but fell a victim to another malady--which proved incurable. He did
not ask his relations for permission or advice, but married his bride
one morning at St. Clement Danes, took a week’s trip to Dover, and two
first-class passages to Bombay.
As a rule, junior civilians are despatched without ruth to lonely
jungle districts, where they never see another white face for weeks,
and their only associates are their native subordinates, their staffs
of domestics, and the simple dwellers in the neighbouring villages. Now
and then they may chance on an opium official, or a forest officer,
and exchange cheroots, and newspapers; but these meetings are rare.
After a busy university career, after an immense strain on the mental
faculties, necessary to passing a severe examination, the dead sameness
of that life, the silence and loneliness of the jungle (aggravated by
the artless prattle of the office baboo), is enough to unhinge the
strongest mind. Miles and miles from the haunts of his countrymen,
from books and telegrams, and the stir and excitement of accustomed
associations, the plunge from the roar of the London streets, and life
at high pressure, to the life in a solitary up-country district, is
indeed a desperate one; especially if the new-comer’s eyes and ears are
not open to the great book of Nature--if he sees no beauty in stately
peepul-trees, tracts of waving grain, venerable temples, and splendid
sunsets; if he does not care to beat for pig, or shoot the thirsty
snipe, but merely sits in his tent door in the cool of the evening, his
labours o’er, and languishes for polo, cards, and theatres. Then he may
well curse his lot; he is undeniably in a bad way.
Pelham Brande had nothing to fear from loneliness or _ennui_. Sara
made him an excellent helpmate. She picked up the language and customs
with surprising facility; she proved a capital housekeeper, and as
shamelessly hard at a bargain as any old native hag. But she never
took to books, or to the letter “h.” For years the Brandes lived in
out-of-the-way districts, and insignificant stations, until by slow
degrees his services and abilities conducted him to the front. As
advancing time promoted him, his wife declined in looks, and increased
in bulk, and her tastes and eccentricities became fixed. Pelham was
not actually ashamed of his partner, but he was alive to the fact,
that, with a cultivated gentlewoman at the head of his establishment,
he would have occupied a vastly more agreeable social position. But
he never admitted--what his friends loudly affirmed--that, as he sat
opposite to Sara day after day, he was also sitting face to face with
the one great mistake of his life!
Twice he had taken her to Australia for six months, but never (nor
did she desire it) to her native land. Once, years ago, he ran home
himself, and was received by his relations, as relations generally
welcome a wealthy, childless, and successful man. They even brought
themselves to ask, somewhat timidly, for Sara; and she, on her part,
sent them generous consignments of curry powder, red pepper, and her
own special and far-famed brand of chutney. The good lady had not many
resources beyond housekeeping. She read the daily paper, and now and
then a society novel, if it was plentifully peopled with lords and
ladies; she could write an ordinary note, invitation, or refusal, and
a letter (with a dictionary beside her). She was fond of her cows, and
poultry, and adored her dog Ben; gave excellent, but desperately dull
dinners; dressed sumptuously in gorgeous colours; enjoyed a gossip;
loved a game of whist--and hated Mrs. Langrishe. She lived a monotonous
and harmless life, vibrating between the hills and plains each season,
with clockwork regularity.
As Mrs. Brande sat before her fire, and watched the crackling pinewood,
she was not happy. Officially she was the chief lady of the place,
the “Burra mem sahib;” but clever Mrs. Langrishe was the real leader
of society, and bore away all the honours--the kernel, so to speak,
of distinction, leaving her but the miserable shell. With a young and
pretty girl as her companion, she would be more insufferable and more
sought after than ever. As it was, she, Sara Brande, could make but
little stand against her; and once her enemy was allied to a charming
and popular niece, she might figuratively lay down her arms and die.
She was a friendless, desolate old woman. If her little Annie had
lived, it would have been different; and she had no belongings, no
nieces. No! but--happy thought!--Pelham had no less than three, who
were poor and, by all accounts, pretty. He had helped their mother, his
sister, to educate them; he sent them money now and then. Why should
she not adopt one of these girls, and have a niece also? Yes, she would
write herself; she would speak to Pelham that very evening after dinner
(it was his favourite dinner). The more she became accustomed to the
idea, as she turned it over in her mind, the more she was filled with
delight, resolve, and anticipation. The girl’s route, steamer, room,
dresses, were already chosen, and she was in the act of selecting her
future husband, when Mr. Brande entered, brisk and hungry.
After dinner, when Mr. Brande was smoking a cigarette, his artful wife
opened the subject next to her heart, and remarked, as she handed him a
cup of fragrant coffee--
“Pelham, you are often away on tour, are you not? and I feel uncommon
lonely, I can tell you. I am not as active or as cheerful as I used to
be. I’m too old for dancing, and tennis, and riding. Not that I ever
was much hand at them.”
“Well, do you want to come on tour? or shall I buy you a pony, or hire
you a companion?” inquired Mr. Brande facetiously--a clean-shaven,
grey-haired man, with thin mobile lips, keen eyes, and, at a little
distance, a singularly boyish appearance. “What would you like to do?”
“I should like to ride and dance by proxy,” was the unexpected answer.
“Let us ask out one of those Gordon girls, your nieces. I’d be very
good to her; and you know, Pel, I’m a lonely creature, and if our
own little Annie had lived, I would not be wanting to borrow another
woman’s daughter to keep me company.”
Mr. Brande was surveying his wife with a severely judicial expression;
it relaxed as she spoke of their only child, buried far away, under a
tamarind tree, on the borders of Nepaul.
Yes, their little Annie would have been five and twenty had she lived,
and doubtless as lovely as Sally Batt, who had turned his head,
mitigated his success, and whom he rarely repented of having married.
“Your sister has three girls,” she continued, “and she is badly off.
What is the pension of a colonel’s widow? Why, less than some folks
give their cooks.”
“It is not considerable, certainly, and Carrie finds it hard enough
to make both ends meet; she never was much of a manager. But, Sally,
a girl is a great responsibility, and you are not accustomed to young
people.”
“No; but I can learn to study them, for I’m fond of them. Say ‘Yes,’
Pel, and I’ll write. We will pay her passage, of course, and I’ll meet
her myself at Allahabad.”
Mr. Brande tossed the end of his cigarette into the fire, fixed his
eye-glass firmly in his eye, and contemplated his wife in silence. At
last he said--
“May I ask what has put this idea into your head all of a sudden?”
“It’s not--exactly--sudden,” she stammered; “I’ve often a sort of
lonely feel. But I must truthfully say that I never thought of your
niece till to-day, when I heard that Mrs. Langrishe is getting up one
of hers from Calcutta.”
Mr. Brande jerked the glass hastily on to his waistcoat, and gave a
peculiarly long whistle.
“I see! And you are not going to be beaten by Mrs. Langrishe--you mean
to run an opposition girl, and try which will have the best dresses,
the most partners, and be married first? No, no, Sally! I utterly
refuse to lend myself to such a scheme, or to allow one of Carrie’s
daughters to enter for that sort of competition.” And he crossed his
legs, and took another cigarette.
“But listen to me, Pel,” rising as she spoke; “I declare to you that
I won’t do what you say, and, any way, _your_ niece will be in quite
a different position to the Langrishe’s girl. I’ll be as good to her
as if she was my own--I will indeed!” and her voice trembled with
eagerness. “I’m easy to get on with--look how long I keep my servants,”
she pleaded. “These Gordons are your nearest kin; you ought to do
something for them. I suppose they will come in for all your money.
Your sister is delicate, and if anything happened to her you’d have to
take, not one girl, but the whole _three_. How would you like that?
Now, if one of them was nicely married, she would make a home for her
sisters.”
“You are becoming quite an orator, and there is something in what you
say. Well, I’ll think it over, and let you know to-morrow, Sally. As to
leaving them my money, I’m only fifty-two, and I hope to live to spend
a good slice of it myself.” And then Mr. Brande took up a literary
paper and affected to be absorbed in its contents. But although he had
the paper before him, he was not reading; he was holding counsel with
himself.
He had not seen Carrie’s girls since they counted their ages in
double figures; they were his nearest of kin, were very poor, and
led dull lives in an out-of-the-way part of the world. Yes, he ought
to do something, and it would please the old lady to give her a
companion, and a pretty, fresh young face about the house would not be
disagreeable to himself. But what would a refined and well-educated
English girl think of her aunt, with her gaudy dresses, bad grammar,
mania for precedence, and brusque, unconventional ways? Well, one thing
was certain, she would soon discover that she had a generous hand and a
kind heart.
The next morning Mr. Brande, having duly slept on the project, gave his
consent and a cheque, and Mrs. Brande was so dazzled with her scheme,
and so dazed with all she had to think of, that she added up her bazaar
account wrong, and gave the cook a glass of vinegar in mistake for
sherry--which same had a fatal effect on an otherwise excellent pudding.
In order to compose her letter comfortably, and without distraction,
Mrs. Brande shut herself up in her own room, with writing materials and
dictionary, and told the bearer to admit no one, not even Mrs. Sladen.
After two rough copies and two hours’ hard labour, the important
epistle was finished and addressed, and as Mrs. Brande stamped it with
a firm hand, she said to herself aloud--
“I do trust Ben won’t be jealous. I hope he will like her!”
Being mail day, Mrs. Brande took it to the post herself, and as she
turned from dropping it into the box, she met her great rival coming
up the steps, escorted by two men. Mrs. Langrishe was always charming
to her enemy, because it was bad style to quarrel, and she knew that
her pretty phrases and pleasing smiles infuriated the other lady to the
last degree; and she said, as she cordially offered a neatly gloved
hand--
“How do you _do_? I have not seen you for ages! I know it’s my business
to call, as I came up last; but, really I have so many engagements, and
such tribes of visitors----”
“Oh, pray don’t apologize!” cried Mrs. Brande, reddening; “I’d quite
forgotten--I really thought you had called!” (May Sara Brande be
forgiven for this terrible falsehood.)
It was now Mrs. Langrishe’s turn to administer a little nip.
“Of course you are going to dine at the Maitland-Perrys’ next week?”
(well knowing that she had not been invited). “Every one who is
_anybody_ is to be there. There are not many up yet, it is so early;
but it will be uncommonly smart--as far as it goes--and given for the
baronet!”
“No, I am not going, I have not been asked,” rejoined Mrs. Brande with
a gulp. She generally spoke the truth, however much against the grain.
“Not asked! how very odd. Well,” with a soothing smile, “I dare say
they will have you at their _next_. I hear that we are to expect quite
a gay season.”
“And I was told that there will be no men.”
“Really! That won’t affect you much, as you don’t ride, or dance, or go
to picnics; but it is sad news for poor me, for I am expecting a niece
up from Calcutta, and I hope the place will be lively.”
“But I _do_ mind, Mrs. Langrishe, just as much as you do,” retorted
the other, with a triumphant toss of her head. “Perhaps you may not
be aware that I am expecting a niece, too?” (How could Mrs. Langrishe
possibly divine what the good lady herself had only known within the
last few hours?) “Yours is from Calcutta, but mine is all the way from
England!” And her glance inferred that the direct Europe importation
was a very superior class of consignment. Then she added, “Other people
has nieces too, you see!” And with a magnificent bow, she flounced down
the steps, bundled into her rickshaw, and was whirled away.
Mrs. Langrishe stood watching the four blue and yellow jampannis,
swiftly vanishing in a cloud of dust, with a smile of malicious
amusement.
“Other people has nieces too, you see!” turning to her companions with
admirable mimicry. “She is not to be outdone. What fun it is! Cannot
you fancy what she will be like--Mrs. Brande’s niece, all the way from
England? If not, I can inform you. She will have hair the colour of
barley-sugar, clothes the colours of the rainbow, and not an ’h’!”
CHAPTER IV.
THE THREE YOUNG MAIDS OF HOYLE.
It was true that Mrs. Gordon and her daughters resided in a dull,
out-of-the-way part of the world; but they could not help themselves.
They lived at Hoyle, in the first instance, because it was cheap; and,
in the second place, because living at Hoyle had now become second
nature to Mrs. Gordon, and nothing short of a fire or an earthquake
could remove her.
Hoyle is in the south of England, within a stone’s throw of a shingly
beach, and commands a full view of the white shores of France. It is an
old-fashioned hamlet, at least fifty years behind the age, where the
curfew is still sounded, the sight of a telegraph envelope is only
interpreted as a messenger of death, and is cut off from the bustling
outer world by the great expanse of Romney Marsh. In deference to this
_fin de siècle_ age, a single line of rail crawls across the seaside
desert, and once or twice a day a sleepy train stops just one mile
short of the village. The village of Hoyle was once a chartered town,
and was built many centuries before trains were invented. It was even
out of the track of the lively stage-coaches, and owed its wealth and
rise--and fall--entirely to its convenient proximity to the sea, its
seclusion, its charming view of the opposite coast. Yes, its solid
prosperity--low be it spoken--was due to smuggling. The High Street
is lined by picturesque red-brick houses, which are occupied by the
descendants of--shall we say sailors?--a well-to-do primitive, most
respectable community, though from yonder upper window the present
tenant’s grandfather shot a preventive officer stone dead; and in the
chimney of the next cottage (a most innocent-looking abode) three
men who were in trouble lay concealed for a whole week. The capacious
cellars of the Cause is Altered inn, were, within living memory, no
strangers to bales of silk and casks of brandy.
Between the village and the inn there stands a solid old red house,
with a small enclosed garden in front, and a paved footpath leading
to its mean little green hall-door. The windows are narrow, the rooms
irregular, and the ceilings absurdly low--but so is the rent. It suits
its tenants admirably; it is warm, roomy, and cheap; it boasts of a
fine walled garden at the rear, of acres of cellarage, and is known by
the name of Merry Meetings. This jovial designation is not of modern
date, but points back to the grand old days when it was the residence
of the chief man in Hoyle; when it was club, bank, receiving-house,
and fortress. Many were the carousals that took place in Mrs. Gordon’s
decent panelled parlour. To what grim tales and strange oaths have
its walls given ear! There have been merry meetings, of a much tamer
description in the present time, when the maidens of the neighbourhood
have gathered round the table, and chatted and laughed over cups of
honest tea, brewed in Mrs. Gordon’s thin old silver teapot. Pretty
girls have discussed dress, tennis, and weddings, where formerly
weather-beaten, bearded men assembled to celebrate the safe arrival
of a newly-run cargo, and to appraise filmy laces, foreign silks, and
cigars, and to quaff prime cognac and strange but potent waters.
The widow and her daughters have occupied Merry Meetings for fifteen
years, ever since the death of Colonel Gordon. He had retired from
the service and settled down near a garrison town, intending to turn
his sword into a ploughshare; but in an evil moment he ventured his
all in a tempting speculation, hoping thereby to double his income;
but instead of which, alas! water came into the Wheal Rebecca, and
swept away every penny. Seeing nothing between him and the poor-house
but a small pension, Colonel Gordon was not brave enough to face the
situation, and died of a broken heart--though it was called a rapid
decline--leaving his widow and three little girls to struggle with the
future as best they could.
Colonel Gordon’s connections were so furious with him for losing
his money, that they sternly refused to assist his widow; therefore
she meekly collected the remains of the domestic wreck, and retired
to Hoyle with her children and an old servant, who had strongly
recommended her native place, where her “mistress could live in peace
and quiet until she had time to turn herself round and make plans.”
Mrs. Gordon took Merry Meeting, which was partly furnished, for three
months, and had remained there for fifteen years. Her plans were still
undeveloped; she constantly talked of moving, but never got beyond that
point. Occasionally she would say, “Well, girls, I really will give
notice this term. We must move; we must decide something. I will write
to a house agent. And, Honor, you need not mind getting the garden
seeds, or having the kitchen whitewashed.” But when to-morrow came
these plans had melted into air, and the garden-seeds were set, and the
kitchen renovated, as usual.
Mrs. Gordon was something of an invalid, and became more lethargic
year by year, and a prey to an incurable habit of procrastination. She
resigned her keys, purse, and authority into the hands of her eldest
daughter, and contented herself with taking a placid interest in the
garden, the weather, the daily paper, and sampling various new patent
medicines. She still retained the remains of remarkable personal beauty
and a fascination of manner that charmed all who came in contact with
her, from the butcher’s boy to the lord of the soil. People said that
it was shamefully unfair to her girls, the way in which Mrs. Gordon
buried herself--and them--alive. She never made the smallest effort
to better their lot, but contented herself with sitting all day in a
comfortable easy-chair, making gracious remarks and looking handsome,
stately, and languid.
Life was monotonous at Merry Meetings. Two or three tennis-parties in
summer, two or three carpet-dances in winter, now and then a day’s
shopping in Hastings, were events which were varied by long gray
stretches of uneventful calm. The daily paper was a most welcome
arrival; and the Miss Gordons entertained as eager an expectation
of letters, of stirring news, of “something coming by the post,” of
“something happening,” as if they lived in the midst of a large and
busy community.
And what of the three Miss Gordons?
Jessie, the eldest, is twenty-six, and quite surprisingly plain. She
has pale eyes and a dark complexion, instead of dark eyes and a pale
complexion, also a nose that would scarcely be out of place in a
burlesque. She is clever, strong-willed, and practical, and manages
the whole family with admirable tact, including Susan, the domestic
treasure.
Jessie Gordon’s name is well known as the author of pretty stories
in girls’ and children’s magazines. She earns upwards of a hundred a
year by her pen (which she generally adds to the common purse), and is
regarded by her neighbours with a certain amount of pride, slightly
tempered with uneasiness. Supposing she were to put some of her friends
into a book! However, they criticize her work sharply to her face, make
a great virtue of purchasing the magazines in which her tales appear,
and magnify her merits, fame, and earnings to all outsiders.
Fairy, whose real name is Flora, comes next to Jessie in age; she is
about two and twenty, and has a perfectly beautiful face--a face to
inspire poets and painters, faultless in outline, and illumined by
a pair of pathetic blue eyes. A most delicate complexion--of which
every care, reasonable or unreasonable, is taken--and quantities of
fine sunny brown hair, combine to complete a vision of loveliness. Yes,
Fairy Gordon is almost startlingly fair to see; and seen seated at a
garden-party or in a ball-room, all the strange men present instantly
clamour for an introduction; and when it has been effected, and the
marvellously pretty girl rises to dance, behold she is a dwarf--a
poor little creature, with a shrill, harsh voice, and only four feet
four inches in height! Her figure is deceptive--the body very long in
proportion to the limbs.
Many and many a shock has Fairy administered to a would-be partner. Did
she ever read their consternation in their faces? Apparently never;
for no matter who remained at home, Fairy could not endure to miss an
entertainment, even a school feast or a children’s party. It was an
unwritten family law that Fairy must always come first, must always
be shielded, petted, indulged, amused, and no one subscribed to this
rule more readily than the second Miss Gordon herself. She was keenly
alive to her own beauty, and talked frankly to her intimates of her
charms; but she never once referred to her short stature, and her
sisters but rarely alluded to the fact between themselves, and then
with bated breath. Even six inches would have made all the difference
in the world; but four feet four was--well, remarkable. Of course
the neighbours were accustomed to Fairy--a too suggestive name. They
remembered her quite a little thing, a lovely spoilt child, a child
who had never grown up. She was still a little thing, and yet she was
a woman--a woman with a sharp tongue and a despotic temper. Fairy
had true fairy-like fingers. She embroidered exquisitely, and made
considerable sums doing church needlework, which sums were exclusively
devoted to the decoration of her own little person. She was also a
capital milliner and amateur dressmaker; but she had no taste for
music, literature, housekeeping, or for any of the “daily rounds, the
common tasks.” She left all those sort of things to her sisters.
Honor, the youngest Miss Gordon, is twenty years of age, slight,
graceful, and tall--perhaps too tall. She might have spared some
inches to her small relative, for she measures fairly five feet eight
inches. She has an oval face, dark grey eyes, dark hair, and a radiant
smile. In a family less distinguished by beauty she would have been
noteworthy. As it is, some people maintain that in spite of Fairy’s
marvellous colouring and faultless features, they see more to admire
in her younger sister--for she has the beauty of expression. Honor is
the useful member of the family. Jessie could not arrange flowers, cut
out a dress, or make a cake, to save her life. Honor can do all these.
