Isabel Brown Rose

Red Blossoms

To
William and Margaret Graham Brown
Who Still Walk and Talk with Me
Under the Red Blossoms
In the Pleasant Garden of Memory

The Bay of Biscay-O!

Blue-grey sky above. Blue-grey sea below. Monstrous mountains of white-crested water trouncing the boat up and down, backwards and forwards, from side to side; towering above it in titanic triumph as it sinks to the bottom of a trough; gurgling and grumbling beneath it in futile fury when, with a prodigious creaking and cracking, it clambers clumsily out of reach. Ropes rattling. Chains clanking. Beams straining and shivering. Swish, swish. Thud, thud. Flap, flap.

The dreaded Bay of Biscay had prostrated most of the passengers of the good ship City of Timbuctoo. Only one lady had courage to pace the deck as usual, and she was immensely enjoying her lonely peregrination. The storm exhilarated her. It inspired her. With feet firmly planted on the capricious deck, with head and body poised to resist the gusts of wind that flapped her coat about her and threatened to carry off her hat, she looked exalted, heroic—a very modern version of some ancient Greek statue of Victory. She felt an extraordinary surge of personal power, as if it were her hand that were guiding the ship to safety, as if her volition were sufficient to override the elements. Perhaps, she reflected, there might be within her an unsuspected fund of will-power that had never yet been called into play in a life that had been outwardly placid, uneventful, and restricted. Her father certainly had not lacked will-power. And his daughter unconsciously straightened herself in the pride of her heritage.

Just then a gigantic wave caught the vessel amidships. The deck abruptly assumed an angle of thirty-five degrees. And the supposedly indomitable young goddess was ignominiously precipitated against a passenger who was standing with his back propped to the wall of the music saloon. He held her arm to steady her while, apologizing and confused, she groped with her right hand for the elusive rail.

“You don’t seem to mind this rough weather,” remarked her rescuer with a friendly grin. “You surely must be an experienced sailor.”

“It’s sheer good luck. It isn’t experience,” gasped Dorothy Maxwell, as she involuntarily staggered towards him again.

“If you’re really going to walk round the deck, I think I’d better come with you. You might get blown overboard, you know. But the wind can’t take liberties with me,” and the tall, heavy man squared his broad shoulders and stepped over to Dorothy’s right.

She was nonplussed. In her panting, windblown condition, the little air of aloofness which in college days had been the despair of presumptuous admirers and which had gained her the nickname of “Our Lady of Ice,” had for the present completely deserted her. There was nothing for it but to let this master of the situation accompany her; so she started out again as steadily as possible, and fearful lest she once more bombard him.

But the violence of the wind and her own shyness made any intelligent conversation impossible. They could only shout at each other staccato remarks about the weather and the ship. So, after a couple of strenuous rounds, Dorothy Maxwell pleaded fatigue, escaped into the saloon, and then, with an unreasonableness that is supposed to be the prerogative of her sex, she began to regret that she had not taken better advantage of the fortuitous encounter with this fellow-passenger, Major Sutherland, whom she had heard described as one of the finest men in the Indian Medical Service.

But Fate and the Major were kind. The wind abated during the day, and when Dorothy was invited for a stroll after dinner she accepted without hesitation.

“Didn’t you say this morning that you weren’t an experienced sailor?” began the Major, as he fell into step beside her on the now comparatively tranquil deck.

“This is my first voyage to India.”

“I envy you your sensations. I love the sea and shipboard, but one can never summon up quite the same transports of delight that make the first voyage so unforgetable.”

“A good many passengers weren’t feeling very special transports of delight to-day, I’m afraid.”

“That’s true. Poor things! But, you know, quite a lot of people, especially ladies, go to bed at Liverpool, and simply don’t expect to be able to get up till they are through the Bay.”

“The poor old Bay has a pretty bad reputation to live up to, hasn’t it?”

“It has. You remember the old ballad?” and the Major sang over softly a verse of “The Bay of Biscay-o!”. “Well, my cabin mate, who is quite prostrate, was telling me this morning that he always used to wonder why it should be ‘The Bay of Biscay-o!’. Now he understands the ‘o’ perfectly!”

Dorothy laughed delightedly.

“You see,” continued the Major, “this poor fellow was positively looking forward to a bad time—so of course he got it. In this queer world most folks get pretty well what they expect.”

“Then perhaps I am perfectly well because I never expected to be anything else.”

“There’s a great deal in that. Psychology is half the battle.”

“Then you don’t consider seasickness a purely nervous affection?”

“No, I can’t say I agree with that theory.”

“Neither do I—entirely. But Professor Giles, one of our leading American nerve specialists, holds it absolutely. He gave us instances—any amount of them—where it had been cured, or prevented, by mere suggestion.”

“Professor Giles?” Here they had to fall into single file in order to pass a group of noisy passengers who were trying, by means of a screeching gramophone, to forget their recent infelicity. “Let me see,” continued the Major reminiscently, as he resumed his place, “you don’t by any chance mean John George Plenderleith Giles?”

“That’s his name. Do you know him?”

“Ra-ther—or at least I did. He and I were classmates at Edinburgh University. We took Pathology together. But I haven’t seen him since the day we were ‘capped.’ Do you know him well?”

“Not personally. I took one of his classes.”

“Really? How much of a medical course did you take?”

“The full course.”

“You do surprise me. You are only down as ‘Miss Maxwell’ on the passenger list.”

“Of course. A degree is only for professional purposes, not social.”

“Well, I declare. You must pardon me, but really, you don’t look in the least like a lady doctor. My pride in character reading is sorely hurt. I rather fancy my ability in that direction.”

“This is awfully interesting. Please tell me who or what you thought I was.”

“You won’t be offended?”