She has a sort of quick, magic touch. Everything she undertakes looks
neat and dainty, from a hat to an apple-pie. Her inexhaustible spirits
correspond with her gay, dancing eyes, and she is the life and prop
of the whole establishment. She plays the violin in quite a remarkable
manner. Not that she has great execution, or can master difficult
pieces, but to her audience she and her violin seem one, and there is a
charm about her playing that listeners can neither explain nor resist.
The youngest Miss Gordon has her faults. Chief of these, is an
undesirable bluntness and impudent recklessness of speech--a deplorable
fashion of introducing the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the
truth, no matter how unwelcome or how naked--and a queer, half-absent,
and wholly disconcerting way of thinking aloud.
Her friends (who are many) declare that she is young, and will grow out
of these peculiarities, and at any rate she is by far the most popular
of the three sisters!
One gusty March morning, the sea displayed towering grey waves, with
cream-coloured crests, the rain beat noisily against the window in
which Jessie Gordon stood waiting for the kettle to boil, and watching
for the postman. Here he came at last, striding up the paved path in
his shining oilskins, and with a thundering bang, bang! he is gone.
“The paper, a coal bill, and an Indian letter,” said Jessie to Fairy,
who, wrapped in a shawl, was cowering over the fire. “I’ll take them
upstairs whilst you watch the kettle.”
Mrs. Gordon always breakfasted in bed, to “save trouble,” she declared,
but to whom she omitted to mention. She turned the letters over
languidly, and exclaimed--
“One from India from Sara Brande. Wonders will never cease! What can
she want? Well, let me have my tea at once, and when I have read her
epistle, I will send it down to you. And, here--you can take the paper
to Fairy.”
Jessie returned to her tea-making--she and Honor took the housekeeping
week about. In the middle of breakfast, Susan stalked into the
room--an unusual occurrence--and said--
“Miss Jessie, the mistress is after pulling down the bell-rope. I
thought the house was on fire. You are to go upstairs to her this
minute.”
Jessie was absent about a quarter of an hour, and when she appeared,
beaming, and with a letter in her hand, she had such an air of
suppressed exultation, that it was evident to her sisters, even before
she opened her lips, that the long-expected “something” had happened at
last.
CHAPTER V.
AN INDIAN LETTER.
“Great, great news, girls!” cried Jessie, waving the letter over her
head. “Mrs. Brande--I mean Aunt Sally--has written to ask one of us
to go out and live with her, and she seems quite certain that her
offer will be accepted, for she encloses a cheque for outfit and
passage-money. It is a short invitation, too; whoever elects to see
India must start within the next fortnight.”
Honor and Fairy gazed at one another incredulously, and Fairy’s
delicate complexion changed rapidly from pink to crimson, from crimson
to white.
“I’ll read it to you,” continued Jessie, sitting down as she spoke.
“The writing is peculiar, and some of the words are only underlined
four times. Ahem!
“‘Rookwood, Shirani.
“‘DEAR SISTER-IN-LAW,
“‘It is not often that I take up my pen, but I have something most
important to say to you. I am not as young as I was, and I feel
the want of some sort of company. Pelham is away a good deal, and
I am left alone with Ben; he is the best-hearted creature in the
world, and knows every word I say, but he can’t talk, nor help in
the housekeeping, nor go to balls and church, being only a dog. What
would you think of letting me have one of your girls? You have three,
and might spare one. Indeed, three unmarried daughters must be a
really terrible anxiety to any mother. We expect to be home in about
a year, so if the worst comes to the worst, you will have her back
again in twelve months’ time. Whoever you send, you may be sure I
will be a mother to her, and so will Pelham. She shall have the best
of everything in the way of society and clothes, and I guarantee
that she only knows the _nicest beaux_, and that she will be very
happy. The hot weather is coming on, and travelling after April is
dangerous, both by land and sea, so I would like you to send her as
soon as possible. She ought to start not later than a fortnight after
you receive this, otherwise, it will be no use her coming at all. She
could not set out again till October, and it would not be worth her
while to come to us for six months. Pel encloses a cheque for her
passage, and thirty-five pounds extra for boxes, gloves, petticoats,
etc. I prefer to devise her dresses _myself_, and will turn her out
smart. No doubt you are not in the way of seeing the new fashions, and
we are uncommonly dressy out here. If she could be in Bombay by the
_middle of April_, I could meet her at Allahabad and bring her up, for
I don’t approve of girls travelling alone. Pel is anxious, too, and
hopes you won’t refuse us. You know he has a good deal in his power;
your girls are his _next-of-kin_, and a nod is as good as a _wink_ to
a blind horse--of course, not meaning that _you_ are a blind horse.
This place is gay in the season, and has plenty of tamashas; as for
snakes, there is no such thing; and with regard to climate, you can
make yourself _quite_ easy.
“‘The climatological conditions of these hill-districts are a most
important element in their physical geography, and will therefore
require to be treated at considerable length. An extensive discussion
of the meteorology cannot be attempted, but sufficient data have
already been collected to serve as a basis for general description
of the climate. In this respect the Himalayas, on account of their
less distance from the equator, present many points of _advantage_ as
compared with the Alps and other European mountains.’” (The above,
with the exception of the italics, had been boldly copied from a
gazetteer found in Mr. Brande’s writing-room.)
“‘There is generally a fair sprinkling of young men, and of course
we entertain a great deal. She shall have a nice quiet pony, and a
new _rickshaw_, so we shall expect her without fail. Love to your
daughters, and especially to _our_ one.
“‘Yours truly,
“‘SARABELLA BRANDE.’
“Now, what do you think of that?” inquired Jessie, looking alternately
at her two staring sisters.
“I say that it is a hoax, of course! Some joke of yours, Jessie,”
returned Honor, with a playful snatch at the letter. “What is all that
gibberish about Uncle Pelham being a mother to one, and mother not
being a blind horse, and the climatological condition of the hills, not
to mention the snakes and the _beaux_? You ought to be ashamed--I could
have done it better myself.”
“Read it--examine the post-mark,” said Jessie, now flinging it on the
table.
Yes, there was no room for doubt; it was a _bona-fide_ Indian epistle.
As Honor turned it over critically, she suddenly exclaimed--
“Have you seen _this_--the gem of the whole production--the postscript?”
Both sisters bent forward eagerly, and there, just at the top of the
last and otherwise blank sheet, was scribbled as a hasty afterthought--
“P.S.--Be sure you send the _pretty_ one.”
“She must be a most original old person,” said Honor, with sparkling
eyes. “And, in the name of Dr. Johnson, what is a ‘tamasha’?”
“Ask me something easier,” rejoined Jessie.
“Then what does mother say to this remarkable invitation?”
“You might know better than to ask that!” broke in Fairy, who had been
listening with evident impatience. “In this family it is, ‘What does
Jessie say?’ What _do_ you say, Jess?”
“I say, never refuse a good offer. It is only for twelve months; and,
of course, one of us must go!”
“Then, will _you_ go?” inquired Fairy, with elevated brows.
“Am I the pretty one?” Jessie demanded sarcastically. “I should be
bundled back by the next steamer.”
“No, of course; I never thought of that,” rejoined her sister,
meditatively. “I am the pretty one; there has never been any question
of that--has there, girls?”
“No, never,” returned Jessie, in her most matter-of-fact tone, and she
and Honor exchanged stealthy glances.
For some seconds Fairy seemed buried in thought, as she drew patterns
on the table-cloth with a fork. At last she looked up, and exclaimed--
“It is only for twelve months as you say, Jess; twelve months soon fly
round.” And she threw back her shawl, and leant her elbows on the
table. “Never refuse a good offer--such as a pony, a rickshaw--whatever
that is--the new dresses, the best society, the best _beaux_!” and she
burst into a peal of shrill laughter, as she exclaimed, “Do you know,
girls, that I think I shall go!”
A pause, the result of utter stupefaction, followed this unexpected
announcement.
“Yes,” she continued, with increased animation, “I believe I should
like it, of all things. The idea grows on me. I am thrown away here.
What is the use of a pretty face if it is never seen? Did she say
_thirty-five_ pounds for outfit? I can make that go a long way. I
don’t take yards of stuff, like you two giantesses. My tailor-made and
my spring dress are new. I’ll just run up and talk it over with the
mater.” And she pushed back her chair, and bustled out of the room.
Jessie and Honor remained gazing at one another across the table, in
dead suggestive silence, which was at last broken by Jessie, who said
in a tone of quiet despair--
“I wish that ridiculous letter had never come. At first I thought it a
capital thing. I thought you ought to accept.”
“I!” cried Honor; “and, pray, why should you select _me_?”
“For half a dozen excellent reasons; you are pretty, young, bright,
and popular. You have a knack of making friends. All the people about
here and in the village would rather have _your_ little finger than the
rest of us put together. You walk straight into their hearts, my love,
and therefore you are the most suitable member of this family to be
despatched to India to ingratiate yourself with our rich relations.”
“Your fine compliments are wasted, Jess--your ‘butter’ thrown away--for
I am not going to India.”
“No; and Fairy has ere this selected her steamer and travelling
costume; if she has made up her mind to go, nothing will stop her--and
Uncle Pelham and Aunt Sally have never been told that Fairy is--is--so
small. What _will_ they say?” regarding her sister with awestruck eyes
and a heightened colour.
What, indeed, would Mrs. Brande--who was already boasting of her niece
from England, and loudly trumpeting the fame of the lovely girl she
expected--say to Fairy? What would be her feelings when she was called
upon to welcome a remarkably pretty little _dwarf_?
“It must be prevented,” murmured Honor. “She cannot be allowed to go.”
“Is Fairy ever prevented from doing what she wishes?” asked Jessie,
with a solemn face.
To this pertinent question her sister could find no adequate reply.
After a pause she rose and said--
“Let us go upstairs, and hear what she is saying to mother.”
Mrs. Gordon was sitting up in bed with a flushed face and anxious
expression, listening to the brilliant description of Fairy’s future
career in India.
Fairy, with both elbows on the bed, and her pointed chin in her hands,
was rapidly enumerating her new dresses, and wondering how soon they
would be ready, declaring how fortunate it was that she had a quantity
of patterns in the house, and that if her mother would only advance
twenty pounds she could do wonders. She talked so incessantly, and so
volubly, that no one had a chance of advising, objecting, or putting in
one single word. Her mother and sisters listened in enforced, uneasy
silence, to the torrent of this little creature’s almost impassioned
eloquence.
“It will take a fortnight to get ready,” she said. “This is the
fifteenth of March; what a scurry there will be! You two girls will
have to sew your fingers to the bone--won’t they, mother?”
Her mother faltered a feeble assent.
“I shall want at least twelve gowns and half a dozen hats. I must go
into Hastings to-morrow.” She paused at last, with scarlet cheeks, and
quite breathless.
“There is nearly a week before the mail goes out,” ventured Jessie;
“and it is rather too soon to decide yet. The letter only came an hour
ago, and there is much to be considered, before mother can make up her
mind as to which of us she can spare, and----”
“The whole thing is _quite_ settled,” interrupted Fairy in her sharpest
key--Jessie was not her favourite sister--“only you are always so fond
of interfering and managing every one, from mother down. Aunt Sara
expressly asked for the pretty one; you saw it in black and white, and
mother says I am to please myself--did you not, mother?” appealing to
her parent, whose eyes sank guiltily before the reproachful gaze of her
eldest daughter. Nevertheless she bravely sighed out--
“Yes, Fairy, I suppose so.”
“There!” cried Fairy, triumphantly. “You see mother has decided, and
I have decided. I am not like some people, who take weeks to make
up their minds, especially when moments are precious. I must write a
quantity of letters for the early post. Honor, do you remember the name
of Mrs. Travers’ dressmaker? and do you think I should get a habit and
riding-boots?”
CHAPTER VI.
“ROWENA”--FULL LIFE SIZE.
The astonishing news that had come to Merry Meetings, was soon shared
by the entire village, thanks to Susan’s sister, who filled the
post of messenger and charwoman. The letter was warmly discussed,
in the sanded parlour of The Cause is Altered inn, over the counter
at Hogben’s the grocer, at the rectory, at Dr. Banks’, and also by
the Trevors--the family at the hall--a family to whom the Misses
Gordon were indebted for most of their trivial gaieties. Opinion,
whether in hall or tap-room, was for once unanimous. Of course one
of the Gordons must accept her rich uncle’s offer, and that without
any foolish or unnecessary delay. Although it was a wet afternoon,
Cara and Sophy Trevor, Mrs. Banks, the rector, and Mrs. Kerry,
arrived almost simultaneously at Merry Meetings, and half filled the
drawing-room; which was of moderate size, with a southern aspect, and
deep comfortable window-seats. The furniture was old-fashioned, and
the carpet threadbare, but a few wicker chairs, a couple of Persian
rugs, a quantity of pictures, books, flowers, and needlework, covered
many deficiencies; it was the general sitting-room of the family, and
if not always perfectly tidy, was at any rate delightfully home-like,
vastly different to so many of its name-sakes, which have a fire on
stated days; gaunt, formal apartments, solely devoted to visitors. Mrs.
Gordon’s friends dropped in at all hours, but chiefly at five o’clock,
and the tea and hot cakes, dispensed at Merry Meetings, were considered
unequalled in those parts.
Behold a selection of Mrs. Gordon’s nearest neighbours gathered
eagerly round her hearth, whilst Honor made tea in thin, old shallow
cups.
“We all met at the gate!” explained Cara Trevor, “and have come, as
you see, to call on you in a body, to hear your news with our very own
ears. Is it true, dear lady, that one of the girls is going out to
India immediately?”
“Yes,” replied Mrs. Gordon. “I heard from my sister-in-law this
morning, she and my brother are most anxious to have one of their
nieces on a visit; they give us very short notice--only a fortnight.
Honor, my love, Cara will take another cake.”
“No, no, thank you,” cried Miss Trevor, impatiently. “Pray do go on,
and tell me all about this delightful invitation, Honor. Where is your
uncle; in what part of India?”
“He is at Shirani, a hill station, most of the year. I believe he has
rather a good appointment, something to do with the revenue.”
“I know all about Shirani,” answered Sophy Trevor, with an air of
unusual importance. “We had a cousin quartered there once; it is a
capital place for shooting, dancing, picnics, and tennis-parties--so
different to this dead and alive Hoyle. It really ought to be spelt
without the _y_. I wish some one would ask _me_ to India. I would be
ready to start to-night, with just a couple of basket-trunks and a
dressing-bag. Which of you is going? I suppose you have not thought of
it yet?” but she looked straight at Honor.
“Oh, it is quite settled,” rejoined Fairy, in her clear shrill voice.
“It was decided at once, as there is not a second to spare. You are to
lose _me_,” and she laughed affectedly. She had an extraordinarily loud
laugh for such a little woman.
But there was no responding echo--no, not even a smile; on the
contrary, an expression of blank consternation settled down on every
countenance.
Mrs. Banks was the first to recover the power of speech, as with
a somewhat hysterical giggle, she remarked to the company the
self-evident fact--
“I suppose the Indian mail came in to-day?”
“Yes,” responded Jessie, adding significantly, “and goes out on
Thursday, so we have not sent an answer to Uncle Pelham as yet.”
“He does not know what is in store for him,” murmured Mrs. Kerry to
Mrs. Banks, as she rose and put her tea-cup on a table beside her.
Meanwhile Fairy had produced a number of bundles of patterns of dress
materials, and requested the two Miss Trevors to give an opinion of
their merits. This created a merciful diversion. Most women enjoy
turning over patterns, even patterns for mourning, and in desultory
talk about dressmakers and chiffons, the visit came to a close.
“Did you ever hear such an utterly crazy notion?” cried Mrs. Banks, as
soon as she and the two Miss Trevors were outside the hall door. “I
could scarcely believe my senses.”
“And no wonder,” said Sophy Trevor. “She should not be allowed to go;
but she is so desperately obstinate, that if she has made up her mind
to start, all England will not stop her.”
“My husband shall stop her,” returned Mrs. Banks, emphatically. “He
shall put it on her health, and say that she is too delicate, and that
the climate will kill her!”
“I doubt if even that would keep her at home,” said Cara, who knew
Fairy well. “How wretched Mrs. Gordon looked. Fairy is her idol, and
turns her round her little finger, and I like Fairy the least of the
family--she is so selfish and so vain. Poor Honor is her slave, and
indeed they all give in to her far too much; but if they allow her to
go out to India, they will never see a penny of their rich uncle’s
money. He is expecting a nice, comely, ordinary girl, not a little
monster!”
“Oh, Cara!” protested her sister, in a deeply shocked voice.
“Well, you know she _is_ a monster of selfishness and vanity,” retorted
Cara with unabashed persistence.
The Rev. James Kerry, who was trudging behind with his wife, displayed
an unusually elongated upper lip--sure sign of excessive mental
perturbation.
“Preposterous!” he exclaimed. “That child exercises a most baneful
influence over her parent. I must see Mrs. Gordon alone, and reason her
out of this insane project.”
“And so you will, no doubt, in five minutes,” assented his partner
briskly, “and as soon as you have left, Fairy will reason her back
again. Surely, my dear, you know Mrs. Gordon? The whole matter rests in
Fairy’s hands, and our only hope is that she may change her mind, or
get the influenza, and there is but little chance of either.”
It was now the turn of the Rev. James to expostulate angrily with his
companion.
* * * * *
The next three days were a period of unexampled misery to most of the
inmates at Merry Meetings. Fairy was feverishly gay and feverishly
busy. Though a severe cold kept her at home, she was never separated
from her beloved patterns, no, not even when in bed. Most of her time
was spent in writing to shops, making calculations in pencil, trimming
hats, and searching through fashion-plates. She now had but two topics
of conversation, India and dress. Meanwhile her mother and sisters
looked on, powerless, and in a manner paralyzed by the sturdy will of
this small autocrat. In these days there was considerable traffic to
and fro from Merry Meetings, and an unusual amount of knocks and rings
at Mrs. Gordon’s modest little green hall door. The postman, instead
of bringing one paper and a meagre envelope as of yore, now staggered
under a load of large brown-paper parcels, and an immense variety of
card-board boxes. Telegrams were an every-day arrival, and letters
poured in by the dozen. Fairy’s preparations were advancing steadily,
though her sisters whispered gravely to one another, that “she must not
be allowed to go.” Who was to prevent her? Not her mother, who sat in
her usual armchair, looking harassed and woe-begone, and now and then
heaved heartrending sighs and applied a damp pocket-handkerchief to her
eyes.
Not the rector. He had reasoned with Fairy long and, as he believed,
eloquently; but in vain. He pointed out her mother’s grief, her great
reluctance to part with her favourite child, her own uncertain health,
but he spoke to deaf ears; and Dr. Banks, despite his wife’s proud
boast, fared but little better. He solemnly assured Fairy that she
was not fit to go to India, to undertake the long journey alone; and,
whatever her aunt might say, the climate was only suited to people
with robust constitutions. “Was she robust?” he demanded with asperity.
“He knew best,” she retorted in her pertest manner. “One thing she did
know, she was _going_. Her aunt had especially invited her, and why
should she not have some amusement and see something of the world?
instead of being buried alive at Hoyle. It was not living, it was
mouldering.”
“At any rate she would live longer at Hoyle than in India,” the doctor
angrily assured her. He was furious with this selfish, egotistical
scrap of humanity, who had always secured the best of everything that
fell to the lot of her impoverished family.
“As for amusement,” he continued, “she would not find it very amusing
to be laid up perhaps for weeks. She was a feverish subject, had she
thought of the sicknesses that periodically scourged the East--cholera
and small-pox?” Fairy, who was constitutionally nervous, shuddered
visibly. “Had she thought of long journeys on horse-back, she who
shrieked if the donkey cocked his ears! She was, in his opinion, much
too delicate and too helpless to think of leaving home.”