“I certainly won’t.”

They were passing under one of the deck lamps. The man glanced at the face of the girl pacing beside him. Her expression was one of genuine interest, without a trace, as far as he could judge, of self-consciousness. So he plucked up courage to proceed.

“To be frank,” said he, “I thought you were just about twenty.”

“Good guess,” laughed Dorothy. “You were only six years off.”

“And I thought you were just out of a finishing school—a Young Ladies’ Seminary affair, you know. I’ve been trying to decide between a school in Switzerland and a convent in Belgium! And, of course, I presumed that you were going out to be with your parents in India.”

The smile faded quickly off Dorothy’s face. “I wish I were,” she said at length, and a little unsteadily. “They both died in India when I was two years old.”

“I beg your pardon,” said the Major remorsefully. “What a blundering fool I am!”

“Don’t worry,” replied Dorothy. “But please do tell me what I ought to look like, seeing I’m not a chit of a schoolgirl, as you supposed, but a grown-up woman, and a doctor at that. You have made me very curious.”

“Oh, you ought to have dowdy clothes, and immense spectacles, and an air of unmistakably superior wisdom.”

Dorothy laughed. “You mean that I ought to look like the blue-stocking of the Victorian age?”

“Something after that style.”

“But educated women have got over that affectation long ago.”

“I suppose they have. But in my student days there were a lot of women ‘medicals’ who affected that sort of thing. They didn’t have their classes along with us, thank goodness, but when they met us poor mere males on the street, they would give us a glance of withering contempt that made us realize what worms we were.”

“Too bad! But you must have met lots of sensible women doctors since then.”

“Lots of them. But that type seems to have got so firmly fixed in my youthful mind, that even now, in middle age, I can’t help being surprised when I find a woman doctor who doesn’t look like one.”

“I see. Well, I don’t wear spectacles because my eyesight is perfect. And I can’t possibly look superior, for I’m only just a greenhorn.”

“You’re an exceptional greenhorn. What makes a greenhorn a greenhorn? The fact that he doesn’t know it! Ha, ha! There’s hope for you I see. Most young folks who come to India feel sure they know far better about everything than those who’ve lived there for years. They think we’re all old fogies, out of date long ago, and that it’s their duty to turn things inside out.”

“And what happens?”

“It depends. Some of them grow sensible—usually through hard experience. Some of them get turned inside out themselves.”

“And the others?”

“Oh, the utterly obstreperous ones—the ‘I-know-better-and-won’t-be-fooled’ type, they usually die off quite soon and leave us in peace.”

“Dear me, that sounds melancholy.”

“Yes, indeed. You’d better watch out,” and they both laughed.

Just then a passenger, white and shaky, struggled out of the hatchway they were passing. “Oh, here’s my friend, Mrs. Talbot,” cried Dorothy. They hastened forward to assist her to a deckchair; the Major was introduced and soon took his leave; and Dorothy Maxwell devoted herself to cheering up her rather forlorn companion, by repeating as much of her recent conversation as she could remember.

II

Extract from a Very Private Diary

Suez Canal,
November 17, 1913.

Dear Comrades:

As usual I come to you when deeply stirred. I have just been on deck, watching with unspeakable emotion the slowly passing landscape.

Here and there a palm tree broke the flat line of the shore. The mystic moonlight half-revealed, half-concealed the outline of the distant hills. It played on the waters. It mingled with the rays from our searchlight. It silhouetted indistinctly the craft tied up in the Canal to let us pass, and the big Russian vessel following closely in our wake, with its quaint, dragon-like anchors at the bow.

I tried to picture the majestic ruins hid by the distance and the darkness, and the treasures of antiquity which the caves of the rock and the depths of the earth still hide from the curious eye of modern man. I imagined the proud kings with their armies marching east or west to conquest; then the broken columns of refugees fleeing across the sands, the riderless horses, the battered chariots, the dejected gangs of prisoners in chains. Egyptian, Semitic, Phoenician, Assyrian, Ethiopian Greek, Roman—all who had loved and lusted for the fleshpots of the land of the Pharaohs—they all suddenly became real to me.

Then I tried to pierce the darkness still farther, and see across the desert that leads to the home of the Master; and He immediately loomed out distinctly as an historical fact, as well as a spiritual factor. And I thrilled at the thought of the heritage which that dim land had given the world. The kings and their glory are laid in the dust, but from that very ground has blossomed red a new ideal of love and service.

Then I tried to feel how you two must have felt when you came through the Canal, ’way back in ’85. Was it moonlight, I wonder? And did you stand on deck awed and inspired as I was to-night, and talk of the new life you were to live in India? I am glad you could not know how short it was to be, nor that you were to leave a lonely little girl to mourn for you.

And, dear ones, I don’t mind telling you that I am awfully lonely. I always have been. And I’ve always had to bottle up my feelings and pretend I hadn’t any. People think me cold and stiff and unemotional. So I am—on the outside! But you understand. You always do. When I was a little girl and troubled, especially when Great-aunt Penelope was hard on me, I used to shut myself up in my room and gaze and gaze and gaze at your pictures in my locket. I would turn them over in my hot little hand, and ask you how could you leave me so lonely? And I always felt comforted, somehow. You seemed to understand and to be near me.

And even now, when I am grown to woman’s estate, the longing for you is sometimes so great that I can hardly bear it. You see, I’ve never really loved anybody on earth. All my capacity for affection has been expended on you two dear presences. All my interests and ambitions have been concentrated on the possibility of coming out to India to carry on your work. I can’t remember any time when I hadn’t that ambition. I felt myself a child unique, a child with a purpose, a child consecrated and set apart from the mundane interests of other children. Then, when I was older, I felt a good-natured contempt for the love affairs of my girl friends. You see, I felt that I had something finer in store than to marry a very ordinary man, lead a very ordinary life, and bring up very ordinary children. That was all quite respectable and laudable, and eminently useful, no doubt, but not to be compared to my vocation! Of course, I recognize now what an objectionable little prig I was, and how much I’ve missed by being so “superior,” but I have at least kept my ambition pure and my purpose single.

I have had so many bewildering impressions since I sailed out of New York harbour, and shocks, too. I’m puzzled and distressed over the Eurasian problem which I have just run up against. That remark, by the way, was more literally true than I noticed, for I actually run up against the problem half a dozen times per day in the shape of my bulky “stable-mate” as she calls herself. This Mrs. Duff is really a most extraordinary person, kindhearted and affectionate, but with a loud voice, loud manners, loud complexion, and loud jewellery. She and another Eurasian (I ought to call them by their new official name of Anglo-Indian) are absolutely ostracized. The other day a young officer was looking for some one to play his accompaniment. I ventured to suggest Mrs. Duff, who is a brilliant pianist. He stared at me with the most profound pity. “It’s easily seen,” he remarked, “that you’ve never been in India before. We don’t want to introduce the tar-brush into our concert, thank you.” And he walked off, looking so contemptuous that I almost felt as if he had struck me.

And yet, to tell you the truth, it isn’t easy, except in theory, to be brotherly towards all men, and still less, sisterly towards all women. Mrs. Duff at least once a day refers to the fact that her father was pure Scotch, and her mother a Spaniard—by way of explaining away her tinge. If I am in the least friendly she immediately becomes familiar, and she continually intrudes with or without the slightest invitation. When she sees Mrs. Talbot, Major Sutherland and myself sitting talking together, as we frequently do, she will drag her deck-chair along and settle down beside us for what she calls “a cosy chat!” She talks inanities—chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter without a break and at the pitch of her raucous voice. We were just about desperate when the Major hit on a splendid plan. He found a secluded corner in beside the lifeboats. Mrs. Talbot and I just manage to squeeze through the rails; he steps over them; but Mrs. Duff is too fat to do either! So we are mercifully immune.

And then, dear ones, my second great problem is the number of personal tragedies that have come to my notice recently. My best shipboard friend is Mrs. Talbot, the widow of a missionary who died at sea on his way home for his first furlough. A month later she lost her only child. At first she was indignant and rebellious. “It isn’t easy,” she said to me, “to see your house of life burn to ashes.” But by and by she felt she was needed in India, so she came back alone and is doing literary work in Poona. She has the most beautiful, serene face I have ever seen. I am not at all versed in character-reading, but even I can tell that it betokens a depth and breadth and stability of character which only poignant suffering can create.

Major Sutherland has suffered too. His fiancée took typhoid during the voyage out and died soon after landing. I suppose it is this personal sorrow that accounts for the wrinkles round his kind blue eyes, and for his chivalry towards all women, even tantalizing Mrs. Duff. I sometimes sit and think over these things, and work myself into abject misery. I can just feel it all, as if it were mine, and I am thankful that I can never be called upon to suffer any of these ordeals except in imagination. In fact, I sometimes wish I had not been blessed with a Celtic imagination. It hurts.

I thought of that when we started out from Liverpool. I had been feeling lonely and rather sorry for myself because there was no one to wave me good-bye. But when I saw the cruel partings on the quay—people tearing themselves away from an integral part of their very life—I was immensely thankful to be spared that agony. You see, dear ones, there is no one in whose life my absence will leave a blank, no one to whom I am vitally necessary, no one to whom my coming in and my going out really matters. It’s lonely, of course, awfully lonely; but one of the compensations of being lonely is just this, that Fate can’t take away from me what I never had.

Well, comrades mine, I feel lots better just because I’ve spilled over. I must quit philosophizing and get off to bed. This has been a wonderful day. My head is one jumble of all I saw in Port Said—the crowds in the narrow streets; the varieties of types and colours; the delicately graven gold and silver ware; the exquisite Maltese lace; the mosaics and enamels and ostrich feathers and mother-of-pearl; the fragile shawls and scarfs; the ebony and ivory; the quaint cloth copies of figures in ancient tomb paintings; and the cheap glitter of Birmingham-factory-made toys and trinkets!

And now I must share with you a wonderful secret that I discovered to-night—a wonderful finish to a wonderful day. After I had stood a long time on deck, watching the scenery and meditating on it and many other things, I took a stroll and stumbled on Mrs. Talbot and Major Sutherland sitting chatting in a secluded corner. They welcomed me and made me sit down beside them, but it had all flashed on me in a moment. Perhaps it was the romantic atmosphere of the Canal by moonlight that opened my eyes to the romance nearer at hand. I don’t know how I can have been so stupid as not to notice it before. It is all so plain now. They are splendidly suited to each other in age (I think about 45 and 40), and also in tastes. It is a liberal education to hear them talk on India and things Indian. And then, as I have just mentioned above, they have both suffered deeply. Oh, I am so happy. And it’s partly a selfish happiness, for Mrs. Talbot is fond of me and wants to keep in touch with me, so perhaps her husband could be a kind of big brother to me. I’ve always wanted a big brother dreadfully, and Major Sutherland would make an ideal one, he’s so big and kind and dependable. But when I realize now how often I’ve been in the way, I blush with chagrin. I’ve thought Mrs. Duff an intruder, and I’ve been far worse myself! How often we three have sat talking together, Major Sutherland puffing away at his ubiquitous pipe, Mrs. Talbot with a bit of sewing, and I just sitting with idle hands, drinking in every word! How good and patient they have been with me! Well, I’ll be most judicious in future and make myself scarce.