Her determination was somewhat shaken by Dr. Banks’ visit, and by a
feverish cold; was it a foretaste of India already? But where filial
duty and fear had failed to move her, vanity stepped in, and secured a
complete surrender!
The spoiled child of the family was sitting alone in the drawing-room
late one afternoon, sewing pleasant anticipations and serious
misgivings, alternately, into a smart silk blouse, when her thoughts
were suddenly scattered by a loud and unfamiliar double knock. She
heard a man’s voice in the hall, and had barely time to throw off
her shawl, and give her hair a touch before the glass, when Susan
announced, “Mr. Oscar Crabbe.” He was a rising artist who had been
staying in the neighbourhood at Christmas, and had made no secret
of his profound admiration for Miss Fairy Gordon, from a purely
professional standpoint.
Oscar Crabbe was a good-looking man, with a pleasant voice, a luxuriant
brown beard, and an off-hand, impetuous manner.
“Pray excuse my calling at this unceremonious hour,” he said as he
advanced with a cold, outstretched hand. “I believe it is long after
five o’clock; but, as I was passing, I thought I would drop in on
chance of finding some one at home. How are your mother and sisters?”
“My mother is lying down with a nervous headache; my sisters are
shopping in Hastings, so you will have to put up with _me_,” said
Fairy, coquettishly.
“And you are the very person I most wish to see,” returned Mr. Crabbe,
drawing his chair closer as he spoke. “I want to ask you to do me
a tremendous favour--I want to paint your portrait for next year’s
academy.”
“My portrait?” she echoed tremulously.
“Yes; I said something to you at Christmas, you may remember.”
“I thought you were joking.”
“No, indeed! I was simply feeling my way; and, if you will honour me
with a few sittings, I shall be deeply grateful. I propose to paint you
as Rowena--full life size. You are an ideal Rowena.”
“And when?”
“Oh, not for some months--not before autumn. But I always take time by
the forelock; and as I was down here at the Trevors” (had Cara Trevor
instigated this visit? History is silent, and the true facts will never
be divulged) “I thought I would seize the opportunity of bespeaking a
model for next season. I will only ask you to sit to me for the head
and hands; the dress and figure I can work at in town. What do you say?”
“Oh, Mr. Crabbe,” clasping her tiny hands rapturously, “I should have
liked it beyond anything in the whole wide world. I am so sorry,
but----”
“But your mother would not approve?”
“Not at all. She would be enchanted; but I am going to India
immediately.”
“To India?” he repeated, after an expressively long pause.
“Yes; my aunt and uncle have invited one of us--it was most
unexpected--and I am going.”
Mr. Crabbe looked grave; then he gave a sort of awkward laugh, and
said--
“Well, Miss Gordon, I enroll myself among the number of friends who
deeply deplore your departure. I am extremely sorry--indeed, I have a
double reason for regret, for I shall never find such a Rowena!”
“And I am extremely sorry too. There will be no one in India who will
want to paint my picture.”
“I am not so sure of that. A young fellow, a friend of mine, went
out there last October globe-trotting. He is the cleverest portrait
painter I know, though he calls himself an amateur and only paints
for amusement, and in interludes of hunting and polo-playing. He has
not to work for his daily bread, like the rest of us; but, if he had
to do so, he would make his fortune if he studied and put his shoulder
to the wheel. He has a genius for catching a true likeness, a natural
attitude, a characteristic expression, and he does it all so easily and
so quickly. A few rapid dashes, and the canvas seems to _live_. It is
a pity he does not take to our profession seriously and study; but his
uncle abhors ‘painting chaps,’ as he calls them; and his uncle, whose
heir he is, is a millionaire.”
“How nice! And what is the name of this fortunate young man?”
“Mark Jervis.”
“I must try and remember. Perhaps I may come across him, and he may
paint my picture; but it will be nothing in comparison to having it
done by _you_ and hung in the Royal Academy.”
She turned her face upon her visitor with an expression of dreamy
ecstasy. A delicate colour, a brilliant sparkle in her eyes, the
becoming background of a red lamp-shade, which set off her perfect
profile, all combined to heighten the effect of Fairy’s transcendent
beauty; and Oscar Crabbe frankly assured himself that he was then and
there gazing upon the face of the most lovely girl in England. As he
gazed, he lost his head, and stammered out rapturously--
“Oh, if I could only paint you as you are now, my reputation would be
assured; you would make me famous!”
“You mean that you would make _me_ famous,” she returned, dropping her
eyes bashfully. “Do you know that you almost tempt me to abandon India
and remain at home?”
“I wish you would. You are of far too delicate clay for the fierce
tropical sun, and India plays the devil--I mean,” picking himself up,
“it is the grave of beauty. If anything should happen to prevent your
carrying out your trip, will you let me know without fail?”
“You may be certain that I shall.”
“I wonder that one of your sisters----” he began, when the door opened
and admitted the two ladies in question. They were cold, tired,
longing for tea, and offered no serious resistance to Mr. Crabbe’s
immediate departure. He held Fairy’s hand in his for several seconds,
as if reluctant to release it, and he gave it a faint but distinctly
perceptible pressure as he said, “I will not say, ‘Bon voyage,’ but,
‘Au revoir.’ Remember your promise,” and hurried away.
It was noticed by her relations that Fairy was unusually silent all
that evening. She seemed buried in thought, and her pretty white
forehead was actually knit into wrinkles, as she stitched with deft and
rapid fingers. To tell the truth, the young lady was carefully weighing
the pros and cons respecting her Eastern trip. She lay awake for hours
that night, revolving various questions in her busy little brain.
On one hand, she would escape from Hoyle and enjoy a gay and novel
existence. She would be taken to balls and parties, and be the cynosure
of all eyes; she would have plenty of pocket-money, plenty of pretty
dresses, plenty of luxuries--that was one side of the shield. On the
reverse, she mentally saw a hateful journey by sea, an unaccustomed
life and climate, an ever-haunting dread of fever, cholera, snakes;
she would probably have to accustom herself to riding wild ponies,
to being borne along the brinks of frightful precipices; she would
have no one to pet her and hunt up her things, and do her hair and
mend her gloves--yes, she would miss Honor dreadfully. Mr. Crabbe had
assured her that India was the grave of beauty. Supposing she became
a fright! Dr. Banks had hinted at shattered health. No, after all,
she would remain at home; her aunt and uncle would be in England in
a year’s time, she would pay them a nice long visit without risking
either health or looks; then there would be _Rowena_, a lasting and
substantial triumph! She had visions of her picture hanging on the
line in the Royal Academy, and guarded by police in order to keep the
surging mob of admirers at bay, of crowds gazing spell-bound at her
portrait, of notices in the society papers, of photographs in shop
windows, of wide celebrity, and the acknowledgment of her beauty in the
face of all England.
The prospect was intoxicating. Towards dawn she fell asleep, and
enjoyed delightful dreams.
The next morning, ere descending to breakfast, she called her sisters
into her room, and said, in an unusually formal manner--
“Jessie and Honor, I may as well tell you that I have changed my mind,
and given up all idea of going to India, so I thought you ought to know
at once.”
“I am delighted to hear it,” replied Jessie, with unaffected relief.
“But why?” surveying her with questioning eyes. “Why have you so
suddenly altered your plans?”
“I have been lying awake all night, thinking of mother,” was the
mendacious reply. “I see she is fretting dreadfully; it would break
her heart to part with me, and I shall never leave her, or at least,”
correcting herself, “never leave England.”
“It is unfortunate that you did not think of mother a little sooner!”
said Jessie, glancing round the room, which was blocked up with boxes
and parcels containing purchases in the shape of hats and shoes and
jackets, and many articles “on approval.” “I think you are very wise
to stay at home; but it is a pity that you have made such great
preparations. Is it not, Honor?”
“No doubt _you_ think so,” retorted Fairy, sarcastically. “Of course
it seems a pity that none of my pretty new things will fit either of
_you_.”
CHAPTER VII.
FAIRY RELENTS.
Now that, to every one’s intense relief, Fairy had changed her mind
and withdrawn her claim, the question remained, Who was to go? Public
opinion, her mother, Jessie--in short, every voice save one, said
Honor. But Honor was indisposed to visit the East. She was not an
enterprising young woman, and she was fond of home; and Fairy, when
alone with her, shed showers of crocodile tears every time the subject
was mentioned. She could not bear to part with her favourite sister;
no, it was too cruel of people to suggest such a thing. Who, she asked
herself, would dress her hair, and button her boots, and read her to
sleep? And many of Honor’s hateful tasks would fall to her, such as
arranging the flowers, dusting the drawing-room, housekeeping, going
messages, for Jessie’s time meant money, and must be respected. Aloud,
in the family circle, she said in authoritative tones, “Let Jessie
go! As to looks, _any_ looks are good enough for India; even Jessie
will seem handsome there. After all, why should any of them accept the
invitation? England was a free country. She (Fairy) would send a nice,
grateful little letter, and keep the cheque. Uncle Pelham would never
be so mean as to take it back, and they would buy a pony instead of
that maddening donkey, and make a tennis-ground, and take a fortnight’s
trip to London, and enjoy themselves for once in their lives.”
A week elapsed. The mail had gone out without an answer to Mr. Brande.
Jessie and her mother had both talked seriously to Honor, and she had
listened with her pleasantest smile, whilst they pointed out the
advantages she would personally reap from her Eastern trip. She made
no attempt to argue the point, only asked in a playful way who was to
drive the donkey? Who was to play the harmonium in church? for she
flattered herself that she was the only person in the parish who could
do either. And there was the garden and the poultry--the hens would be
lost without her!
“We shall _all_ be lost without you,” rejoined Jessie; “but we can
spare you for your own good.”
“I don’t want to be spared for my own good,” she answered. “I prefer
staying at home. You think that I shall carry all before me out there!
You are greatly mistaken. All your geese are swans. _I_ am a goose,
and not a swan. I am just a country cousin, with a bad complexion and
uncouth manners.”
“Honor! you have a beautiful skin, only not much colour; and as for
your manners, they are as good as other people’s.”
“You have often said that mine are alarmingly abrupt, and that I have
the habits of a savage or a child in the way I blurt out home-truths.”
“Oh, but only at home; and you must not _always_ mind what I say.”
“Then what about the present moment? When you say that I ought to go
out to Uncle Pelham--how am I to know that I ought to mind what you say
now?”
“Upon my word, Honor, you are really too provoking!”
Little did Mrs. Gordon and her friends suspect how their weighty
reasons and arguments were nullified by Fairy, who nightly, with arms
wound tightly round her sister’s neck, and face pressed to hers,
whispered, “You won’t go; promise me, you won’t go.”
Jessie, the clear-sighted, at last began to suspect that Fairy was
at the bottom of her sister’s reluctance to acquiesce. Fairy was so
demonstratively affectionate to Honor. This was unusual. It was too
bad, that Fairy should rule her family, and that her wishes should be
law. Jessie conferred with her mother, and they agreed to try another
plan. They would drop the subject, and see if feminine contrariness
would be their good friend? The word “India” was therefore not uttered
for three whole precious days; patterns and passages, etc., were no
longer discussed, matters fell back into their old monotonous groove,
save that Mrs. Gordon frequently gazed at her youngest daughter, and
heaved unusually long and significant sighs.
One afternoon, ten days after the letter had been received which still
lay unanswered in Mrs. Gordon’s desk, Honor met the rector as she was
returning from practising Sunday hymns on the wheezy old harmonium.
“This will be one of your last practices,” he said. “I am sure I don’t
know _how_ we are to replace you.”
“Why should you replace me?” she asked. “I am not going away.”
“Not going away,” he repeated. “I understood that it was all settled.
Why have you changed your mind?”
“I never made up my mind to go.”
“Why not? Think of all the advantages you will gain.”
“Yes, advantages; that is what Jessie is always drumming into my head.
I shall see the world, I shall have pretty dresses, and a pony, and
plenty of balls and parties, and new friends.”
“And surely you would enjoy all these--you are only nineteen, Honor?”
“Yes, but these delights are for myself; there is nothing for _them_,”
nodding towards “Merry Meetings.” “I am the only person who will
benefit by this visit, and I am sure I am more wanted at home than out
in India. Jessie cannot do everything, her writing takes up her time;
and I look after the house and garden. And then there is Fairy; she
cannot bear me to leave her.”
“You have spoiled Fairy among you,” cried the rector, irritably. “Only
the other day she was crazy to go to India _herself_. She must learn to
give up, like other people. It is very wrong to sacrifice yourself to
the whims and fancies of your sister; in the long run they will become
a yoke of dreadful bondage. Remember that you are not a puppet, nor an
idiot, but a free, rational agent.”
“Yes,” assented the girl. She knew she was now in for one of Mr.
Kerry’s personal lectures. It might be over in two or three minutes,
and it might continue for half an hour.
“Now listen to me, Honor. I know you are a good, honest young woman,
and think this plan will only benefit yourself. You are wrong. Your
mother is in poor health; her pension dies with her. If you offend your
only near relative, how are you to exist?”
“I suppose we can work. Every woman ought to be able to earn her
bread--even if it is without butter.”
“Honor, I did not know that you held these emancipated views. I hope
you won’t let any other man hear you airing them. As for work! Can
Fairy work? Jessie, I know, can earn a few pounds, but she could
barely keep herself; and if you fall sick, what will you do? It is
best to survey matters from every standpoint. Your aunt and uncle have
practically offered to adopt you. You will return in a year’s time; you
will have made many friends for yourself and sisters, developed your
own at present limited views of the world, and bring many new interests
into your life. Your absence from home will be a considerable saving.
Have you thought of that?”
“A saving!” she echoed incredulously.
“Of course! Don’t you eat? A healthy girl like you cannot live on air;
and there is your dress.”
“I make my own dresses.”
“Nonsense!” with an impatient whirl of his stick. “You don’t make the
material. How can you be so stubborn, so wilfully blind to your own
interests. If another girl had your chances, Honor Gordon would be the
very first to urge her to go; and that in her most knock-me-down style.
You have a much keener view where other people’s affairs are concerned
than your own.”
“Of course, it is only for a year,” said Honor. “I shall be back among
you all within twelve months.”
“Yes, if you are not married,” added the rector, rashly.
“It appears to be the general impression in Hoyle, that going to India
means going to be married,” said the girl, firing up and looking quite
fierce. “Please put that idea quite at one side, as far as _I_ am
concerned.”
“Very well, my dear, I will,” was the unexpectedly meek response.
Touched by his humility, she continued, “Then you really think I
_ought_ to go?”
“My good child, there can be no two opinions. Every one thinks you
ought to go.”
“Except Fairy.”
“Fairy has no right to stand in your way, and your absence will be an
excellent lesson for her. She will learn to be independent and useful.
Now, here is my turn, and I must leave you. Go straight home and tell
them that you are ready to start, and that the sooner your mother sees
about your escort and passage the better.”
And he wrung her hand and left her. Honor walked home at a snail’s
pace, thinking hard. If Fairy would but give her consent, she would
hold out no longer against every one’s wishes. She would go--yes,
without further hesitation. After all, it was only for one year. But,
although she did not know it, Fairy had already yielded. Jessie and
Mrs. Banks had been talking to her seriously in Honor’s absence, and
she had been persuaded to listen to the voice of reason--and interest.
If she had gone to India, as she intended, she would have been parted
from Honor, and of her own accord.
This fact, brusquely placed before her by Mrs. Banks, she was unable to
deny, and sat dumb and sullen.
“Uncle Pelham is sure to take to Honor,” added Jessie, “and he will
probably do something for us all, thinking that we are _all_ as nice
as Honor, which is not the case. She will be home in a year, and there
will be her letter every week.”
“Yes, and _presents_,” put in Mrs. Banks, significantly. “She will have
plenty of pocket-money, and will be able to send you home no end of
nice things.”
Fairy sniffed and sighed, dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief, and
finally suffered herself to be coaxed and convinced, and when her
sister opened the drawing-room door, with rather a solemn face, she ran
to her and put her arms round her and said--
“Honor, darling, I have promised to let you go!”
That very day the important epistle was despatched to Shirani, and
Fairy, to show that she did nothing by halves, actually dropped it
into the letter-box with her own hand. And during the evening she once
more produced the bundles of patterns, and threw herself heart and soul
into the selection of her sister’s outfit.
CHAPTER VIII.
DANIEL POLLITT, ESQ., AND FAMILY.
The grand dinner-party at 500, Princes Gate, was over, the last silken
train had swept down the steps, the last brougham had bowled away,
and a somewhat bored-looking young man indulged in a stretch and a
prodigious yawn, and strolled slowly back to the library, where the
master of the house, a spruce little person of sixty, with a rosy cheek
and active eye, stood before the empty fireplace (the month was June)
with his coat-tails under his arms, engaged in chewing a tooth-pick.
Wealthy he may be, judging from his surroundings, but he is certainly
not distinguished in appearance; his scanty locks are brushed out into
two sharp horns over his large ears. In spite of his blazing solitaire
stud and faultless claw-hammer coat, he is plebeian; yes, from the
points of his patent leather shoes to the crown of his bald head. It
is difficult to believe that he is the uncle of the aristocratic young
fellow who has just entered and cast himself into a deep armchair.
What the French call “the look of race,” is the principal thing that
strikes one about Mark Jervis. It is afterwards--possibly some time
afterwards--that you realize the fact that he is remarkably handsome,
and considerably older than you took him to be at the first glance. His
smooth face and sunny hazel eyes are misleading: young Jervis is more
than nineteen, he is five and twenty.
“Well, Mark, that’s over, thank God,” exclaimed Mr. Pollitt. “I hate
these big dinners; but your aunt will have them. She says we owe them;
women are never backward in paying _those_ sort of debts. It was well
done, hey? That new _chef_ is a success. Did you taste the Perdreaux
aux Chartreuse--or the Bouchée à la financière, or that cold _entrée_?”
“No, Uncle Dan,” strangling another great yawn.
“Ah, you sly dog! You were too much taken up with Lady Boadicea! She is
considered a beauty--at least her picture made rather a stir. What do
you think? How does she strike _you_?”
“To me--she looks like a wax doll that has been held too close to the
fire--and she is about as animated.”
“Well, you can’t say that of the American girl, Miss Clapper--there’s a
complexion!--there’s animation!--there’s a stunner for you!”
“A stunner, indeed! She thrust her money down my throat in such
enormous quantities that I could scarcely swallow anything else!”
“Then why the deuce did you not stuff some of _mine_ down hers, hey?”
chuckling. “I saw you at Hurlingham this afternoon.”
“Did you, sir? I had no idea you were there.”
“It was a frightful squash--hardly a chair to be had; the Royalties, a
fine day and a popular match, brought ’em. I suppose that was the new
pony you were trying, brown with white legs. How do you like him?”
“He is not handy, and he is a bit slow. He is not in the same class
with Pipe-clay, or the chestnut Arab; I don’t think we will buy him,
sir.”
“Lord Greenleg was very anxious to hear what I thought of him. He only
wants a hundred and thirty--asked me to give him an answer there and
then, as he had another customer, but I thought I had better wait till
I heard your opinion. Is the pony worth one hundred and thirty guineas?
What do you say?”
“I say, cut off the first figure, and that is about his value,”
rejoined his nephew shortly.
Mr. Pollitt looked blank. He rather liked buying ponies from lords,
even at a high figure, but a hundred guineas too much was a stiff sum.
He knew that he could rely on the young fellow’s opinion, for lazy as
he seemed, lounging there in an easy chair, he could both buy a horse
and ride a horse--which does not always follow. The languid-looking
youth was a hard rider to hounds, and a finished polo player.
“Then I suppose we shan’t mind the brown, eh, Mark?” said his uncle
rather dolefully. “After all, it is getting late in the season, and his
lordship has another offer.”
“_Has_ he!” expressively. “Oh, then, that is all right.”
“Your side played up well to-day, my boy!”