And now, good-bye for the present. In just ten days I shall tread on the land you trod on. In just ten days I shall be on the threshold of my life’s work. Be near and bless me with your presences.

Your little girl,

Dorothy.

III

Shipboard Acquaintance

The quondam interloper’s determination to keep strictly out of the way of the incipient romance was materially assisted by an incident which occurred a couple of days afterwards. She noticed that the Captain came in very late for dinner, and was eagerly questioned by the passengers at his table. She wondered what the matter could be. Major Sutherland explained things later.

“You’ll be sorry to hear,” he began, as he joined her in the music saloon, “that there’s been a nasty little accident on board—not serious, fortunately.”

“A passenger, or one of the crew?”

“A lady passenger. She’d been resting in the top bunk, and was climbing down to dress for dinner. She doesn’t know quite what happened. She thinks she can’t have hooked the ladder properly on to the rail. But, anyway, when she put her foot on it, it swung to the side, and she crashed to the floor.”

“Head hurt?” asked Dorothy with professional interest.

“No. She saved herself with her hands, but she’s sprained one wrist and strained the other, and twisted her ankle—a horrible way to fall, especially for a heavy woman. She can’t use either hand, of course; they’re both bandaged up. She’s as helpless as a baby—and as irritable.”

“Poor thing, I’m sorry for her. Is there a good nurse on board?”

“Unfortunately, the only trained nurse on board absolutely refuses to have anything to do with the case—says she’s travelling in a private capacity. As a matter of fact, she’s going out to marry a wealthy planter.”

“I call that pretty mean.”

“So do I. The two poor stewardesses are nearly run off their feet as it is, but they’ll do their best. Of course, it isn’t ideal. What’s more, the other passenger in the cabin is making a deuce of a row—refuses to sleep there because the patient is moaning.”

“Isn’t there a sick-room, or even a spare cabin?”

“Not one. The ship is absolutely packed. Poor Captain, he’s at his wits’ end.”

“I thought he looked worried,” replied Dorothy. “But the thing’s perfectly simple. I’ll change bunks with the ‘stable-mate,’ as Mrs. Duff would say, and then I can look after the patient.”

Major Sutherland looked both surprised and nonplussed. He evidently had not thought of that solution. “You’re a first-rate brick to suggest such a thing,” he said at length. “It certainly would solve all difficulties.”

“I’ll be happy to do it,” said Dorothy simply. “In fact, it’s the obvious thing to do.”

“I’m worried on one point. I think I ought to be perfectly frank, and warn you that the lady in question, Mrs. Sandeman, has a very strong prejudice against missionaries. She might even be rude to you.”

“Is she your left-hand neighbour at table?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, then it was she who made that disparaging remark about missionaries the other night.”

“I’m sorry you heard it. I was hoping you hadn’t. Please give her the credit for not intending it to be heard, except by the Captain and me.”

“I do. But it just happened to come in a lull in the room, and we missionaries at our table simply could not help overhearing it. And we all felt most grateful to you for saying what you did and then turning the conversation.”

“Oh, that was nothing. I was perfectly sincere when I said that I counted some missionaries among my best friends. I was thinking particularly of a Mr. and Mrs. Alexander of Bombay—magnificent people. I hope you can meet them some day.”

“I should like to. But do tell me what has made Mrs. Sandeman so bitter.”

“One unfortunate experience years ago with one unfortunate type of missionary—a fierce little fanatic of a woman who came over to us one day as we were playing bridge, tore some of our cards across, called it the devil’s own game, and told us we were all going to—well, the bad place, you know, but she gave it its full Miltonic appellation.”

“That was dreadful,” said Dorothy. “But Mrs. Sandeman shouldn’t judge all missionaries from one bigoted case like that.”

“Of course she shouldn’t. But unfortunately she’s one of those people who judge a whole species by one specimen. However abnormal it may be, to her it immediately becomes a ‘type.’ It’s a very common fault.”

“I’m afraid I’m guilty of it myself,” confessed Dorothy. “I’m convinced that all Eurasians are built after the pattern of Mrs. Duff.”

“Pretty tough on them, poor things! They’ve enough to stand without that. But the best cure for that sort of prejudice is to get to know a particularly charming specimen of the same species. That balances impressions, don’t you see?”

“I see. Well, couldn’t you get Mrs. Sandeman to meet your friends the Alexanders, as an antidote?”

“I’ve tried, but it’s absolutely no use. She’s irrevocably fixed in her prejudices now.”

“Well, I don’t mind her prejudices, if you think she could put up with me. I’ll promise faithfully not to tear up any playing-cards I may happen to find lying round!”

The Major laughed. “I don’t believe she’d mind anything you did so long as she got a nurse.”

“Well, please go and fix it all up, so that I can move a few things to her cabin for to-night.”

“You’re quite sure you want to? Very few doctors care to act as nurse.”

“I’m one of the few, then. Please hurry up.”

“‘The Lord hath delivered up thine enemy into thy hand this day,’” quoted the Major as he departed with a mischievous grin.

Shipboard life often brings out the worst, and the best, in human nature. Mrs. Sandeman’s cabin-mate raged and fumed at being transferred to an inferior cabin, and especially at having to share it with an Eurasian. She vowed that she would demand a refund on her passage money, and that she would take good care that neither she nor any of her friends ever travelled by that line again. On the other hand, Dorothy Maxwell was installed as volunteer nurse to an outwardly cranky but inwardly grateful patient. She assumed her new role with a simplicity that refused to see anything unusual in her offer. Secretly she was elated at this excellent excuse for leaving her two friends severely alone, and she saw comparatively little of them for the rest of the voyage. In the cabin she tried to behave like the hypothetical model child. She was seen but seldom heard, and she rarely spoke unless spoken to.

“Dr. Maxwell,” said Mrs. Sandeman one day suddenly, as the doctor-nurse made a neat finish to the bandaging. “Who and what are you?”

Dorothy laughed. “A very plain, ordinary woman,” she replied; “by origin a Scoto-Anglo-Americo-Canadian. I hope you don’t take me for an evil spirit.”

“You’ve been my good angel so far. But I’m puzzled. I don’t in the least understand you. I’ve studied you, but I can’t make you out. You’re an entirely new type to me. I know it’s impolite to ask personal questions; but really, I’m simply consumed with vulgar curiosity.”

Dorothy was highly amused. Her patient was evidently feeling much better.

“Ask me all the questions you like,” she replied gaily. “I haven’t one secret.”

“Lucky girl! Very few women can say that. But, to begin with, what kind of parents have you who’d let you come out as a missionary?” asked Mrs. Sandeman, with an emphasis on the last word that spoke volumes.

“My parents haven’t let me come, they’ve made me come.”

“Made you come? What a crime!”

“Oh, no,” said Dorothy quietly. “My father was a missionary doctor in India, but both he and my mother died—of cholera—when I was two years old.”

Mrs. Sandeman was gazing at the speaker in amazement.

“And you see,” continued Dorothy, “since I was a child they seem to have been calling to me to come and take up their work. I’ve had no other ambition in life, in fact, no alternative. I’ve just lived for this.”

A long pause.

“Then are you going to the place where your father worked?” asked the older woman at length.

Dorothy’s face fell. “Not just yet. I was terribly disappointed to find that there was no opening at present for a woman doctor in my father’s mission. There will probably be later on. But I stumbled on to an offer in a private venture, at Anamabad, where one lone woman has been holding out for twenty-five years—twenty-five years, mind you—absolutely alone, and building up schools and an orphanage. That’s a pretty good stunt, don’t you think?”

“H’m, perhaps. But how long are you to be there?”

“I’ve signed a five years’ agreement.”

“Five years? But, my child, Anamabad is absolutely uncivilized. I don’t suppose there’s another white person besides that misguided woman you talk of. How will you stand it? Have you will-power enough?”

“If not, I’ll have to develop it,” said Dorothy cheerfully. “My father certainly had plenty.”

“How do you know that? You can’t remember him.”

“Let me tell you a story,” replied Dorothy with a smile, and she stood beside the berth and ticked off each item on her fingers. “First, in 1885, a young Canadian named Peter Maxwell finished his medical course at Yale. Secondly, on the eve of sailing for India he paid a farewell visit to a college friend in the little town of Sayton, Massachusetts. Thirdly, he there met Mehitabel Jefferson and fell in love with her on the spot. Fourthly, he bombarded her and her family and made them capitulate within a week. Fifthly, he wired an ultimatum to his Mission Board that he would take his bride with him to India or not go at all. Sixthly, Romance—or perhaps it was Common-sense—prevailed, and seventhly and lastly, within a fortnight from the day they first saw each other, Peter Maxwell and Mehitabel Jefferson, my father and mother, were married and started for India.”

“Bravo, bravo,” cried Mrs. Sandeman. “That was ROMANCE, spelt in capitals. It’s so refreshing to hear that sort of thing in these prosaic days. I’d clap my hands if they weren’t bandaged up. Go on, Miss Maxwell, please go on and tell me all about yourself now.”

And Dorothy, willingly enough, whiled away the time by telling her patient about her own rather lonely and uneventful childhood with her mother’s people in Sayton, Mass., then of her college days, and lastly of her recent visit to Scotland and to Lady Brixton, the patron of the private mission in Anamabad.

On the eve of reaching Bombay, Major Sutherland came to the cabin to talk over arrangements for the patient’s transference on shore, and Dorothy went up on deck.

“What a splendid girl,” sighed Mrs. Sandeman.

“Then you don’t disapprove of all missionaries, I perceive,” said her friend with a twinkle in his blue eye.

“If they were all like her, nobody would disapprove of them. No cant, no preaching, no hypocrisy, no self-righteousness. She’s a perfect lady, and a beauty too, with that wavy fair hair and those big grey eyes.”

There was a pause.

“And to think,” she continued, “that that lovely girl is going to bury herself in a hole in the Deccan! It makes me positively sick.”

“A good many splendid girls do the same thing, and don’t regret it.”

“Poor fools! But this girl—oh, I just want to take her up to Simla and dress her in some of my new frocks. She’d be the sensation of the season. The boys would go crazy over her.”

“And she’d never know it. Those clear eyes of hers look at a man with much the same interest as at a wriggling microbe in the laboratory a curious but dangerous specimen, to be regarded from a safe distance.”

Mrs. Sandeman looked at the speaker quickly.

“Is that the way she regards you?” she asked.

“Precisely.”

“Rather a unique experience for a man with Irish blood in him, I should imagine.”

“Yes, it does rather take the starch out of one.”

“I suppose she’s so obsessed with this idea of being a missionary, that she looks down on ordinary human beings from a superior height.”

“Partly, perhaps. But she’s had a lonely life, with this one fixed idea of being a missionary. In many ways she hasn’t really grown up yet. She has the outlook on life of a precocious child.”

“And India is no place for a precocious child.”

“Indeed, no.” The Major was sitting on a camp stool by the berth. He continued tapping his knee with the magazine in his hand. It was evident that he, too, was apprehensive for the future of “the precocious child” in question. Then he suddenly laughed aloud. “Pardon my smiling,” he said. “I know I’m awfully rude; but I never thought I’d live to see the day when you’d be worrying over the career of a missionary.”

“Horrid man,” said the patient, shaking a reproving bandaged finger at him. “But, you see, I’ve just discovered that there are missionaries and missionaries.”