“And were well beaten--two goals to four. Johnny Brind is no good as a
back. He sits doubled up in his saddle, like an angry cat, and lets the
ball roll out between his pony’s fore legs--and his language!”
“That did not come as far as my ears. I saw you speaking to Lord Robert
Tedcastle. You were at Eton with him--you might bring him home to
lunch some Sunday; and that Italian prince, did you come across him?”
anxiously.
“No; I did not see him.”
“I noticed you having a long talk with that young Torrens; what was
he yarning about? He was nodding his head and waving his hands like a
cheap toy.”
“He was telling me of his plans. He and his brother are off to America
next week, they are going on to Japan, Australia, and India. I say,
Uncle Dan,” suddenly sitting erect, “I wish you would let _me_ travel
for a couple of years and see the world.”
A silence of nearly a minute, and then Mr. Pollitt burst out--
“Now, this is some stuff that young ass Torrens has been putting into
your head. To see the world! What world? You see it at home. England is
the world. You have the best of everything here--the handsomest women,
finest horses, best food and drink, best----” he paused, and his
nephew, who was nursing his leg, blandly suggested “climate.”
“Climate be hanged! best society,” bawled Mr. Pollitt. “The fact of
the matter is, you young chaps don’t know when you are well off.
Travel--see the world--skittles!”
“I know that I am exceedingly well off, thanks to you, Uncle Dan,”
rejoined his nephew, quietly. “I have capital polo ponies, a first-rate
stud of hunters, a splendid allowance--but a fellow can’t play polo,
and hunt, and go to balls and theatres all his life; at least, that’s
not _my_ idea of life. I have nothing to do, no profession, you know;
you would not hear of my going into the service.”
“No--I hate the army--what prospect does it offer the young idiots who
are slaving to get into it--to live vagabonds, and die beggars!”
“There was the diplomatic corps; but I’ve not brains enough for that.”
“Bosh! You don’t want a profession, taking bread out of other people’s
mouths. You are my heir--_that’s_ your profession. As to intellect,
there is a great deal too much intellect in these days; the world would
be far easier to govern if there was less! You have brains enough, my
boy, you did very well at Oxford.”
“I know that I am very fortunate,” repeated the young man, “and that
thousands of fellows would give anything to stand in my shoes.”
“Clarence for one,” interrupted his uncle, with a loud chuckle.
“But I’m sick of the eternal treadmill round of the London
season--Ascot, Goodwood, Cowes, Scotland. Then back to London, and we
begin the whole business over again. We see the same people, and do the
same things.”
“How old are you, Mark?” broke in Mr. Pollitt, excitedly.
“Five and twenty.”
“One would think you were eighty-five! But it is all the rage to be
bored and _blasé_, and to give out that life is not worth living.
You are in the height of the fashion, my boy! The fact of the matter
is--that you are too prosperous. A blow of real trouble, cutting to the
very bone, would do you no harm.”
“Perhaps so. Properly speaking, I believe I ought to have been a poor
man’s son, and had to work my way. I feel that I could do it. I would
not have minded being a soldier, a sailor, an explorer, or even a
stock-rider.”
“In fact, to put the matter in a nutshell, anything but what you _are_.”
“Well, Uncle Dan, you have fought your way up to the front, step by
step, and won your spurs, and enjoyed the battle. I should like to
take some weapon, and strike into the fray.” Here he suddenly got up,
and came over to his uncle, and, putting his hand affectionately on
his shoulder said, “I would like to do something to make you”--with a
nervous laugh--“proud of me;” and as he looked into his uncle’s shrewd
little face, his eyes shone with repressed excitement.
“I’m proud enough. You are my own flesh and blood--a good-looking chap,
a capital rider, and a gentleman; a bit too fond of dabbling with your
nasty, dirty oil paints, a bit dreamy and Quixotic, but----”
At this juncture the door was gently pushed open, and a long, hooked
nose came slowly into the room, followed by a tall, thin, elderly lady,
attired in a clinging mist-coloured robe, and blazing with diamonds. A
sallow, discontented-looking person, with a high-bred air, despite her
touzled fringe.
“So you are _both_ here!” she murmured sweetly.
“Yes,” assented Mr. Pollitt; “and here is Mark,” waving a short square
hand towards him. “What do you think is his last craze, Selina? He
wants to travel for a couple of years, in order to see the world. Just
like the hero of a fairy tale.”
Mark hastened to place a chair for his aunt, into which she gently
sank, keeping her eyes steadily fixed on his as she did so, and
gradually narrowing her gaze to a cat-like glint.
“Do you know that I rather _like_ the idea!” she remarked, after a
momentary silence. “I think it is a shocking thing for a young man to
waste his life, lounging in clubs gossipping and gambling, or playing a
game on the back of a pony. Travelling improves the mind and enlarges
the ideas.” Here, catching sight of Mr. Pollitt’s face of angry scorn,
she lost no time in adding, “You know, it is all the fashion to travel,
it’s only the second-rate people and nobodies who stay at home. Lady
Grace and Lord Kenneth are going out to India this cold weather, so is
the Duke of Saltminster, the Marquis and Marchioness of Tordale, and
crowds of other smart people.”
Smart people were to Mr. Pollitt, as his crafty wife knew, the very
salt of the earth; and his expression changed from that of repressed
fury to grave attention.
“India! Perhaps I would not mind so much,” he admitted, after a
pause. “The boy was born there, and he could look up his father. Yes,
and he might have some shooting, and pick up a few tigers, and nice
acquaintances and companions.”
“Oh, but, of course, Mark could not travel alone, dear. He must have a
pleasant and experienced----”
“Bear-leader or keeper; or what would you say to a chaperon?” broke in
her husband.
“My dearest!” she gravely expostulated. “You know perfectly well that
it would be frightfully dull for the poor boy roaming about the country
with no one to keep him company, not knowing where to go, or what to
say. Now Clarence,” and she hesitated.
“Yes--now Clarence. What now?” sharply.
“Clarence,” speaking very distinctly, “was stationed in India for eight
years. He is an experienced Anglo-Indian, has hundreds of friends,
talks Hindostani fluently, and could get no end of shooting and
introductions to native _princes_” (great emphasis on princes). “He
would be a capital guide for Mark.”
“Umph!” with a short laugh. “I’m not so sure of that, Mrs. Pollitt.”
“Oh, my dear Dan, he is perfectly steady now. Why, he is thirty-five,
and has sown his wild oats. I never quite believe in these wonderfully
good young men,” and she shot a swift glance at Mark. “Except Mark, of
course, and he ought to have been a parson, and,” with a little sneer,
“he may yet become a missionary.”
“But India is no novelty to Clarence,” protested Mr. Pollitt; “and,
by all accounts, he made it too hot to hold him. Mark can easily tack
himself on to some party of friends, and do the tour with them. You say
that the Rothmores----”
“Oh yes,” impatiently; “and they have made their arrangements months
ago. Mark cannot tack himself on to people, as you express it; it
would not do at all. On the contrary, he must have some one tacked on
to _him_. The trip will be a boon to my brother, as well as to your
nephew. Poor Clarence loves India. He is frightfully hard up; he would
be an ideal companion for Mark,” turning to him. “What do you say,
Mark? Answer us quite frankly.”
And under these circumstances what could Mark say but, “Yes; oh,
certainly. Clarence is a good sort.”
“And at any rate, _he_ can well be spared from home,” added Mr.
Pollitt, dryly.
“Then you will consent to Mark’s request, darling?” said his wife,
rising and tapping him playfully with her big feather fan. “Think of
all he will have to tell you, and of all the pretty things he will
bring us.”
“As long as he does not bring a _wife_!” growled the old gentleman.
“Well, well, well, it is not often that you and Mark are on the same
side in a debate, or that you second the resolution. When you combine,
you are too strong for me. I’ll think it over.”
Mrs. Pollitt gave her nephew by marriage a quick significant glance,
for this speech distinctly showed that the bill before the (head of
the) house had passed, and that it now only remained to go into a
committee of ways and means.
CHAPTER IX.
PERMISSION TO TRAVEL.
Mark Jervis had been agreeably surprised by his aunt’s enthusiastic
co-operation; thanks to her powerful alliance, he had carried his
point, and was to spend twelve months travelling in India, accompanied
by Mrs. Pollitt’s brother, Captain Clarence Waring. The latter was
about to revisit his former haunts in an entirely new character--that
of mentor and companion to a young man--and, moreover, a wealthy
young man. All the world has heard of “Pollitt’s Pearl Barley,” and
“Pollitt’s Patent Fowls’ Food.” Are not its merits blazoned in flaming
letters in railway stations, in fields bordering the rocking expresses
that thunder through the land? Does not the name of “Pollitt” greet
the miserable eyes of sea-sick travellers, as they stagger down the
companion ladders of ocean greyhounds? In short, the enterprise of
Daniel Pollitt, and the fame of Pollitt’s pearl barley, is of universal
renown.
Although he has never boasted of the fact, or assured his intimates
that “he began life with the traditional sixpence,” Mr. Pollitt is
a self-made man. He talks freely enough of his wife’s relations, of
his nephew’s famous pedigree, but he has not once alluded in the most
distant fashion to his own little family tree. Yet he has nothing to
be ashamed of. His father was a gentleman by birth, a poor curate, who
had left two almost penniless orphans, Dan and a sister, several years
younger than himself. The former, while yet in his early teens, had
clambered on to a stool in an office in the city, from thence (unusual
flight) he had soared to success and wealth. Thanks to indomitable
industry, shrewdness, and pluck, he was now a merchant of credit and
renown. The latter, who was a remarkably pretty and well-educated girl,
accompanied a lady to India, in the capacity of governess, and, in a
startlingly short time, married Captain Jervis of the Bengal Cavalry,
a good-looking popular officer, with a long pedigree and a somewhat
slender purse. By all accounts, the marriage was a happy one. At the
end of six years Mrs. Jervis died, and their only child, a boy of five,
was sent to school in England. Five years later, he was followed by
his father, who rushed home on three months’ leave, in order to see
little Mark as well as his tailor and his dentist. Major Jervis, a
bronzed, handsome, distinguished soldier, made an excellent impression
on the plodding city man--his brother-in-law, who cordially invited
him to stay with him at Norwood, where he had a luxurious bachelor
establishment. And here, over unimpeachable claret and cigars, the
Indian officer unfolded his plans.
Little Mark was about to have a stepmother, the lady was a Miss
Cardozo, of Portuguese extraction, dark, handsome, not very young, but
enormously wealthy, and quite infatuated about little Mark’s papa. Her
grandfather had been a military adventurer, whose sword and swagger
had gained him the heart and treasures of a Begum. Miss Cardozo’s
father was an indigo planter, in those good old times when indigo crops
brought in lacs of rupees, and she was his sole heiress and an orphan.
Besides the Begum’s wealth and jewels, she owned property in the
Doon, property in the hills, property in Tirhoot, shares in banks and
railways, and large investments in the funds.
Mr. Pollitt’s shrewd little eyes glistened approvingly as he absorbed
these particulars.
“Cut the service, bring her to England, and take a fine country place,”
was his prompt suggestion.
“No, no, she hates England; she was at school over here. She dreads
our winters, and rain and fog,” replied Major Jervis. “And she likes
my being in the service. I can tell you that our men and horses are
something to see! Mércèdes--that is her name--delights in pomp and
show and glitter, and is much attached to India; and to tell you the
honest truth, Pollitt, I’m partial to the country too. I have been out
there twenty-two years, ever since I was eighteen, with only two short
furloughs, and it’s a country that suits me down to the ground. My near
relations in England are every one dead, I have no ties here, all my
friends and interests are out there, and I don’t mind if I end my days
in the East.”
“And what about Mark?” demanded his listener.
“Yes, that is the question,” said his father. “It’s hard lines on
the boy, to have no home with me--but later on he shall go into the
service, and come out to us. You have been wonderfully kind to him I
know, having him here in his holidays, and he is very fond of you, as
he ought to be. I feel rather guilty about him, poor chap; he is ten
years old and I have seen nothing of him for half that time, and now,
goodness knows how or where we may meet again. Of course no money shall
be spared on his education, and all that--but----” he paused.
“But _I’ll_ tell you what you will do,” continued Mr. Pollitt. “I’ll
put the whole matter in a nutshell. You are making a fresh start, you
and the boy are almost strangers, so you won’t feel the wrench. Give
him to _me_, I am fond of him, I have no family--he is a handsome,
plucky little fellow, with poor Lucy’s eyes--I will ensure him a
first-class education, bring him up as my son, and make him my heir,
and leave him all I am worth; come now?”
“It is a splendid offer, Pollitt, but _I_ am fond of him too. I cannot
provide for him as you would, I can only set him out in the world with
a profession, and make him a small allowance, for of course Mércèdes’
money will be settled on herself. If I resigned him to you, in years
to come I might repent, I might want him back.”
“In years to come you will probably have half a dozen other sons, and
be thankful to have one of them off your hands.”
After considerable discussion--Jervis, the father, a little reluctant;
Pollitt, the uncle, exceedingly eager and pressing--the matter was
concluded. Mark was to correspond with his parent as regularly as he
pleased, but he was to be, to all intents and purposes, his uncle
Daniel’s son.
Major Jervis made the most of his five weeks in England. He invested
in new and gorgeous uniform, a new battery of guns, saddlery, presents
for Indian friends and his _fiancée_, and saw as much as possible of
Mark. The more the pair were acquainted the better they liked each
other. They went to the Tower, Madame Tussaud’s, the Zoo, the theatres.
Mark invariably accompanied his parent to tailors, boot-makers and
gun-smiths, and became subsequently quite the authority on these
matters at school. His soldierly, open-handed sire, who loaded him
with gifts, who told him tales of the stirring deeds of his ancestors,
of his own swarthy sowars, of tiger-hunting and elephant drives,
speedily became his hero and his idol.
On being sounded as to his own choice of a profession, Mark, after
taking thought for a considerable time, gravely announced to his father
and uncle, “that he would prefer to be a bachelor.”
“And by no means a bad choice,” roared Mr. Pollitt, in great glee.
“Stick to that, my boy, stick to that, copy your old uncle.”
“I don’t think he will,” remarked Major Jervis, with decision; “he will
take after me. We are a susceptible race, we Jervises, and I’ll give
him till he is two and twenty.”
The day of parting was a dismal one for father and son. The child
struggled desperately to be a man, to shed no tears, and bore himself
wonderfully, at any rate in public, but after the cab had driven off,
he rushed away and shut himself up in his own little bedroom, and
flung himself upon the floor, and abandoned himself to the bitterest
grief he had ever experienced, and he was ten years old.
Some years after this scene, Mr. Pollitt, to every one’s surprise,
married a faded, elegant-looking woman, of good family, but
portionless. He bought a house in Princes Gate, rented a grouse moor,
deer forest, and hunting box, and invested in some celebrated diamonds.
He had now amassed a great fortune, and at the age of fifty-five,
retired from business, in order to spend it. But here arose an
unexpected difficulty, he did not know how to enjoy the result of his
labours, save by proxy. He looked up to his handsome well-born nephew
to manipulate his thousands, much as a child appeals to an experienced
friend to work a new mechanical toy. All his own youth had been spent
among great city warehouses, on wharves, and in offices. He had never
ridden, save on the top of an omnibus, he could not drive, shoot, row,
or even fish, and, alas! it was now too late to learn. He, however,
took to field sports in the character of a spectator, with surprising
enthusiasm. He walked with the guns on his moors, and was much excited
respecting the bag. He gave fancy prices for his nephew’s hunters, and
attended every meet (on wheels), where there was a prospect of seeing
their performance, following the line, and keeping the hounds in sight
as far as possible, by means of short cuts and glasses.
He was a truly proud man when he saw his nephew’s name in the _Field_
as foremost rider in a sensational run. The worst of it was, that Mark
hated notoriety of any kind, hung back where he should come forward,
came forward when he should have hung back; had actually no desire to
lease a theatre, keep race-horses, or even gamble; in short, he had
not a single extravagant taste. (Here, indeed, was a most singular
case. How many fathers are there in these latter days who feel hurt
and disappointed because their sons will not spend thousands?) On the
other hand, Mrs. Pollitt was only too ready to assist her partner in
laying out large sums. She had many needy connections, and hoped to do
great things for them; but she found, to her deep chagrin, that the
personal spending of her husband’s wealth was denied her. She had a
liberal dress allowance, diamonds of the first water, equipages, a fine
establishment, a French maid; but she might not thrust her hand into
her lord and master’s purse and scatter largesse to her poor relations,
and--what was a truly hard case--she might not even attempt to arrange
an alliance between Mark and one of her nieces. No, Mr. Pollitt was
resolved that his heir should marry _rank_. It must be “Mr. and Lady
Somebody Jervis,” and with Mark’s good looks, money, and birth, there
would be no difficulty in this little matter. Then Mark must go into
Parliament, settle down as a great landed proprietor, and ruffle it
with the best. Thus was his future sketched out by his uncle, who
wisely kept the sketch to himself.
Mrs. Pollitt was surprised to find her dear Daniel so obstinate and
impracticable on several trifling matters. For instance, she had made
up her mind to change the spelling of his name, and had even gone so
far as to have her own cards printed, “Mrs. D. Murray-Paulet, 500,
Princes Gate.”
“How lucky that Daniel has a second name!” she said to herself as she
complacently examined her new title a few days after her marriage.
She tripped across the room and held a card playfully before the
bridegroom’s spectacles, and the tiresome man had exclaimed--
“Who is she? I can’t stand visitors. Here, let me clear out first, if
she is coming up----”
“The new card trick,” as he subsequently called it, had been their
first trial of strength, and the bride had succumbed with tears.
“Change his name!” he had roared-- “his name, that he had made! Never!
He was proud of it. It was the wife who changed her name on marriage,
not the husband. Was she aware of that?”
Another subject on which she had had to yield was the housekeeping
bills; they all passed through Mr. Pollitt’s hands, who settled them by
cheque, consequently there were no pickings.
Mrs. Pollitt had her own particular schemes; she could not offer her
kinsfolk much solid assistance, but did what she could. To her sister
and nieces she distributed dresses and mantles scarcely worn; she gave
them drives, boxes at the theatre, tickets, and perpetual invitations
to dinner, lunch, and all her parties; to her brother Clarence such
sums as she could spare from her pin-money. Clarence was ten years her
junior, gay, _débonnaire_, and good-looking. He had a pair of handsome,
insolent blue eyes, a well-cultivated moustache, an admirable figure,
and a rather overbearing manner. He was a complete man of the world,
who had many pecuniary troubles, no fixed principles, and but few
scruples. He was, nevertheless, pleasant, and by no means unpopular.
Captain Waring had spent every penny that he possessed (and a good many
pennies belonging to other people); and when his regiment came home
from India, he had been compelled to retire from the service, and had
been living ever since on his friends and his wits. This Indian trip
would be a capital thing for him, all expenses paid; and if he and Mark
remained away a year, some of the other connections might get a footing
at Princes Gate. The aphorism, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder,”
does not apply to uncles and nephews.
If Mark were _never_ to return, it would not break his aunt’s heart.
If he had not been her husband’s favourite, she might have been fond
of him. He was exceedingly presentable; she liked to exhibit him in
her carriage or opera-box (a gratification she seldom enjoyed).
He was always polite, always thoughtful of her comfort, always
respectful, though he had shown himself ready with a forcible reply on
one or two critical occasions; but he did not understand the art of
administering flattery, and she consumed it in large doses. Now here
Clarence was supreme; it was _he_ who had solemnly assured her that
she bore a striking resemblance to Sara Bernhardt. Yes, golden voice
and all; and the poor deluded lady believed him, and attired herself
in clinging draperies, and combed her fringe well over her brows in
order to emphasize her undeniable resemblance to the great actress.
Once, when she questioned Mr. Pollitt on the subject, he had laughed
so uproariously--so like a husband--that an apoplectic seizure seemed
imminent.