Major Sutherland laughed triumphantly.

“It’s horribly unchivalrous of me, but I can’t resist the temptation of saying, ‘I told you so.’”

“Well, if you’d produced a specimen like this to show me, I’d have changed my mind long ago.”

“My dear lady, I’ve begged and begged and begged you to let me introduce the Alexanders—equally fine specimens.”

“I don’t believe it, not for a moment. However, we’ll not quarrel just now. I’m not up to it, and you’d get the best of any argument. You men-folks are all alike. Now, as long as I am well, I can manage John splendidly, but if I’m down with a headache—whew!—he can make black look white. By the way, I’ve also had to revise my ideas of American women.”

“Of course Miss Maxwell is not strictly an American,” suggested the Major, who was enjoying himself hugely.

“True, but she’s lived in America since she was five years old, so her upbringing is certainly American. I thought they all spoke slang at the pitch of the voice and through the nose.”

“A few do.”

“There were three dreadful American women in our party when we went through St. Peter’s. We couldn’t hear what the guide was saying, for they were always making silly remarks. They called the mosaics ‘dandy,’ and the jewels in the sacristy were ‘just too cute,’ and St. Peter’s kissed-away toe was ‘too cunning for words.’ Ugh! I could have smacked them. And then, when we walked up towards the Pope’s Garden, they caught sight of a couple of his guards, in their weird uniform, and they rushed over to them, twirled them round, and stood beside them turn about to get photographed. Abominable!”

The Major laughed.

“I agree with you. But all the same, it isn’t a bit fair to judge a whole nation by three iniquitous globe trotters, any more than it was fair to judge all missionaries by one objectionable specimen. Besides, if Miss Maxwell had been of the type you’ve just described, I shouldn’t have inflicted her on you.”

“She’s so restful and reserved. She continually makes me think of a Bond Street establishment with just one or two exclusive models in the window. They make you want to see what is inside; but even if you finally venture over the sacred threshold, you don’t get shown all the stock unless you’re a very privileged person.”

“I think you’ve gauged Miss Maxwell pretty accurately. Few people get beyond the threshold.”

“And you haven’t been one of the privileged few?”

“Indeed no. However,” continued the man, straightening himself up and tossing aside the magazine with which he had been playing, “let’s get to business. What about getting ashore tomorrow? Shall I go ahead and make arrangements, and then come back for you? I suppose there’s no possibility of John’s getting down to meet you?”

“Just one thing more, before we talk of that. I’m in a fix, a social and moral and financial and—etiquettical, can I say?—fix. I can’t ask Miss Maxwell to accept money, but I must pay her in some way for her trouble. She’s been a thousand times better than any trained nurse I’ve ever had the misfortune to suffer from.”

“What’s your own idea?”

“I thought of giving her something personal—a gold wrist-watch, for instance. She couldn’t refuse that.”

“She probably would. Why not give her a cheque for her work? She’ll certainly need dispensary equipment when she attempts medical work in that out-of-the-way Anamabad she’s going to.”

“You horrid man! When you know I don’t believe in missions!”

“But you evidently believe in Miss Maxwell—a very different thing. However, please yourself. You asked my opinion, you know.”

IV

The End of the Voyage

A dim, purplish-grey line breaks the horizon, making hearts stir and pulses leap. A little bride wonders if she will immediately recognize the fiancé she has not seen for five years. A middle-aged woman thinks of the children left at home and the husband awaiting her here. A young couple dream of Utopia in this wonderful new land. Youths just entering Government Service speculate as to which high posts they will fill twenty years hence. An Indian prince, after a long period of education and preparation in England, thrills at sight of his native land.

The grey line broadens. It develops protuberances. “Oh, there’s the Taj,” cries some one, as there looms into view the stately dome of the Taj Mahal Hotel. Then a clock tower appears; and domes and minarets, and a church spire; and lo, the dim outline has grown, as under a magician’s wand, into the island and town of Bombay, the gateway of India, holding behind its bars vast treasures of romance and mystery, folk-lore and fable, history, mythology, philosophy and poetry, glitter and glamour, tragedy and comedy—-the goal of a thousand ambitions, the grave of as many hopes.

Dorothy Maxwell leaned on the rail, watching the majestic progress of the big vessel as it groped its way alongside the quay. Her face was animated as she looked here and there, trying to absorb everything at once. Her eyes roamed over the wharf with its crowd of scurrying brown figures in loin-cloth and turban, and the little groups of sahib folks in their white suits and sun-hats. When the handkerchiefs began to wave, she looked hopefully for some one who might answer to the description of Miss Perkins, viz., short and stout and with glasses. But not a sign of recognition in all that expectant assemblage seemed to be for her; and once again, in her unsentimental young life, she almost envied those who had had the temerity to involve themselves in the intricacies of human affections. It would be nice to think that some one had literally been counting the months, the weeks, the days, the very hours till her arrival; that some one had thought it worth while to take a three or four days’ journey, as no doubt several of those eager people had done, merely for the joy of seeing her at the first possible moment. Every one but herself, she imagined ruefully, seemed to have some connection in the waiting crowd.

Mrs. Talbot was waving delightedly to a couple of young women. “Look,” she cried. “Those are two of my colleagues in Poona—fine girls. How good of them to come down!”

“Well, I don’t have two nice young ladies to come and meet me, but over there I see one of my best friends in India,” remarked Major Sutherland, as he smilingly returned the salute of an Indian boy perched perilously near the water’s edge, his features blurred by one enormous, all-embracing grin. “That’s Ratan, my bearer, and also my guide, philosopher and friend. I bet you he’s been haunting the dock for days. What about you, Miss Maxwell? You don’t see anybody that might be Miss Perkins, do you?”

“No. But she wrote that she’d come down.”

“I was almost hoping she wouldn’t turn up.”

“You were? How dreadful of you! Why?”

“Well, you see, she’d probably rush you round shopping, and then carry you straight off to Anamabad; whereas you really ought to see some of the beauties of Bombay and some of the nice folk that live in it.”

“I see. But if she doesn’t come, how would that help?”

“It would be an excellent chance for you to meet my friends the Alexanders and stay with them.”

“Stay with them? How could I foist myself on people who haven’t even heard of my existence?”

“That happens to be one of the peculiarities of India. One does just exactly that sort of thing, especially in missionary circles. Now I positively hope and pray that Miss Perkins won’t appear.”

Dorothy naturally felt quite cheered up.

Amid much clatter and excitement, the three friends made their way down the gangway and stepped on to the sacred soil of India. Mrs. Talbot was affectionately seized by two eager young women. Ratan salaamed profoundly and touched his beloved master’s shiny brown shoes. But there was no welcome for Dorothy.

“Hallo, Miss Cochran,” cried Major Sutherland, shaking hands with a bright-faced young lady. “How good of you to come down and meet poor little me!”

“Poor little you! Don’t be conceited. I’m after a Dr. Dorothy Maxwell.”

“Here she is, then. Wasn’t it nice of me to have her all ready to hand over to you?”

“What luck!” cried Miss Cochran with great relief, as she and Dorothy were introduced. “I expected I’d have to accost scores of passengers and find you only by a process of elimination. I’m awfully happy to welcome you to India. Last night I got a letter from a Miss Perkins, asking me to meet the boat this morning. I haven’t the slightest idea who or what Miss Perkins is, but we Y.W.C.A. folk are a sort of stand-by in an emergency like this. By the way, here’s a letter for you. It was enclosed in mine. Perhaps you’d better read it now, in case there are some special instructions.”

Dorothy excused herself, tore open the note, which was written in pencil on the poorest kind of note paper, and scanned it hastily:

Dear Dr. Maxwell:

I fully intended to come and meet you, but I haven’t been out of Anamabad for four years, and to-day so many things cropped up that I felt I could not get away.

For one thing, my travelling expenses would be at least ten rupees (of course I would travel third class). It does not seem right to me to spend all that money just to come and meet you, when it would keep an Indian family for a month, or clothe six naked orphans, etc. So I will rather put it in the Lord’s work.

Besides, Tommy has a bad cold, and I have just got a new opium baby that needs to be fed every two hours. So I am asking the Y. W. to look after you. Bring the things on the enclosed list, and I shall expect you (D. V.) by the morning train on Friday.

Yours truly,

Mary Anne Elizabeth Perkins.

Dorothy was conscious of a spasm of disappointment. It was so plain, she thought dejectedly, that Miss Perkins simply had not thought it worth while to come two hundred miles to welcome the colleague she had been demanding for over twenty years. She handed the letter to Major Sutherland.

“Bravo! Splendid!” he exclaimed as he finished it, and Dorothy laughed in spite of herself. “Now, look here, Miss Cochran, what did you intend to do with Miss Maxwell?”

“I’m rather in a fix. The obvious thing would be to take her to our Y.W.C.A. Hostel, but we’re absolutely crammed at present. We’d need to put her in a room with two other girls.”

“Oh, that would be quite all right,” said Dorothy. “It will be only for one night, anyway.”

“I’ve a far better plan to suggest, if I may,” quoth the Major. “Suppose we all run along first and see whether Mrs. Alexander can’t put up Miss Maxwell. I want them to meet anyway. And if she simply can’t or won’t, then we’ll fall back on your third of a room.”

“Good idea! Come along,” agreed Miss Cochran, and they moved off through the crowd.

“Good-bye, my dear,” said a voice at Dorothy’s elbow. It was Mrs. Talbot, who was being carried off in the opposite direction. “Be sure to write me, and don’t forget to come and see me some time. You’ve a standing invitation to Poona, you know.”

“Oh, good-bye,” cried Dorothy. “I hate to say it. Yes, thanks, I’ll write.”

It was over in a moment. The friend of three happy weeks was snatched from her sight. But Dorothy felt puzzled and dazed. Why was not Major Sutherland escorting the person he was specially interested in? And then it flashed on her that this was a little bit of diplomacy and she congratulated herself on not having blurted out any embarrassing question.

As Dorothy Maxwell was whirled through the streets of Bombay, her mind was bewildered. Here was indeed a fancy fair. She gazed at weird figures in turned-up shoes, baggy white cotton trousers, nondescript coats, and peaked turbans; at a little man with a flowing white tunic and a flowing white beard; at another one with a dirty cotton cloth twisted round his legs and a long, tight-fitting pink satin coat reaching to his knees; at dainty females in brilliantly coloured garments with flimsy veils floating over their shoulders; at phantom forms enveloped from head to foot in white capes with only a slit for the eyes. And these all seemed to be jumbled up with electric street cars and motors and trucks and bullock-carts and fine stone buildings, and lines of trees, and an open park, and Indian nurses with perambulators.

Then they left the Fort, the principal business section, and entered the native quarter. Here were tiny shops ridiculously like tin biscuit boxes turned over on their side. Heaps of different grains, tobacco, sweetmeats and other commodities were displayed for the observation of the passer-by, the delectation of the ubiquitous fly, and the personal convenience of the shopkeeper. Squatting or lying full length at the side of his wares, he could stretch out and reach them and complete a full transaction without the trouble of getting on his feet. And the colouring! Every colour, and every shade of every colour, made up one startlingly effective polychromatic whole.