Captain Waring was most enthusiastic respecting this Indian scheme, and
naturally gave the project his warmest support. _Tête-à-tête_, he said,
“It’s a first-class notion of Mark’s. The uncle keeps him far too
tight in hand. No wonder he wants to break away and see the world and
live his own life, poor devil!”
“What nonsense!” protested Mrs. Pollitt, irritably. “He has plenty of
liberty and a latch-key.”
“And does not know how to use one or other. Besides, the uncle’s
proud eye is always on him; he follows him about like a dog--worse,
for dogs are not admitted into clubs! However, this twelve months’
holiday in a far country will be a most blessed relief to the boy and
A1 business for me. I’m on my last legs; and if this had not turned up,
I’d have had to make strong running with Miss Clodde. She is common
and repulsive looking, but has thirty thousand pounds. I hope I may
never be so _desperate_ as to marry her--at any rate, I have a year’s
respite.”
“How do you know she would have you, Clar?”
Clar’s laugh was an interesting study in manly assurance.
“I really wish you _were_ married,” continued his sister rather
peevishly.
“Yes; to a rich elderly widow who has had her fling--that is my style.”
“What a horrible way of talking! You are really too dreadful. I suppose
this trip will be rather costly?”
“Ra--_ther_!” emphatically.
“And you will be the treasurer?” opening her pale eyes to their widest
extent.
“I’m not so sure of that,” shaking his head. “Of course, as I am the
manager, and am personally conducting this tour, all payments ought to
come from _me_. ‘The uncle,’ however, is rather shy of having monetary
dealings with his brother-in-law, as you know by sad experience.
However, I may be able to work it, once we are in India, and you may
depend upon me for making the most of my time and--opportunities. I
was so hard up, I was thinking of taking a leaf out of Charlie Wilde’s
book. He writes hymns and tracts----”
“How absurd you are! What preposterous nonsense! Charlie Wilde, who
has never entered a place of worship for years, write tracts!”
“I tell you that he does!” persisted Clarence. “He has a wonderful
knack, and does the pathetic and emotional style A1. Gets about ten
pounds apiece, and invests the money in a flutter on the turf.”
“Well, Clar,” said his deeply shocked sister, “I cannot compliment you
on your companions; and, whatever you may come to, I hope you will
never arrive at such a pitch of wickedness as that.”
On one point Captain Waring and Mr. Pollitt were most warmly agreed,
viz. that “the trip must be done in good style if done at all.”
Mark was inclined to travel “on the cheap,” his uncle had complained,
and had protested against a large quantity of baggage, a battery of
guns, and a valet.
“Thirty pair of boots!” he cried. “What rubbish! I am not going to
_walk_ round India!”
“But Clarence says you can’t do with less, and he must know better than
you do,” argued Mr. Pollitt. “I wish you to travel like a gentleman,
not like a bag-man. There is where you disappoint me, my boy--you
make no show, no dash; your tastes are all for quiet--your favourite
character is the violet, and you prefer a back seat. You are going
out in the same steamer with a lot of nobs--I’ve seen to that--and it
is as likely as not that you will join forces when you land. These
swells take to you. As for me, they only take to my dinners, and my
deer forest. However, as long as _you_ are in the best set, I don’t
care--I’m satisfied.”
“I think Clarence and I will stick to ourselves, and not join any
party, sir; we will be more independent. He has sketched out our
beat--Bombay, Poonah, Secunderabad, Travancore, Madras, Ceylon,
Calcutta, the hills; and that puts me in mind to ask if you have any
idea of my father’s whereabouts?”
“Bostock and Bell, Bombay, are his agents,” evading the question and
his nephew’s eyes.
“I know that; I have written to their care steadily for the last six
years.”
“And never had an answer?” with ill-concealed satisfaction.
“No, except a ‘Pioneer’ at long, long intervals.”
“Just to show that he is alive? Let me see, it is eight years since he
left the service and went to live at a place called the Doon. He wrote
pretty regularly up to then; and when Mrs. Jervis was killed in that
carriage accident, he never sent a line, only a paper. Poor woman! I
believe she led him a devil of a life. She was insanely jealous.”
“I suppose I can get his address in Bombay--his real address, I mean?”
“Yes, I should think so.”
“And then I shall look him up--at once.”
“If he will be looked up. The Jervises are an eccentric family. I
heard some queer stories of them not long ago.”
“But my father never struck you as eccentric, did he?”
“No. And, of course, you must try and see him; but don’t let him lay
hands on you and _keep_ you, my boy. He was a handsome, persuasive sort
of fellow, and had wonderful personal charm--when he chose to exert it.
India has cast a spell upon him, and kept him with her for the best
part of his life. Don’t let India do the same by _you_.”
“No fear of that,” with emphasis.
“Well, I’m sorry now you are going out there, for several reasons. I
would have preferred China or Australia, but Waring has his say and his
way.”
“And I had _my_ say and my way too, Uncle Ben. India is my native
land; I remember it distinctly--the servants with their dark faces and
big white turbans, my little chestnut pony, which was called the ‘Lal
Tatoo,’ and I want to see my father. You know we have not met for
fifteen years.”
“I know,” assented Mr. Pollitt, gloomily, and added, after a pause, “I
wonder now, if it would be possible for you to throw me over--and stop
out there with him!”
“There is not the smallest probability of that. Besides, my father does
not want me.”
“And supposing that he _did_!” exclaimed Mr. Pollitt, suddenly jumping
up and beginning to walk about the room. “Bear this in view, that you
must make up your mind between us! You cannot be son and heir to _two_
men! You can pay him a visit of a week, or at most a month; but if you
postpone coming home at his request--I warn you, that you may stay in
India till I fetch you! To put the matter in a nutshell, I wash my
hands of you for ever! Not one farthing of my money will you see,” he
continued, speaking in great excitement. “I shall leave every shilling
to hospitals, you understand that, eh?” he gasped, breathless.
“Yes, and it would be but just. I cannot live with my father in India
and be your adopted son at home, but you are needlessly alarmed. I
shall turn up again within a year without fail. I’ll take a return
ticket if you like.”
“Well, that’s a bargain, my boy. I’m a bit jealous of your father, and
it’s a nasty, low, ungentlemanly feeling. I must confess that I have
been glad that he, so to speak, dropped you. But he handed you over to
me when he married the Begum, and you are _my_ son--not his.”
The day of departure arrived; the valet (a somewhat garrulous person,
with superb references), in charge of three cabs loaded with baggage,
preceded the travellers to Victoria, whilst Mr. and Mrs. Pollitt drove
the young men in the family landau, in order to see the last of them.
As Mark and his uncle slowly paced the platform, the latter, who had
been incessantly fussy all the morning, said--
“Now, I hope nothing has been forgotten, and that you have everything
you want?”
“I’m sure we have--and ten times over.”
“You will write often--once a week--if only a line, eh? Mind you don’t
forget us.”
“No fear of that, Uncle Dan.”
“And remember our bargain. Though I have not taken return tickets,
after all. Don’t stay longer than the year. I don’t know how I’m to
get on without you. I can never use the mail-phaeton now, for I hate
sitting beside the coachman--and--you know, I tried to drive once--and
the result. There will be no one to take me on the river on a hot
afternoon--other people but you think an old fogey has no business
there. Oh, I shall miss you! I’ve lodged money for you in Bombay with
Bostock & Bell’s” (naming a magnificent sum), “and when it’s done, you
must come home, for I won’t send you another stiver. It’s in your name,
of course--you will be paymaster.”
“All right, uncle.”
“Keep your cheque-book locked up. Don’t let a tiger get hold of you, or
one of those scheming, husband-hunting women that Clarence talks about.”
“You may make your mind quite easy on that score,” with a rather
derisive smile.
“Well, time is up, my dear boy. I am sorry you are going; take care of
yourself. God bless you!” wringing his hand as he spoke.
Meanwhile Mrs. Pollitt and her brother had also been having a few
parting words.
“Now, Clar,” she said impressively, “I have done a good thing for you.
This is a splendid chance. Be sure you make the most of it; if you
please the ‘uncle,’ as you call him, he will help you to something
better by-and-by.”
Clarence nodded sagaciously. He was in the highest spirits.
“You are not really limited to time, you know,” she continued, in a
whisper.
“I know,” and there was a significant look in his right eye, almost
approaching to a wink.
“And you will be manager--and paymaster.”
“Guide, councillor, and friend, you _bet_.”
“And now, dear boy, _do_ be prudent; don’t get into any more
entanglements with grass widows; don’t get into any more betting or
gambling scrapes--promise me.”
“I shall be as steady as old Time or young Mark himself, and I can’t
say more. Well, good-bye--and thanks awfully, Lina. I must say you _do_
stick to your own people”--adding, with a hasty kiss--“I see we are
off.”
As the carriage moved slowly past the Pollitts, who were standing side
by side, Clarence flung himself back with a boisterous laugh, as he
exclaimed--
“I declare, the uncle seems quite cut up--ha, ha, ha! Upon my soul, I
believe the old chap is _crying_!”
CHAPTER X.
MAJOR BYNG’S SUGGESTION.
Major Byng, a wiry, dried-up little officer, with remarkably thin
legs and sporting proclivities, was reclining in a long chair, in the
verandah of the Napier Hotel, Poonah, smoking his after-breakfast
“Trichy,” and running his eye over the “Asian” pocket-book.
“Hullo, Byng, old man!” cried a loud cheerful voice, and looking up,
his amaze was depicted in the countenance he turned upon Clarence
Waring.
“Waring! Why--I thought,” putting down his book and sitting erect.
“Thought I had gone home--sold out and was stone broke. But here I am,
you see, on my legs again.”
“Delighted to hear it,” with a swift glance at Waring’s well-to-do
air and expensive-looking clothes. “Sit down, my dear boy,” he cried
cordially, “sit down and have a cheroot, and tell me all about yourself
and what has brought you back again to the land of regrets? Is it tea,
coffee, or gold?”
“Gold, in one sense. I am companion to a young millionaire, or rather
to the nephew of a man who has so much money--and _no_ children--that
he does not know what to do.”
“And who is the young man? Does _he_ know what to do?”
“His name is Jervis--his rich uncle is married to my sister; we are
connections, you see, and when he expressed a desire to explore the
gorgeous East, my sister naturally suggested _me_ for the post of
guide, philosopher, and friend.”
Here Major Byng gave a short sharp laugh, like a bark.
“We landed in Bombay ten days ago, and are going to tour about and see
the world.”
“What is the programme?”
“_My_ programme is as follows: Poonah races, Secunderabad races, Madras
races, a big game shoot in Travancore, expense no object, elephants,
beaters, club-cook, coolies with letters, and ice for the champagne.
Then I shall run him about in the train a bit, and show him Delhi,
Agra, Jeypore; after that we will put in the end of the cold weather in
Calcutta. I have lots of pals there, and from Calcutta we will go to
the hills, to Shirani. I shall be glad to see the old club again--many
a fleeting hour have I spent there!”
“That same club had a shocking bad name for gambling and bear
fighting,” said Major Byng significantly.
“I believe it had, now you mention it; but you may be sure that it has
reformed--like myself.”
“And this young fellow--what is he like?”
“Quiet, gentlemanly, easy-going, easily pleased, thinks every one a
good sort,” and Waring laughed derisively; “abhors all fuss or show,
never bets, never gets up in the morning with a head, no expensive
tastes.”
“In fact, his tastes are miserably beneath his opportunities! What a
pity it is that the millionaire is not _your_ uncle!”
“Yes, instead of merely brother-in-law, and brothers-in-law are
notoriously unfeeling. However, I have adopted mine as my own blood
relation, for the present. _I_ boss the show. Come and dine with me
to-night, and tell me all the ‘gup,’ and give me the straight tip for
the Arab purse.”
“All right. Is this young Jervis a sportsman?”
“He is a first-class man on a horse, and he plays polo, but he does not
go in for racing--more’s the pity!”
“Plays polo, does he? By Jove!” and an eager light shone in the major’s
little greenish eyes. “I’ve a couple of ponies for sale----”
“He does not want them now, whatever he may do later in Calcutta or in
the hills. I shall be looking out for three or four for myself, good
sound ones, mind you, Byng, up to weight. I’ve put on flesh, you see,
but I dare say my anxious responsibilities will wear me down a bit.
Jervis does not weigh more than ten stone, and, talk of the devil, here
he comes.”
Major Byng turned his head quickly, as at this moment Waring’s
travelling companion, a slight, active-looking young man, entered the
compound, closely pursued by a swarm of hawkers, and their accompanying
train of coolies, bearing on their heads the inevitable Poonah figures,
hand-screens, pottery, beetle-work, silks, silver, and jewellery.
“I say, Waring,” he called out as he approached, “just look at me!
One would think I was a queen bee. If this goes on, you will have to
consign me to a lunatic asylum, if there is such a place out here.”
“Mark, let me introduce you to my old friend, Major Byng.”
Major Byng bent forward in his chair--to stand up was too great an
exertion even to greet a possible purchaser of polo ponies--smiled
affably, and said--
“You are only just out, I understand. How do you like India?”
“So far, I loathe it,” sitting down as he spoke, removing his topee,
and wiping his forehead. “Ever since I landed, I have lived in a state
of torment.”
“Ah, the mosquitoes!” exclaimed Major Byng, sympathetically; “you will
get used to them. They always make for new arrivals and fresh blood.”
“No, no; but human mosquitoes! Touts, hawkers, beggars, jewellers,
horse-dealers. They all set upon me from the moment I arrived. Ever
since then, my life is a burthen to me. It was pretty bad on board
ship. Some of our fellow-travellers seemed to think I was a great
celebrity, instead of the common or ordinary passenger; they loaded me
with civil speeches, and the day we got into Bombay I was nearly buried
alive in invitations, people were _so_ sorry to part with me!”
“Here is a nice young cynic for you!” exclaimed Captain Waring,
complacently. “He is not yet accustomed to the fierce light that
beats upon a good-looking young bachelor, _heir_ to thirty thousand a
year----”
“Why not make it a hundred thousand at once, while you are about it?”
interrupted the other impatiently. “How could they tell I was _heir_ to
any one? I’m sure I am a most everyday-looking individual. My uncle’s
income is not ticketed on my back!”
“It was in one sense,” exclaimed Waring, with a chuckle.
“It was only with the common, vulgar class that I was so immensely
popular.”
“My dear fellow, you are much too humble minded. You were popular with
every one.”
“No, by no means; I could have hugged the supercilious old dame who
asked me with a drawl if I was in any way related to Pollitt’s patent
fowl food? I was delighted to answer with effusion, ‘Nephew, ma’am.’
_She_ despised me from the very bottom of her soul, and made no foolish
effort to conceal her feelings.”
“Ah! She had no _daughters_,” rejoined Waring, with a scornful
laugh. “The valet told all about you. He had nothing on earth to
do, but magnify his master and consequently exalt himself. Your
value is reflected in your gentleman’s gentleman, and he had no mock
modesty, and priced you at a cool million! By the way, I saw him
driving off just now in the best hotel landau, with his feet on the
opposite cushions, and a cigarette in his mouth. He is a magnificent
advertisement.”
They were now the centre of a vast mob of hawkers, who formed a
squatting circle, and the verandah was fully stocked. The jewellers had
already untied their nice little tin boxes from their white calico
wrappers, and their contents were displayed on the usual enticing
squares of red saloo.
“Waring Sahib!” screamed an ancient vendor with but one eye. “Last
time, three four years ago, I see you at Charleville Hotel, Mussouri, I
sell your honour one very nice diamond bangle for one pretty lady----”
“Well, Crackett, I’m not such a fool now. I want a neat pearl pin for
myself.” He proceeded to deliberately select one from a case, and
then added with a grin, “That time, _I_ paying for lady; _this_ time,
gentleman,” pointing to Jervis, “paying for _me_.”
“I can’t stand it,” cried Jervis, jumping to his feet. “Here is the
man with the chestnut Arab and the spotted cob with pink legs, that
has been persecuting me for two days; and here comes the boy with the
stuffed peacock who has stalked me all morning; and--I see the girl in
the thunder and lightning waistcoat. I know she is going to ask me to
ride with her,” and he snatched up his topee and fled.
Major Byng noticed Jervis at the _table d’hôte_ that evening. He
had been cleverly “cut off” from Waring, and was the prey of two
over-dressed, noisy young women. Mrs. Pollitt was mistaken, second-rate
people _did_ come to India.
“I’ll tell you what, Waring!” he said to that gentleman, who was in
his most jovial, genial humour, “that young fellow is most shamefully
mobbed. His valet has given him away. If you don’t look out, he will
slip his heel ropes and bolt home. Pray observe his expression! Just
look at those two women, especially at the one who is measuring the
size of her waist with her _serviette_, for his information. He will go
back by the next steamer; it is written on his forehead!”
“No, he won’t do that,” rejoined Clarence, with lazy confidence. “He
has a most particular reason for staying out here for a while; but I
grant you that he is not enjoying himself, and does not appear to
appreciate seeing the world--and it is not a bad old world if you know
the right way to take it. Now, if _I_ were in his shoes,” glancing
expressively across the table, “I’d fool that young woman to the very
top of her bent!”
In the billiard-room, when Mark joined them, Major Byng said--
“I saw your dismal plight at dinner, and pitied you. If you want to
lead a quiet life, and will take an old soldier’s advice, I would say,
get rid of the valet, send him home with half your luggage. Then start
from a fresh place, where no one knows you, with a good Mussulman
bearer, who is a complete stranger to your affairs. Let Clarence
here be paymaster--_he_ can talk the language, and looks wealthy and
important--he won’t mind bearing the brunt, or being taken for a rich
man if the trouble breaks out again, and you can live in peace and gang
your ain gait.”
The Major’s advice was subsequently acted upon,--with most excellent
results. The cousins meanwhile attended the Poonah races, where
Clarence met some old acquaintances.
One of them privately remarked to Major Byng--
“Waring seems to have nine lives, like a cat, and looks most festive
and prosperous. I saw him doing a capital ready-money business with the
‘Bookies’ just now--and he is a good customer to the Para Mutual. It is
a little startling to see _him_ in the character of mentor. I only hope
he won’t get into _many_ scrapes!”
“Oh, Telemachus has his head screwed on pretty tight, and he will look
after Waring--the pupil will take care of the teacher. He is a real
good sort, that boy. I wonder if his people know how old Clarence used
to race, and carry on and gamble at the lotteries, and generally play
the devil when he was out here?”
“Not they!” emphatically.
“He owes me one hundred rupees this three years, but he is such a
tremendous Bahadur now, that I am ashamed to remind him of such a
trifling sum. I sincerely hope that he has turned over a new leaf and
is a reformed character. What do you say, Crompton?”
“I say ‘Amen,’ with all my heart,” was the prompt response.
Mark Jervis had gone straight to the agents, Bostock & Bell’s, the day
he had landed in Bombay, and asked for his father’s address. He only
obtained it with difficulty and after considerable delay. The head of
the firm, in a private interview, earnestly entreated him to keep the
secret, otherwise they would get into trouble, as Major Jervis was a
_peculiar_ man and most mysterious about his affairs, which were now
entirely managed by a Mr. Cardozo. Major Jervis had not corresponded
with them personally, for years. He then scribbled something on a card,
which he handed to the new arrival, who eagerly read, “Mr. Jones,
Hawal-Ghât, via Shirani, N.W.P.” The major’s son despatched a letter
with this superscription by the very next post.
CHAPTER XI.
A RESERVED LADY.
A hot moonless night towards the end of March, and the up-mail from
Bombay to Calcutta has come to a standstill. The glare from the furnace
and the carriage lamps lights up the ghostly looking telegraph-posts,
the dusty cactus hedge, and illuminates a small portion of the
surrounding jungle. Anxiously gazing eyes see no sign of a station, or
even of a signalman’s hut, within the immediate glare--and beyond it
there looms a rocky, barren tract, chiefly swallowed up in inscrutable
darkness.
There is a babel of men’s voices, shrill and emotional, and not
emanating from European throats, a running of many feet, and above all
is heard the snorting of the engine and the dismal shrieks of the steam
whistle.
“What does it all mean?” inquired a silvery treble, and a fluffy head
leant out of a first-class ladies’ compartment.
“Nothing to be alarmed about,” responded a pleasant tenor voice from
the permanent way. “There has been a collision between two goods trains
about a mile ahead, and the line is blocked.”
“Any one killed?” she drawled.
“Only a couple of niggers,” rejoined the pleasant voice, in a cheerful
key.
“Dear me!” exclaimed the lady with sudden animation; “why, Captain
Waring, surely it cannot be you!”
“Pray why not?” now climbing up on the foot-board. “And do I behold
Mrs. Bellett?” as the head and shoulders of a good-looking man appeared
at the window, and looked into the carriage, which contained a
mountain of luggage, two ladies, a monkey, and a small green parrot.
“Where have you dropped from?” she inquired. “I thought you had left
India for ever and ever. What has brought you back?”
“The remembrance of happier days,” he answered, with a sentimental air,
“and a P. and O. steamer.”
“But you have left the service, surely?”
“Yes, three years ago; it was too much of a grind at home. Formerly I
was in India on duty, now I am out here for pleasure. No bother about
over-staying my leave--no fear of brass hats.”
“Meanwhile, is there any fear of our being run into by another train?”
inquired the second lady nervously, a lady who sat at the opposite side
of the compartment with her head muffled up in a pink shawl.
“Not the smallest; we are perfectly safe.”
“Captain Waring, this is my sister, Mrs. Coote,” explained Mrs.
Bellett. “And now perhaps you can tell us where we are, and what is to
become of us?”
“As to where you are, you are about three miles from Okara Junction;
as to what will happen to you, I am afraid that you will have to walk
there under my escort--if I may be permitted that honour.”
“Walk three miles!” she repeated shrilly. “Why, I have not done such
a thing for years, and I have on thin shoes. Could we not go on the
engine?”
“Yes, if the engine could fly over nearly a hundred luggage waggons. It
is a fine starlight night; we will get a lamp, and can keep along the
line. They have sent for a break-down gang, and we shall catch another
train at Okara. We will only have about an hour or two to wait.”
“Well, I suppose we must make the best of it!” said Mrs. Coote, “like
others,” as numbers of natives flocked past, chattering volubly, and
carrying their bedding and bundles.
“I wish we could get supper at Okara,” said her sister. “I am sure we
shall want it after our tramp; but I know we need not build on anything
better than a goat chop, and the day before yesterday’s curry. However,
I have a tea-basket.”
“I can go one better,” said Captain Waring. “I have a tiffin-basket,
well supplied with ice, champagne, cold tongue, potted
grouse--cake--fruit----”
“You are making me quite ravenous,” cried Mrs. Bellett. “But how are
you to get all these delicacies to Okara?”
“By a coolie, I hope. If the worst comes to the worst, I will carry
them on my head, sooner than leave them behind. However, rupees work
wonders, and I expect I shall get hold of as many as will carry the
basket, and also your baggage; I suppose fifty will do?” and with a
grin, he climbed down out of sight.
“What a stroke of luck, Nettie!” exclaimed Mrs. Bellett. “He used to
be such a friend of mine at Mussouri, and imagine coming across him in
this way! He seems to be rolling in money; he must have come in for
a fortune, for he used to be frightfully hard up. I’m so glad to meet
him.”
“Yes, it’s all very fine for _you_, who are dressed,” rejoined the
other in a peevish voice; “but just look at me in an old tea-jacket,
with my hair in curling-pins!”
“Oh, you were all right! I’m certain he never noticed you!” was the
sisterly reply. “Let us be quick and put up our things. I wish to
goodness the ayah was here,” and she began to bustle about, and strap
up wraps and pillows, and collect books and fans.
Every one in the train seemed to be in a state of activity, preparing
for departure, and presently many parties on foot, with lanterns, might
be seen streaming along the line. Captain Waring promptly returned with
a dozen coolies, and soon Mrs. Bellett’s carriage was empty. She and
her sister were assisted by Captain Waring and a young man--presumably
his companion. Ere descending, Mrs. Bellett, who had a pretty foot,
paused on the step to exhibit the thinness of her shoes, and demanded,
as she put out her Louis-Quatorze sole, “how she was to walk three
miles in _that_, along a rough road?”
The two ladies were nevertheless in the highest spirits, and appeared
to enjoy the novelty of the adventure. Ere the quartette had gone
twenty yards, the guard came shouting after them--
“Beg pardon, sir,” to Captain Waring, “but there is a lady quite alone
in my charge. I can’t take her on; I must stay and see to the baggage,
and remain here. And would you look after her?”
“Where is she?” demanded Waring, irritably.
“Last carriage but one--reserved ladies, first-class.”
“I say, Mark,” turning to his friend, “if she is a reserved lady, you
are all right. He is awfully shy, this young fellow,” he explained to
his other companions, with a loud laugh. “I don’t mind betting that
she is old--and you know you are fond of old women--so just run back
like a good chap. You see, I have Mrs. Bellett and her sister--you
won’t be five minutes behind us, bring on the reserved lady as fast as
you can.”
The other made no audible reply, but obediently turned about, and went
slowly past the rows of empty carriages until he came nearly to the end
of the train. Here he discovered a solitary white figure standing above
him in the open door of a compartment, and a girlish voice called down
into the dark--
“Is that you, guard?”
“No,” was the answer; “but the guard has sent me to ask if I can help
you in any way.”
A momentary pause, and then there came a rather doubtful “Thank you.”
“Your lamp has gone out, I see, but I can easily strike a match and get
your things together. There is a block on the line, and you will have
to get down and walk on to the next station.”
“Really? Has there been an accident? I could not make out what the
people were saying.”
“It is not of much consequence--two goods trains disputing the right
way; but we shall have to walk to Okara to catch the Cawnpore mail.”
“Is it far?”
“About three miles, I believe.”
“Oh, that is not much! I have not many things--only a dressing-bag, a
rug, and a parasol.”
“All right; if you will pass them down, I will carry them.”
“But surely there is a porter,” expostulated the lady, “and I need not
trouble you.”
“I don’t suppose there is what _you_ call a porter nearer than
Brindisi, and all the coolies are taking out the luggage. Allow me to
help you.”
In another second the young lady, who was both light and active, stood
beside him on the line. She was English; she was tall; and she wore a
hideously shaped country-made topee--that was all that he could make
out in the dim light.
“Now, shall we start?” he asked briskly, taking her bag, rug, and
parasol.
“Please let me have the bag,” she entreated. “I--I--that is to say, I
would rather keep it myself. All my money is in it.”
“And I may be a highwayman for what you know,” he returned, with a
laugh. “I give you my word of honour that, if you will allow me to
carry it, I will not rob you.”
“I did not mean that,” she stammered.
“Then what did you mean? At any rate _I_ mean to keep it. The other
passengers are on ahead--I suppose you are quite alone?”
“Almost. There is a servant in the train who is supposed to look after
me, but I am looking after him, and seeing that he is not left behind
at the different junctions. We cannot understand one word we exchange,
so he grins and gesticulates, and I nod and point; but it all comes to
nothing, or worse than nothing. I wanted some tea this morning, and he
brought me whisky and soda.”
“And have you no one to rely on but this intelligent attendant?”
“No. The people I came out with changed at Khandala, and left me in
charge of the guard, and in a through carriage to Allahabad; and of
course we never expected this.”
“So you have just come out from home?” he observed, as they walked
along at a good pace.
“Yes; arrived yesterday morning in the _Arcadia_.”
“Then this is the first time you have actually set foot on Indian soil,
for trains and gharries do not count?”
“It is. Are there”--looking nervously at the wild expanse on either
hand--“any tigers about, do you think?”
“No, I sincerely hope not, as I have no weapon but your parasol. Joking
apart, you are perfectly safe. This”--with a wave of the aforesaid
parasol--“is not their style of hunting-ground.”
“And what is their style, as you call it?”
“Oh, lots of high grass and jungle, in a cattle country.”
“Have you shot many tigers?”
“Two last month. My friend and I had rather good sport down in
Travancore.”
“I suppose you live out here?”
“No, I have only been about six months in the country.”
“I wish _I_ had been six months in India.”
“May I ask why?”
“Certainly you may. Because I would be going home in six months more.”
“And you only landed forty-eight hours ago! Surely you are not tired of
it already. I thought all young ladies liked India. Mind where you are
going! It is very dark here. Will you take hold of my arm?”
“No, thank you,” rather stiffly.
“Then my hand? You really had better, or you will come a most awful
cropper, and trip over the sleepers.”
“Here is an extraordinary adventure!” said Honor to herself. “What
would Jessie and Fairy say, if they could see me now, walking along
in the dark through a wild desolate country, hand-in-hand with an
absolutely strange young man, whose face I have never even seen?”
A short distance ahead were groups of chattering natives--women
with red dresses and brass lotahs, which caught the light of their
hand-lanterns (a lantern is to a native what an umbrella is to a
Briton); turbaned, long-legged men, who carried bundles, lamps, and
sticks. The line was bordered on either hand by thick hedges of greyish
cactus; here and there glimmered a white flower; here and there an
ancient bush showed bare distorted roots, like the ribs of some defunct
animal. Beyond stretched a dim mysterious landscape, which looked
weird and ghostly by the light of a few pale stars. The night was still
and oppressively warm.
“You will be met at Allahabad, I suppose?” observed Honor’s unknown
escort, after a considerable silence.
“Yes--by my aunt.”
“You must be looking forward to seeing her again?”
“_Again!_ I have never seen her as yet.” She paused, and then
continued, “We are three girls at home, and my aunt and uncle wished to
have one of us on a visit, and _I_ came.”
“Not very willingly, it would seem,” with a short laugh.
“No; I held out as long as I could. I am--or rather was--the useful one
at home.”
“And did your aunt and uncle stipulate for the most useful niece?”
“By no means--they--they, to tell you the truth, they asked for the
_pretty_ one, and I am not the beauty of the family.”
“No? Am I to take your word for that, or are you merely fishing?”
“I assure you that I am not. I am afraid my aunt will be disappointed;
but it was unavoidable. My eldest sister writes, and could not
well give up what she calls her literary customers. My next sister
is--is--not strong, and so they sent me--a _dernier ressort_.”
She was speaking quite frankly to this stranger, and felt rather
ashamed of her garrulity; but he had a pleasant voice, he was the first
friendly soul she had come across since she had left home, and she
was desperately home-sick. A long solitary railway journey had only
increased her complaint, and she was ready to talk of home to _any
one_--would probably have talked of it to the chuprassi,--if he could
have understood her!
Her escort had been an unscrupulous, selfish little woman, whose
nurse, having proved a bad sailor, literally saddled her good-natured,
inexperienced charge with the care of two unruly children, and this
in a manner that excited considerable indignation among her fellow
passengers.
“Why should you call yourself a _dernier ressort_?” inquired her
companion, after a pause, during which they continued to stumble along,
she holding timidly by the young man’s arm.
“Because I am; and I told them at home with my very last breath
that I was not a bit suited for coming out here, and mixing with
strangers--nothing but strangers--and going perpetually into what is
called ‘smart’ society, and beginning a perfectly novel kind of life. I
shall get into no end of scrapes.”
“May I ask your reason for this dismal prophecy?”
“Surely you can guess! Because I cannot hold my tongue. I blurt out
the first thing that comes into my head. If I think a thing wrong, or
odd, I must say so; I cannot help it, I am incurable. People at home
are used to me, and don’t mind. Also, I have a frightful and wholly
unconscious habit of selecting the most uncomfortable topics, and an
extremely bad memory for the names and faces of people with whom I have
but a slight acquaintance; so you see that I am not likely to be a
social success!”
“Let us hope that you take a gloomy view of yourself. For instance,
what is your idea of an uncomfortable topic?”
“If I am talking to a person with a cast in the eye, I am positively
certain ere long to find myself conversing volubly about squints; or,
if my partner wears a wig, I am bound to bring wigs on the tapis.
I believe I am possessed by some mischievous imp, who enjoys my
subsequent torture.”
“Pray how do you know that _I_ have not a squint, or a wig, or both?
A wig would not be half a bad thing in this hot climate; to take off
your hair as you do your hat would often be a great relief! Ah, here we
are coming to the scene of the collision at last,” and presently they
passed by a long row of waggons, and then two huge engines, one across
the line, the other reared up against it; an immense bonfire burnt
on the bank, and threw the great black monsters into strong outline.
Further on they came to a gate and level crossing. The gate of the
keeper’s hut stood wide open, and on the threshold a grey-haired old
woman sat with her head between her knees, sobbing; within were moans,
as if wrung from a sufferer in acute anguish. Honor’s unknown companion
suddenly halted, and exclaimed impulsively--
“I’m afraid some one has been badly hurt; if you don’t mind, I’ll just
go and see.”
Almost ere she had nodded a quick affirmative, he had vaulted over the
gate, and left her.
CHAPTER XII.
TWO GOOD SAMARITANS.
In all her life, the youngest Miss Gordon had never felt so utterly
solitary or forsaken as now, when she stood alone on the line of the
Great Indian Peninsular Railway. Before her the party of natives, with
their twinkling lanterns, were gradually reaching vanishing point;
behind her was a long, still procession of trucks and waggons, that
looked like some dreadful black monster waiting for its prey; on either
hand stretched the greyish unknown mysterious landscape, from which
strange unfamiliar sounds, in the shape of croakings and cries, were
audible. Oh! when would her nameless companion return? She glanced
anxiously towards the hut, it was beyond the gate, and down a steep
bank, away from the road; animated figures seemed to pass to and fro
against the lighted open door. Ah! here came one of them, her escort,
who had in point of fact been only absent five minutes, and not, as she
imagined, half an hour.
“It is a stoker who has been cut about the head and badly scalded,”
he explained breathlessly. “They are waiting for an apothecary from
Okara, and meanwhile they are trying a native herb and a charm. They
don’t seem to do the poor chap much good. I think I might be able to do
something better for him, though I have no experience, beyond seeing
accidents at football and out hunting; but I cannot leave you here like
this, and yet I cannot well ask you inside the hut, the heat is like
a furnace--and--altogether--it--it would be too much for you, but if
you would not mind waiting outside just for a few minutes, I’d get you
something to sit on.”
“Thank you, but I would rather go in--I have attended an ambulance
class--‘first aid,’ you know, and perhaps I may be of some little use;
there is sticking-plaster, eau-de-Cologne, and a pair of scissors in my
bag.”
“Well, mind; you must brace up your nerves,” he answered, as he pushed
open the gate, and led her down the crumbling sandy incline.
The heat within the hut was almost suffocating; as the girl, following
her guide, entered, every eye was instantly fixed upon her in wide
surprise.
By the light of a small earthen lamp, which smoked horribly, she
distinguished the figure of a man crouching on the edge of a charpoy;
he was breathing in hard hoarse gasps, and bleeding from a great gash
above his eye.
A Eurasian, in a checked cotton suit, stood by, talking
incessantly--but doing nothing else. There were also present, besides
the old woman--a veritable shrivelled-up hag--two native men, possibly
the “bhai-bands,” or chums of the sufferer; in a corner, a large black
pariah sat watching everything, with a pair of unwinking yellow eyes;
and on another charpoy lay a still figure, covered with a sheet. A few
earthen chatties, a mat, a huka, and some gaudy English prints--for
the most part nailed upside down--completed the picture. Hitherto the
travelling companions had been to each other merely the embodiment of
an undefined figure and a voice; the light of the little mud lamp,
whose curling smoke threw outlines of dancing black devils on the
walls, now introduced them for the first time face to face. To Honor
Gordon stood revealed an unexpectedly good-looking young man, slight
and well built, with severely cut features, and a pair of handsome
hazel eyes, which were surveying her gravely. A gentleman, not merely
in his speech and actions, but in his bearing.
He, on his part, was not in the least surprised to behold a pale but
decidedly pretty girl; by means of some mysterious instinct he had
long made up his mind that the owner of such a delicate hand and sweet
clear voice could not be otherwise than fair to see.
“The apothecary cannot be here for one hour!” exclaimed the Eurasian,
glibly. “He,” pointing to the patient, “is very bad. We have put some
herbs to his arm, and the back of his head; but I, myself, think that
he will _die_!” he concluded with an air of melancholy importance.
Some kind of a bandage was the first thing Honor asked for, and asked
for in vain; she then quickly unwound the puggaree from her topee, and
tore it into three parts.
Then she bathed and bandaged the man’s head, with quick and sympathetic
fingers, whilst Jervis held the lamp, offered suggestions, and looked
on, no less impressed than amazed; he had hitherto had an idea that
girls always screamed and shrank away from the sight of blood and
horrors.
This girl, though undeniably white, was as cool and self-possessed, as
firm, yet gentle, as any capable professional nurse.
The scalded arm and hand--a shocking spectacle--were attended to by
both. The great thing was to exclude the air, and give the sufferer at
least temporary relief. With some native flour, a bandage was deftly
applied, the arm placed in a sling, and the patient’s head was bathed
with water and eau-de-Cologne. Fanned assiduously by the girl’s fan, he
began to feel restored, he had been given heart, he had been assured
that his hurts were not mortal, and presently he languidly declared
himself better.
The natives who stood round, whilst the sahib and Miss Sahib ministered
so quickly and effectually to their friend, now changed their
lamentations to loud ejaculations of wonder and praise. Miss Gordon was
amazed to hear her companion giving directions to these spectators in
fluent and sonorous Hindustani, and still more astounded when, as she
took up her topee, preparatory to departure, the Eurasian turned to
him, and said in an impressive squeak--
“Sir, your wife is a saint--an angel of goodness”--and then, as an
hasty afterthought, he added, “and beauty!”
Before Jervis could collect his wits and speak, she had replied--
“I am not this gentleman’s wife; we are only fellow-passengers. Why
should you think so?” she demanded sharply.
“Because--oh, _please_ do not be angry--you looked so suitable,” he
answered with disarming candour. “Truly, I hope you may be married
_yet_, and I wish you both riches, long life, and great happiness,” he
added, bowing very low, lamp in hand.
Honor passed out of the hut, with her head held extraordinarily high,
scrambled up the bank, and proceeded along the line at a headlong pace
in indignant silence.
She now maintained a considerable distance between herself and her
escort; no doubt her eyes were becoming accustomed to the dim light,
and at any rate there was that in her air which prevented him offering
either arm or hand. In spite of the recent scene in which they had
both been actors, where he had clipped hair and cut plaster, and she
had applied bandages and scanty remedies to the same “case,” they were
not drawn closer together; on the contrary, they were much further
apart than during the first portion of their walk, and the young lady’s
confidences had now entirely ceased. She confined herself exclusively
to a few bald remarks about the patient, and the climate, remarks
issued at intervals of ten minutes, and her answers to his observations
were confined to “Yes” and “No.” At last Okara station was reached;
and, to tell the truth, neither of them were sorry to bring their
_tête-à-tête_ to a conclusion. The dazzling lights on the platform made
their eyes blink, as they threaded their way to the general refreshment
room, discovering it readily enough by sounds of many and merry voices,
who were evidently availing themselves of its somewhat limited
resources.
It was not a very large apartment, but it was full. The table was
covered with a thin native tablecloth, two large lamps with punkah
tops, and two cruet-stands and an American ice-pitcher were placed at
formal intervals down the middle. It was surrounded with people, who
were eating, drinking, and talking. At the further end sat Captain
Waring, supported on either hand by his two fair companions, three
men--young and noisy, whom they evidently knew--and a prim, elderly
woman, who looked inexpressibly shocked at the company, and had
pointedly fenced herself off from Mrs. Bellett with a teapot and a
wine-card. Captain Waring’s friends had not partaken of tea (as the
champagne-bottle testified). The tongue, cake, and fruit had also
evidently received distinguished marks of their esteem. Mrs. Bellett
put up her long eyeglass, and surveyed exhaustively the pair who now
entered.
“Hullo, Mark! What ages you have been!” exclaimed his cousin. “We can
make room at this corner--come along, old man.”
Mark and his companion found themselves posted at the two corners at
the end of the table, and were for the moment the cynosure of all eyes.
In a few seconds, as soon as the newcomers had been looked after
and given the scraps, the party continued their interrupted
conversation with redoubled animation. They all appeared to know one
another intimately. Captain Waring had evidently fallen among old
friends. They discussed people and places--to which the others were
strangers--and Mrs. Bellett was particularly animated, and laughed
incessantly--chiefly at her own remarks.
“And so Lalla Paske is going to her Aunt Ida? I thought Ida Langrishe
_hated_ girls. I wonder if she will be able to manage her niece, and
what sort of a chaperon she will make?”
“A splendid one, I should say,” responded a man in a suit like a
five-barred gate--“on the principle of set a thief to catch a thief.”
“And old Mother Brande, up at Shirani, is expecting a niece too. What
fun it will be! What rivalry between her and Ida! What husband-hunting,
and scheming, and match-making! It will be as good as one of Oscar
Wilde’s plays. I am rather sorry that I shall not be there to see. I
shall get people to write to me--you for one, Captain Waring,” and she
nodded at him graciously.
Mark noticed his companion, who had been drinking water (deluded
girl--railway station water), put down her glass hastily, and fix her
eyes on Mrs. Bellett. No one could call her pale _now_.
“I wonder what Mrs. Brande’s niece will be like?” drawled her sister.
“I wonder if she, like her aunt, has been in domestic service. He, he,
he!” she giggled affectedly.
There was a general laugh, in the midst of which a clear treble voice
was heard--
“If you particularly wish to know, I can answer _that_ question.” It
was the pale girl who was speaking.
Mrs. Coote simply glared, too astounded to utter a syllable.
“I was not aware that my aunt had ever been in domestic service; but I
can relieve you at once of all anxiety about myself. I have never been
in any situation, and _this_ is the nearest approach I have ever made
to the servants’ hall!”
If the lamp in front of them had suddenly exploded, there could
scarcely have been more general consternation. Mrs. Bellett gasped like
a newly-landed fish; Captain Waring, purple with suppressed laughter,
was vainly cudgelling his brain for some suitable and soothing remark,
when the door was flung back by the guard, bawling--
“Take your seats--take your seats, please, passengers by the Cawnpore
mail.”
Undoubtedly the train had never arrived at a more propitious moment.
The company rose with one consent, thrust back their chairs, snatched
up their parcels, and hurried precipitately out of the room, leaving
Honor and her escort _vis-à-vis_ and all alone.
“If those are specimens of English-women in India,” she exclaimed,
“give _me_ the society of the natives; that dear old creature in the
hut was far more of a lady.”
“Oh, you must not judge by Mrs. Bellett! I am sure she must be unique.
I have never seen any one like her, so far,” he remarked consolingly.
“I told you,” becoming calmer, and rising as she spoke, “that I could
not hold my tongue. I can _not_ keep quiet. You see I have lost no
time--I have begun already. Of course, the proper thing for me to
have done would have been to sit still and make no remark, instead of
hurling a bombshell into the enemy’s camp. I have disgraced myself and
you; they will say, ‘Evil communications corrupt good manners.’ I can
easily find a carriage. Ah, here is my treasure of a chuprassi. You
have been extremely kind; but your friends are waiting for you, and
really you had better not be seen with me any longer.”
She was very tall; and when she drew herself up their eyes were nearly
on a level. She looked straight at him, and held out her hand with a
somewhat forced smile.
He smiled also as he replied, “I consider it an honour to be seen
with you, under any circumstances, and I shall certainly see you off.
Our train is not leaving for five minutes. A ladies’ compartment, I
presume, and _not_ with Mrs. Bellett?”
They walked slowly along the platform, past the carriage in which Mrs.
Bellett and her sister were arranging their animals and parcels with
much shrill hilarity.
Miss Gordon was so fortunate as to secure a compartment to herself--the
imbecile chuprassi gibbering and gesticulating, whilst the sahib
handed in her slender stock of belongings. As the train moved away, she
leant out of the window and nodded a smiling farewell.
How good-looking he was as he stood under the lamp with his hat off!
How nice he had been to her--exactly like a brother! She drew back with
a long breath, that was almost a sigh, as she said to herself, “Of
course I shall never see him again.”
CHAPTER XIII.
TOBY JOY.
Letter from Mrs. Brande, Allahabad, to Pelham Brande, Esq., Shirani:--
“DEAR P.
“She arrived yesterday, so you may expect us on Saturday. Send Nubboo
down to Nath Tal Dak Bungalow on Thursday, to cook our dinner, and
don’t allow him _more_ than _six_ coolies and _one_ pony. Honor seems
to feel the heat a great deal, though she is thin, and not fat like
me. At first sight, I must tell you, I was _terribly_ disappointed.
When I saw her step out of the railway carriage, a tall girl in a
crumpled white dress, with a hideous bazar topee, and no puggaree--her
face very pale and covered with smuts, I felt ready to burst into
tears. She looked very nervous and surprised too. However, of course
I said nothing, she wasn’t to know that I had asked for the _pretty
one_, and we drove back to the Hodsons’ both in the very lowest
spirits. She was tired, the train had broken down, and they had all
to get out and walk miles in the middle of the night. After a while,
when she had had her tea, and a bath, and a real good rest, and
changed her dress, I declare I thought it was another person, when she
walked into the room. I found her uncommonly good-looking, and in five
minutes’ time she seemed really pretty. She has a lovely smile and
teeth to match, and fine eyes, and when she speaks her face lights up
wonderfully. Her hair is brown, just plain brown, no colour in it, but
very thick and fine. I know you will be awfully disappointed in her
complexion, as you were such a one for admiring a beautiful skin. She
has not _got any at all_.
“Just a pale clear colour and no more, but her figure is most
beautiful. Indeed, every time I look at her I notice something new;
now the nape of her neck, now her ears--all just so many models. She
is, of course, a little shy and strange, but is simple and easily
pleased; and, thank goodness, has no _grand airs_. I took her to
Madame Peter (such stuff her calling herself Pierre) to order some
gowns for dinner parties. I thought of a figured yellow satin and a
ruby plush, she being dark; but she would not _hear_ of them, and all
she would take was a couple of cottons. I can see she wants to choose
her own clothes, and that she would like to have a say in _mine_ too;
and knows a good deal about dress, and fashions, and is clever at
milinery (I always forget if there are two ‘L’s,’ but you won’t mind).
She says she is fond of dancing and tennis, but cannot ride or sing,
which is a pity.
“She has brought a fiddle with her, and she _plays_ on it, she tells
me. It reminds _me_ of a blind beggar with a dog for coppers, but the
Hodsons say it is all the go at home; they admire Honor immensely.
“I suppose Mrs. Langrishe’s girl has arrived. I hear she is no taller
than sixpence worth of half-pence, but the _biggest flirt_ in India.
“Yours affectionately,
“SARABELLA BRANDE.
“P.S.--I hope Ben is well, and that he will take to her.”
Honor had also written home announcing her arrival, dwelling on her
aunt’s kindness, and making the best of everything, knowing that long
extracts from her letter would be read aloud to inquiring friends.
She felt dreadfully home-sick, as she penned her cheerful epistle.
How she wished that she could put herself into the envelope, and find
herself once more in that bright but faded drawing-room, with its deep
window-seats, cosy chairs, and tinkling cottage piano. Every vase and
bowl would be crammed with spring flowers. Jessie would be pouring out
tea, whilst her mother was telling her visitors that she had had a nice
long letter from Honor, who was in raptures with India, and as happy as
the day was long!
She took particular care that her tears did not fall upon the paper,
as she penned this deceitful effusion. It was dreadful not to see one
familiar face or object. This new world looked so wide, and so strange.
She felt lost in the immense bedroom in which she was writing--with
its bare lofty walls, matted floor, and creaking punkah. A nondescript
dog from the stables had stolen in behind one of the door chicks. She
called to it, eager to make friends. Surely dogs were dogs the whole
world over!--but the creature did not understand what she said, simply
stared interrogatively and slunk away. She saw many novel sights, as
she drove in the cool of the evening in Mrs. Hodson’s roomy landau,
along the broad planted roads of Allahabad, and watched the bheesties
watering the scorching white dust, which actually appeared to steam
and bubble; she beheld rattling ekkas, crammed with passengers, and
drawn by one wicked-looking, ill-used pony; orderlies on trotting
camels; fat native gentlemen in broughams, lean and pallid English
sahibs in dog-carts. It was extremely warm; the so-called “evening
breeze” consisted of puffs of hot wind, with a dash of sand. Most of
the Allahabad ladies were already on the hills.
Mrs. Brande was far too well-seasoned an Anglo-Indian not to
appreciate the wisdom of travelling in comfort. She had her own
servants in attendance, and plenty of pillows, fans, ice, fruit, and
eau-de-Cologne; far be it from _her_ to journey with merely a hand-bag
and parasol!
Honor in a comfortable corner, with several down cushions at her back,
and a book on her knee, sat staring out on the unaccustomed prospect
that seemed to glide slowly past the carriage windows. Here was a
different country to that which she had already traversed: great tracts
of grain, poppies, and sugar cane, pointed to the principal products
of the North West. She was resolved to see and note everything--even to
the white waterfowl, and the long-legged cranes which lounged among the
marshes--so as to be able to write full details in the next home letter.
As they passed through the Terai--that breathless belt of jungle--the
blue hills began to loom largely into the view. Finally, the train
drew up at a platform almost at the foot of them, and one phase of the
journey was over.
Honor could not help admiring her aunt, as she stepped out with an air
that betokened that she was now monarch of all she surveyed (she was
encased in a cream-coloured dust-cloak and topee to match, and looked
like an immense button mushroom). She briefly disposed of clamouring
coolies, gave orders to her attendants in vigorous Hindustani, and
led the way to the back of the station, where were a collection of
long open boxes--each box had a seat, and was tied to two poles--and
all were assembled in the midst of a maddening din and accents of an
unknown tongue.
“We go in these jampans,” explained Mrs. Brande, briskly. “Get in,
Honor, and I’ll pack you up; tie on your veil, put your rug over your
knees, and you will be very comfortable.”
But Honor felt quite the reverse, when she found herself suddenly
hoisted up on men’s shoulders, and borne rapidly away in the wake of
her aunt, who seemed perfectly at home under similar circumstances.
For some time they kept to a broad metalled road lined with great
forest trees, then they went across a swing-bridge, up a narrow steep
path, that twisted among the woods, overhanging the rocky bed of an
almost dry river. This so-called bridle-path wound round the hills
for miles, every sharp curve seemed to bring them higher; once they
encountered a drove of pack ponies thundering down on their return
journey to the plains, miserable thin little beasts, who never seem to
have time to eat--or, indeed, anything to eat, if they _had_ leisure.
Mrs. Brande and her party met but few people, save occasionally some
broad-shouldered coolie struggling upward with a huge load bound on his
back, and looking like a modern Atlas. Once they passed a jaunty native
girl, riding a pony, man fashion, and exchanging gibes and repartees
with her companions, and once they met a European--a young man dressed
in flannels and a blazer, clattering down at break-neck speed, singing
at the top of his voice, “Slattery’s Mounted Foot”--a curly-headed,
sunburnt, merry youth, who stopped his song and his steed the moment he
caught sight of Mrs. Brande.
“Hallo!” he shouted. “Welcome back! Welcome the coming. Speed,” laying
his hand on his heart, “the parting guest.”
“Where are you off to?” inquired the lady imperiously.
“Only to the station. We are getting up grand theatricals; and in
spite of coolies, and messages, and furious letters, none of our
properties have been forwarded, and I began to suspect that the Baboo
might be having a play of his own, and I am going down to look him up.
Am I not energetic? Don’t I deserve a vote of public thanks?”
“Pooh! Your journey is nothing,” cried Mrs. Brande, with great scorn.
“Why, I’ve been to Allahabad, where the thermometer is 95° in the
shade.”
“Yes, down in all the heat, and for a far more worthy object,” glancing
at Honor. “You may rely on me, I shall see that you are recommended for
a D.S.O.”
“What an impudent boy you are!” retorted the matron; and half turning
her head, she said to her companion, “Honor, this is Mr. Joy--he is
_quite_ mad. Mr. Joy, this is my niece, Miss Gordon, just out from
England” (her invariable formula).
Mr. Joy swept off his topee to his saddle-bow.
“And what’s the news?” continued Mrs. Brande. “Has Mrs. Langrishe’s
niece come up?” she asked peremptorily.
“Yes, arrived two days ago--the early bird, you see,” he added, with a
malicious twinkle of his little eyes.
“I don’t see; and every one know that the worm was a _fool_. What is
she like?”
“Like a fairy, and dances to match,” replied Mr. Joy, with enthusiasm.
“Come, come; what do you know about fairies? Is she pretty?”
“Yes, and full of life, and go, and chic.”
“Cheek! I’m not surprised at _that_, seeing she is Mrs. Langrishe’s own
niece.”
“Chic is a French word, don’t you know? and means--well, I can’t
exactly explain. Anyway, Miss Paske will be a great acquisition.”
“How?”
“Oh, you will soon be able to judge for yourself. She acts first class,
and plays the banjo like an angel.”
“What nonsense you talk, Toby Joy! Whoever heard of an angel playing
anything but a ’arp.”
“By the way, Miss Gordon,” said Toby, turning suddenly to her, “I hope
you act.”
“No; I have never acted in my life.”
“Oh, that is nothing! All women are born actresses. Surely, then, you
sing--you have a singing face?”
“I am sorry to say that, in that case, my face belies me.”
“Well, at any rate,” with an air of desperation, “you could dance in a
burlesque?”
“Get away!” screamed Mrs. Brande. “Dance in a burlesque! I am glad her
mother does not hear you. Never mind him, Honor; he is crazy about
acting and dancing, and thinks of nothing else.”
“All work and no _plays_, make Jack a dull boy,” he retorted.
“Who else is up?” demanded Mrs. Brande, severely.
“Oh, the usual set, I believe. Lloyds, Clovers, Valpys, Dashwoods,
a signalling class, a standing camp, a baronet; there is also a
millionaire just about half way. You’ll find a fellow called Waring at
Nath Tal Dâk Bungalow--he was in the service once, and has now come in
for tons of money, and is a gentleman at large--very keen about racing
and sport. I expect he will live at our mess.”
“Then he is not married?” said Mrs. Brande, in a tone of unaffected
satisfaction.
“Not he! Perish the thought! He has a companion, a young chap he takes
about with him, a sort of hanger-on and poor relation.”
“What is he like? Of course I mean the millionaire?”
“Oh, _of course_,” with an affable nod; “cheery, good-looking sort of
chap, that would be an A1 hero of a novel.”
Mrs. Brande glanced swiftly at Honor, and heaved a gentle sigh of
contentment as she exclaimed--
“Well, I suppose we ought to be moving on.”
“Yes, for you will find the bungalow crammed with Tommies and their
wives. Give the millionaire my love. Au revoir, Mrs. Brande. _Au
revoir_, Miss Gordon. You’ll think over the burlesque, and help us in
some way, won’t you?” and with a valedictory wave of his hand he dashed
off.
“He is a harmless lunatic, my dear,” explained the aunt to her niece,
as they were carried forward side by side. “Thinks of nothing but
play-acting, and always in hot water with his colonel; but no one is
ever really angry with Toby, he is such a mere boy.”
“He must be three and twenty, and----”
“Look at the baggage just in front,” interrupted Mrs. Brande,
excitedly. “These must be Captain Waring’s coolies,” and to Honor’s
amazement she imperiously called a halt, and interrogated them sharply.
“Yes, for a sahib--two sahibs at Nath Tal,” grunted the hill men.
“What a quantity,” she cried, shamelessly passing each load in
solemn review. “See what a lovely dressing-bag and a tiffin-basket.
I believe”--reckoning--“no less than five portmanteaus, all solid
leather, Captain C. Waring; and look at the gun-cases, and that big box
between two men is saddlery--I know the shape.”
“Oh, Aunt Sara, do you not think we ought to get on?” urged her
companion. “We are delaying his men.”
“My dear child, learn to know that there is _nothing_ a coolie
likes better than being delayed. There is no hurry, and I am really
interested in this young man. I want to see where he has been, where he
has come from.” In answer to an imperative sentence in a tongue unknown
to Honor, a grinning coolie turned his back, on which was strapped a
portmanteau, for Mrs. Brande’s deliberate inspection.
It proved to be covered with labels, and she read aloud with much
unction and for Honor’s benefit--
“Victoria--that’s New South Wales--Paris, Brindisi, Bombay, Poonah,
Arkomon, Calcutta, Galle, Lucknow. Bless us and save us, he has been
staying at Government House, Calcutta, and been half over the world!
See what it is to have money!” and she made a sign to her jampanies to
continue her journey. Presently they passed two more coolies, lightly
loaded with a rather meagre kit; these she did not think it necessary
to question.
“Those are the cousin’s things,” she explained contemptuously, “M. J.,
the hanger-on. Awful shabby, only a bag, and a couple of boxes. You
could tell the owner was a poor man.”
Honor made no reply. She began to have an idea that she had seen this
poor young man before, or were two cousins travelling together for
travelling’s sake, a common feature in India. It would not surprise her
much were she to find her companion of that three-mile walk awaiting
his slender baggage at Nath Tal Bungalow.
As Mrs. Brande was borne upwards, her spirits seemed to rise
simultaneously with her body. She was about to make the acquaintance
of a millionaire, and could cultivate his friendship comfortably,
undisturbed by the machinations of her crafty rival. She would invite
him to be her guest for the two days they would be journeying together,
and by this means steal a nice long march (in every sense of the word)
on Mrs. Langrishe!
CHAPTER XIV.
STEALING A MARCH.
As the sun died down, the moon arose above the hills and lighted the
travellers along a path winding by the shores of an irregular mountain
lake, and overhung by a multitude of cherry trees in full blossom.
“Look!” cried Mrs. Brande, joyfully, “there in front you see the lights
of the Dâk Bungalow at last. You will be glad of your dinner, and I’m
sure _I_ shall.”
Two men, who sat in the verandah of the same rest-house, would also
have been most thankful for theirs. The straggling building appeared
full of soldiers and their wives, and there seemed no immediate
prospect of a meal. The kitchen had been taken possession of by the
majestic cook of a burra mem sahib, who was shortly expected, and the
appetites of a couple of insignificant strangers must therefore be
restrained.
These travellers were, of course, Captain Waring and Mark Jervis, whom
the former invariably alluded to as “his cousin.” It was a convenient
title, and accounted for their close companionship. At first Mark had
been disposed to correct this statement, and murmur, “Not cousins, but
connections,” but had been silenced by Clarence petulantly exclaiming--
“Cousins and connections are the same thing. Who cares a straw what we
are? And what’s the good of bothering?”
“I’m nearly mad with hunger,” groaned Captain Waring. “I’ve eaten
nothing for ten hours but one hard-boiled egg.”
“Smoke, as the Indians do,” suggested his comrade unfeelingly, “or draw
in your belt a couple of holes. Anyway, a little starvation will do you
no harm--you are getting fat.”
“I wonder, if I went and sat upon the steps with a placard round my
neck, on which was written, ‘I am starving,’ if this good lady would
give us a dinner? Hunger is bad enough, but the exquisite smell of her
roast mutton aggravates my pangs.”
“You have only to show yourself, and she will invite you.”
“How do you know, and why do you cruelly raise my hopes?”
“Because I hear that she is the soul of hospitality, and that she has
the best cook on the hills.”
“May I ask how you discovered this really valuable piece of
information?”
“From the harum-scarum youth who passed this afternoon. He forgot to
mention her name.”
“Here she comes along by the weir,” interrupted Waring. “Mark the
excitement among the servants--_her_ meal will be ready to the minute.
She must be truly a great woman, and has already earned my respect. If
she asks me to dinner, I shall love her. What do you say, Mark?”
“Oh, I think, since you put it in that way, that I should find it
easier to love the young lady!”
“I thought you fought shy of young ladies; and you must have cat’s eyes
if you can see one at this distance.”
“I have the use of my ears, and I have had nothing to do, but
concentrate my attention on what is evidently to be the _only_ meal of
the evening. I heard the cook telling the khitmatghar to lay a place
for the ‘Miss Sahib.’”
“What a thing it is to be observant!” cried Captain Waring. “And here
they are. By George! she _is_ a heavy weight!” alluding to Mrs. Brande,
who was now let down with a dump, that spoke a whole volume of relief.
The lady ascended the verandah with slow and solid steps, cast a swift
glance at the famishing pair, and went into her own well-warmed room,
where a table neatly laid, and adorned with cherry-blossoms, awaited
her.
“Lay two more places,” were her first commands to the salaaming
Khitmatghar; then to her niece, “I am going to ask those two men to
dinner.”
“But you don’t know them, Aunt Sara!” she expostulated rather timidly.
“I know of them, and that is quite enough at a dâk bungalow. We are not
so stiff as you are in England; we are all, as it were, in the same set
out here; and I am sure Captain Waring will be thankful to join us,
unless he happens to be a born idiot. In this bungalow there is nothing
to be had but candles and jam. I know it of old. People who pass up,
are like a swarm of locusts, and leave nothing behind them, but empty
tins and bottles. Now _I_ can give him club mutton and champagne.”
Having carefully arranged her dress, put on her two best diamond rings,
and a blue cap (N.B.--Blue had always been her colour), Mrs. Brande
sailed out into the verandah, and thus accosted the strangers--
“I shall be very happy if you two gentlemen will dine with me in my
rooms.”
“You are really too good,” returned Captain Waring, springing to his
feet and making a somewhat exaggerated bow. “We shall be delighted,
for there seems no prospect of our getting anything to eat before
to-morrow.”
“You shall have something to eat in less than five minutes,” was Mrs.
Brande’s reassuring answer, as she led the way to her own apartment.
“This,” waving her hand towards Honor, “is my niece, Miss Gordon, just
out from England. I am Mrs. Brande--my husband is in the Council.”
“We have had the pleasure of meeting Miss Gordon before,” said Captain
Waring; “this will not be the first time we have sat at the same
table,” and he glanced at her, with sly significance.
“Yes,” faltered Honor, with a heightened colour, as she bowed and
shook hands with Mark. “This is the gentleman of whom I told you, Aunt
Sara, who rescued me when I was left alone in the train.”
“Ah! indeed,” said Mrs. Brande, sitting down as she spoke, and
deliberately unfolding her serviette, “I’m sure I’m greatly obliged
to him,” but she secretly wished that on that occasion Honor had been
befriended by his rich associate.
“Let me introduce him to you, Mrs. Brande--his name is Jervis,” said
Captain Waring, with his most jovial air. “He is young, idle, and
unmarried. My name is Waring. I was in the Rutlands, but I chucked the
service some time ago.”
“Well, now we know all about each other” (oh, deluded lady!) “let us
begin our dinner,” said Mrs. Brande. “I am sure we are all starving.”
Dinner proved to be excellent, and included mahseer from the lake, wild
duck from the marshes, and club mutton. No! Mrs. Brande’s “chef” had
not been over praised. At first every one (especially the hostess and
Clarence Waring) was too frankly hungry to talk, but after a time they
began to discuss the weather, the local insects, and their journey--not
in the formal manner common to Britons on their mournful travels--but
in a friendly, homely fashion, suitable to a whitewashed apartment,
with the hostess’s bed in one corner.
Whilst the two men conversed with her niece, Mrs. Brande critically
surveyed them, “took stock” as she said to herself. Captain Waring was
a man of five or six and thirty, well set up, and soldierly looking;
he had dark cropped hair, bold merry eyes, and was handsome, though
sunburnt to a deep tan, and his face was deeply lined--those in his
forehead looking as if they had been ruled and cut into the very
bone--nevertheless, his habitual expression was as gay and animated
as that of Toby Joy himself. He had an extremely well-to-do air
(undoubtedly had never known a money care in his life), he wore his
clothes with ease, they fitted him admirably, his watch, studs, and
linen were of the finest quality; moreover, he appreciated a good
dinner, seemed to accept the best of everything as a matter of course,
and looked about intelligently for peppers and sauces, which were
fortunately forthcoming.
“The companion,” as Mrs. Brande mentally called him, was a younger man,
in fact a mere youth of about two and twenty, well set up, squarely
built, with good shoulders and a determined mouth and chin. He wore
a suit of flannels, a silver watch, with a leather chain, and looked
exactly what he was--an idle, poor hanger-on!
Mrs. Brande left him to talk to Honor, and indeed entirely neglected
him for his more important kinsman. Her niece was secretly aware of
(and resented) her aunt’s preference, and redoubled her efforts to
entertain her slighted fellow-traveller. She had a fellow-feeling for
him also. Were they not both dependents--both poor relations?
“Well, Captain Waring, so you are coming up to see Shirani?” said Mrs.
Brande, with her most gracious air.
“Yes, and I rather want to recall old times out here, and have a nice
lazy summer in the hills.”
“Then you have been in India all the winter?” (The inspection of his
kit the crafty lady kept to herself.)
“Yes. We came out in October. Had a bit of a shoot in Travancore, and
had a couple of months in Calcutta.”
“Then perhaps you came across a Miss Paske, there? Though I don’t
suppose she was in the Government House set. Her uncle is a nobody.”
“To be sure. We know Miss Paske, don’t we, Mark? She was very much in
the Government House set. All the A.D.C’s adored her. A little bit of a
thing, with tow-coloured, fluffy hair, and a _nez retroussé_.”
“I know nothing about her nose or hair, but she is at Shirani now.”
“You don’t say so! I am delighted to hear it. She is capital fun!”
Mrs. Brande’s face fell. She sat crumbling her bread for some seconds,
and then said absently, “Did you notice those monkeys on the way up?”
She had a peculiar habit of suddenly jumping from one topic to another,
figuratively, at the opposite pole. She declared that her ideas
travelled at times faster than her speech, possibly she had her own
consecutive, if rapid, train of thought, and may thus have connected
Miss Paske with apes.
“Yes, swarms of those old grey fellows with black faces. I suppose they
have a fair club at Shirani, and keep up the whist-room? Are there many
men who play?”
“Only too many. I don’t approve of cards--at least gambling. I do love
a game of whist--I play a half-anna stamp on the rubber, just to give
it a little interest.”
“Do they play high at Shirani?” he asked with a touch of impatience.
“Yes, I believe they do; and that horrid old Colonel Sladen is the
worst of all.”
“What! is he still up here? he used to play a first-class rubber.”
“He will play anything--high or low stakes--at either night or day--he
pays--his wife pays,” concluded Mrs. Brande, looking quite ferocious.
“Oh, is she out again? Nice little woman.”
“Out _again_! She has never been home yet,” and she proceeded to detail
that lady’s grievances, whilst her companion’s roving eyes settled on
his cousin and Miss Gordon.
She was a remarkable-looking, even fascinating girl, quite different
to his impression of her at first sight. She had a radiant smile,
wonderfully expressive eyes (those eyes alone made her beautiful, and
lifted her completely out of the commonplace), and a high-bred air.
Strange that she should be related to this vulgar old woman, and little
did the vulgar old woman guess how she had been championed by her
English niece. The moon shining full on the lake tempted the whole
party out of doors. Captain Waring made a basely ungrateful (but wholly
vain) attempt to exchange ladies with his friend. Mrs. Brande, however,
loudly called upon him to attend her, as she paced slowly down to the
road; and as he lit his cigar at his cousin’s, he muttered angrily
under his moustache--
“I call _this_ beastly unfair. I had the old girl all dinner time.
You’ve got six to four the best of it!”
CHAPTER XV.
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!
CHAPTER XVI.
A MESSAGE FROM MISS PASKE.
Although she had only caught a fleeting vision of Mrs. Brande’s niece,
Mrs. Langrishe had sharp eyes, and one glance had been sufficient to
assure her that the girl was not the least like what she had expected.
She was slim and dark, and, though covered with dust, and wearing a
frightful one rupee topee, undeniably a lady, and not at all of the
dairymaid type.
And how exultant the old woman had looked! Literally puffed out
with pride, as she was carried past, with the millionaire in close
attendance. Not _that_ detail was of the slightest consequence. Lalla
knew him intimately, and she would get her to write him a nice,
friendly little note, and ask him to drop in to tea.
Meanwhile Honor had been presented to her uncle, who, far from being
disappointed, was agreeably surprised to find that she was the image
of his favourite sister Hester, who had died when she was eighteen.
This resemblance (which he kept to himself) ensured the new arrival
an immediate _entrée_ to her uncle’s good graces. And Mrs. Brande,
accustomed to his cool and rather cynical manner, was amazed at the
warmth of the reception he accorded to his hitherto unknown niece.
For several days the young lady was kept at home in strict seclusion,
until her complexion had recovered the journey and her boxes had
arrived from the railway. Her aunt was determined not to submit her
treasure to the fierce gaze which beats upon a newly arrived girl,
until she was altogether at her best. She, however, could not close her
doors to numerous ladies who came to call upon Miss Gordon, and thus
secure an early and private view. Honor was compelled to sit in state
in a hideous drawing-room, where every colour was shouting at another,
and listen to her aunt telling visitors how beautifully she played the
fiddle, and what long hair she had, and how she took threes in shoes,
and how useful she was in the house already. Also, she did not spare
them full particulars of the buffalo adventure, nor fail to sing loud
praises of Mr. Jervis, or to enlarge on his cousin’s agreeable escort
and particular attentions _en route_. Then Mrs. Brande discussed her
servants and the outrageous price of ghee and charcoal.
“Come, let us sit in the verandah,” whispered Mrs. Sladen, who had
read the girl’s expressive face. “You will get quite used to it,” she
continued, when they were outside; “you will do it yourself some day.
We all do; but you will have a very happy home here, in spite of the
price of potatoes! Your aunt is delighted with you, as you may see,
and you will soon have plenty of topics to discuss. She has been
lonely enough till now. She and Mr. Brande, although much attached
to one another, have few tastes in common. He is fond of literature,
and devoted to tennis and rackets; and although he is older, he is
so active that he seems years her junior. Your coming has given her
a fresh start and new pleasures. She is a dear, good woman, and as
single-hearted as a little child.”
Mrs. Sladen and Honor had taken to one another at once. Honor had
been down (after dusk) to Mrs. Sladen’s house--been presented to
Colonel Sladen, and shown the photographs of Mrs. Sladen’s little
girls--Charlotte and Mabel, and had heard their last letters--a
proof that she was in high favour with their mother. Honor was not
accustomed to sitting with her hands before her, and promptly found
occupation in various ways--she ran messages, wrote notes and orders,
arranged flowers, and ventured on respectful suggestions with regard
to the drawing-room, a fine apartment, expensively furnished in
the worst taste imaginable--a supreme contrast to Mrs. Langrishe’s
room, which was the prettiest in Shirani. People little suspected how
that leisurely lady dusted it entirely herself, shook out draperies,
arranged flowers, and washed the china ornaments with her own delicate
hands. Her room, as she understood it, made an effective background for
herself--and she spared no pains to frame Ida Langrishe in the most
becoming fashion. The floor was covered with fine old prayer-rugs, the
tables were strewn with curios, the walls hung with valuable water
colours, and scattered at suitable intervals were inviting armchairs.
Ill-natured people assured one another that the Persian rugs, carvings,
and silver bowls were all so many offerings from “men.” Even so Mrs.
Langrishe would have been the first to admit, “Presents to Granby and
myself. Colonel Greene, a dear old thing, brought us the carpet from
Peshawar; and Mr. Goldhoofe sent those silver things from Delhi. I
must say that our friends never forget us.”
Mrs. Langrishe, as we know, had fully determined to hand over the
drawing-room to her niece, it would be such good practice for the
child, and really the flowers took up an hour every morning. She would
find many ways of making Lalla useful. But that young lady steadily
objected to these plans, she immediately made her aunt aware that she
considered herself merely ornamental. “Oh dear no! she never arranged
flowers, she had no taste in that line, and besides, it would spoil
her hands. _Dust_ the drawing-room! dear Aunt Ida must be joking; why,
that was the bearer’s business. Get out the dessert! oh!” with a peal
of ringing laughter, “she was not to be trusted. She would eat every
chocolate, and all the best French sweets!”
So whilst Mrs. Langrishe laboured, as usual, over her household tasks,
her fair niece, with a locked door, lay upon her bed, reading a novel,
tried new experiments in the hairdressing line, or wrote notes. No, no;
she had not come to Shirani to be a lady-help. She had always heard
that her aunt Ida was very _clever_; but, luckily, she had her wits
about her also!
During Honor Gordon’s period of enforced retirement, she went early
every morning for a solitary walk along a pretty sandy road, that wound
among the dark aromatic pine woods--a road with sharp angles, and deep
leafy ravines, green with ferns and ivy. It was early in May, and the
ground was strewn with pine-needles, which deadened the footfall; the
firs were thin and bare, and through their dark branches she caught
glimpses of the snows, that like a great white rampart hung in mid-air,
between a brilliant blue sky and an opal-tinted mist. Honor enjoyed
these rambles immensely, though she rarely met a soul, save a syce
exercising a horse, or an ayah wheeling a perambulator. Her sole
companion was “Ben,” who luckily had “taken to her,” and with whom she
had established relations of such a friendly character, that she had
actually been installed in the unexpected position of his “aunt.”
Occasionally they made joint excursions down the khud, he in search of
the private larders of other dogs, she in quest of ferns and moss for
table decoration. Ben was a personage of such importance at Rookwood
that he demands half a chapter to himself. He was a dog with fixed
opinions, and hated Mrs. Langrishe--and one or two other people--in
the same degree that he hated cold boiled meat. Sport was his passion,
the chewing up of Suède gloves his weakness. He was a fox-terrier with
a history. As a pup, he had been presented by a man to a girl, on the
principle of “love me love my dog,” but alas, the false maiden had
loved neither the one nor the other; she heartlessly jilted the man,
and abandoned the dog to his fate. However, her ayah (prudent soul)
ere she went down the hill, sold the pup to a bheestie for the sum of
two annas (an ancient debt), he happened to be Mrs. Brande’s servant,
and was excessively vain of his purchase, but left him most of the day
tied by a strip of pink calico to a conspicuous tree in her compound,
where he suffered him to “eat the air,” and but little else. Mrs.
Brande, _en route_ to feed her well-to-do fowls, noticed the famishing
animal; and as she often threw him a crust, he naturally hailed her
advent with extravagant demonstrations of delight and feeble yelps
of joy. Her easily softened heart was touched by the raptures of the
starving puppy, and after some parley she bought him from the bheestie
for the sum he swore he had paid--to wit, ten rupees--in order to feed
him up and get him a good master. But Ben was thoroughly satisfied
with his present quarters, and soon made himself completely at home.
He displayed an easy intimacy with armchairs and cushions, he had
undoubtedly been accustomed to sweet biscuits and to good society, and
his mistress pointed out with just pride that he understood English
perfectly! Of course she eventually adopted “Ben,” he made himself
indispensable, he refused to be separated from his patroness, and
became her shadow, and soon ceased to be a shadow himself. He grew from
a dirty, starving, shivering whelp, into an extremely handsome dog,
with a fine gloss on his coat. Did he ever remember his own evil days,
as he lounged of an afternoon sunning himself at the gate of Rookwood,
and passed in scornful review, curs less happy and of low degree? Are
dogs snobs?
Whether snob or not, Ben was brave, he lowered his tail to none, and
when the big wild cat that created such havoc among the poultry,
went to ground under the messhouse, “Ben Brande,” as he was called,
was the only one of the assembled mob of terriers, who, as a looker
on expressed it, “was man enough to follow him, kill him, and drag
him out.” Ben Brande lost an eye thereby, but gained a magnificent
reputation.
Of course Ben was spoiled. His mistress talked to him incessantly;
he had his own little charpoy in her room, his morning tea in her
company, and now and then he was permitted to invite his pal “Jacko,”
a red terrier, to dine and spend the day! (Once they had elected to
spend it quietly in Mr. Brande’s dressing-room, where they devoured
several pairs of boots, a sponge-bag, and the back of “Nancy.”) Ben
escorted his mistress in her walks and drives. Many a time she went
out solely on his account, and it was an indisputable fact that he had
favourite roads, and his “grandmamma”--as the infatuated lady called
herself--always studied his wishes. On those occasions when “his
grandpapa and grandmamma” were dining abroad, he never went to bed,
but established himself at the entrance until their return (however
late), and passers-by could always tell that the Brandes were at a
“burra khana” when they saw an upright little white figure sitting by
the gatepost. Indeed it was whispered, that the reason Mrs. Brande was
always so early to depart, was simply that she did not like to keep
Ben waiting up! She never said so, but every one knew that Ben was
the real motive for her premature departure. And this was the animal
who now accompanied Honor, and who had accorded her his patronage
and friendship. One morning, as they were strolling homewards, he
with a large stone in his mouth, and she carrying an armful of ferns,
they nearly came into collision with another couple--the angles were
abrupt--walking noiselessly on pine needles. They proved to be Toby
Joy, who was also attended by a dog, and sauntering along hand-in-hand
with a young lady, a dainty, white-skinned little person, with fluffy
light hair, small keen eyes, admirably arched brows and a tip-tilted
nose.
Honor was by far the most embarrassed of the trio, and blushed a good
healthy blush--of which she was heartily ashamed. Why should not other
people enjoy the delicious morning air? As to walking hand-in-hand,
_she_ ought to be the last person to object; had she not walked
hand-in-hand herself with an absolute stranger?
“Good morning, Miss Gordon,” said Toby, slowly relinquishing Miss
Paske’s fingers, and doffing his cap. “So you have got up here all
right in spite of the buffalo! Let me introduce you to Miss Paske.”
The girls bowed, and looked at one another gravely.
“We are getting up that burlesque I told you about, and have come out
early to study our part together.”
“How praiseworthy of you,” said Honor, in simple good faith. “And what
is the piece to be?”
“_The Babes in the Wood_,” responded Miss Paske with an odd smile, and
looking Honor over with her bright little eyes. “Don’t you think it
will be suitable to the dear simple people at Shirani?”
“I really don’t know,” replied the other, with a puzzled face.
“Well, I hope you will come to see it,” and with a patronizing nod she
moved on. But Ben and Jumbo (Mrs. Langrishe’s dog) were not disposed
to part thus! The household feud had evidently extended to them. They
had been tiptoeing round one another for some time, with considerable
stiffness in their gait, emitting low and insulting growls, that now
culminated in a sort of gurgling snarl, as they flew at one another’s
throats. Miss Paske gave a little stifled shriek, and scrambled hastily
up the bank, whilst Honor and Toby made desperate attempts to separate
the combatants. They each caught hold of a dog by whatever came first,
leg or tail; but the dogs refused to be parted, and to and fro, and up
and down, they struggled and scrambled in a mutual frenzy. Meanwhile,
Lalla, who was now at a safe elevation, actually appeared delighted at
the performance, and laughed and clapped her hands ecstatically. At
last, by the expedient of pouring sand on their heads, the dogs were
choked off, and each side was bottle-holder to a furious, panting,
struggling animal.
“I think we had better separate at once,” gasped Honor, who only
restrained Ben with the greatest difficulty.
“Yes, the sooner the better,” agreed Toby, who was also wrestling with
an eager armful.
As Honor turned homewards, with Ben hanging longingly over her
shoulder, Miss Paske, who had tripped down from her coign of ’vantage,
called after her, in her sweetest, clearest tones--
“Be sure you tell Mrs. Brande, that _her_ dog got the worst of it.”
END OF VOL. I.
PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation errors/omissions have been fixed.
Page 21: “you have jus” changed to “you have just”
Page 246: “Grandby and myself” changed to “Granby and myself”
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