When the car was held up at a crossing, half an arm was thrust in under Dorothy’s nose. An ugly, leprous stump, it distressed her. The wail of “Baksheesh, Sahib. Baksheesh, Memsahib,” made her look out, and she saw a revolting young man rubbing his flat stomach with his one whole hand in token that it needed her pennies. Then just behind came a dirty blind woman led by a tiny child, with the same drawling cry for baksheesh. “Jao, jao,” cried the Major; but the whining continued until the car moved on, unaffected by the near presence of an Indian policeman. His brilliant yellow pancake of a cap set at a jaunty angle, his navy blue coat and shorts, his bare brown legs and sandalled feet, these all seemed to ornament rather than to influence the scene; for he lolled comfortably against a lamp-post, blissfully and consciously unaware of any infringement of the law in his vicinity.

“Horrors!” cried Dorothy, as she suddenly caught sight of a piano bobbing up and down on the heads of six running coolies; and she turned and strained her eyes through the celluloid windows of the car, to make sure that those slender necks did not snap under their appalling load. She almost lost her balance, for the car just then turned sharply in at a gate in a high wall, swung round a drive lined with strange trees and bushes, and came to a standstill under a porch in front of a large bungalow.

V

New Friends

“Well, I declare,” cried a pleasant voice from nowhere. “Billy, Betty, come quick. Here’s Uncle Pat,” and a brisk, grey-haired lady emerged through a glass-bead curtain and came forward with outstretched hands as the visitors mounted the steps.

“Miss Cochran, how are you? And Major Sutherland, I’m so delighted to see you again.”

“This is Miss Maxwell, a fellow-passenger . . . Mrs. Alexander.”

“Welcome to India, Miss Maxwell. I am sure, by the look in your eyes, that this is your first visit. Am I right?”

“You are,” smiled Dorothy, feeling a warm glow somewhere in the region of the affections.

“Come along and sit down, all of you. Mr. Alexander is out, unfortunately, but you’ll all have breakfast with us, won’t you?”

“There now,” said the Major, and he turned to Dorothy. “Here’s the Indian hospitality I told you about. Mrs. Alexander, I simply couldn’t persuade Miss Maxwell that it wouldn’t be an intrusion to ask you to put her up for a night. But perhaps you have a few dozen other visitors as usual.”

“For a wonder, not one. But even if I had, that wouldn’t matter. We can always find one more small corner for an unexpected guest. I’ll be delighted to have you stay, Miss Maxwell.”

Just then a couple of children, with a rush and a whoop, clattered downstairs and threw themselves on the Major. Billy was a manly fellow of twelve who looked at his hero with obvious worship, while eight-year-old Betty bounced up on his knee without ceremony and hugged him. Dorothy thought she had never seen so many happy wrinkles round the kind blue eyes as now, when he gathered the precious child in his arms and returned her caresses with enthusiasm.

Introductions, inquiries, explanations and general small talk followed for a few minutes as they all sat on the pleasant verandah. Then Miss Cochran rose to go.

“Well then, if you simply can’t stay for breakfast, you’ll surely come to dinner to-night?” said Mrs. Alexander. “The Major, of course, comes.”

Miss Cochran accepted with alacrity, and the Major, with a knowing, I-told-you-so glance at Dorothy, remarked, “Ra-ther! I’ve been looking forward to that dinner for a long time.”

“I hope you won’t be disappointed then,” returned the hostess. “Perhaps you didn’t remember that it’s Thanksgiving. We Scotch folk don’t know anything about Thanksgiving, Miss Maxwell; but Billy has heard so much about it from some American kiddies in school—he goes to school in South India, you know—that he’s teased the very life out of me to give a Thanksgiving dinner. You’ll probably think it a scream, but perhaps you could give me a few pointers beforehand.”

“That will be awfully jolly,” said the Major. “I’ve only once been at a Thanksgiving dinner, and that was years ago, in New York. I realized then what a lot we non-American folk miss because we don’t celebrate that way. If I had been a family man, I would certainly have introduced it, especially for the sake of the kiddies. Well, I must be off immediately too. I have to look after the transference of a passenger who had an accident. Miss Maxwell will tell you all about it. Eight o’clock as usual, I presume?”

“Eight o’clock, as usual; but come early.”

Off went the car, and Dorothy Maxwell found herself alone in a new land, with a person she had never met until ten minutes before. What a queer place India was, to be sure! Its suddenness quite took one’s breath away. But she had already fallen in love with Ruth Alexander, the woman with the kind hazel eyes that shone with love and sympathy, compelling everybody to trust her, to cheer up and see the bright side of things, the woman who radiated an atmosphere of peace and goodwill that was like the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. She was standing now on the top step of the verandah, watching the departing car. Billy had his arm round her waist in a fatherly fashion, deliciously conscious of his extra quarter-inch of height. Betty was standing tiptoe with excitement, hoping for a last signal from her beloved one. It came. Just as the car slowed down to avoid the gatepost, the Major’s topi was vigorously waved from the window.

“Now, off with you, chickies. That’s the last of Uncle Pat until to-night,” and Mrs. Alexander disengaged herself from the children and turned to her guest.

The rest of that first day in India always remained to Dorothy a confused and crowded collection of novel impressions: of the big, rambling bungalow with its high-ceilinged, airy rooms and wide verandahs, its brass bowls and vases and candlesticks and lamps, its curtains of quaint wool embroidery, its rugs of rich reds and blues, its strange plants in their brass jardinieres, its garden with the peculiar plants and flowers tended by two half-clothed brown figures with red woollen caps; the palm tree in a neighbouring compound with a man climbing down its long stalk like a monkey on a stick; the genial family breakfast table where she met the reserved but kindly host; and then the tiring drive through the bazaar in the evening to buy the various items on Miss Perkins’ interminable list.

It was a very cosmopolitan dinner party. The Alexanders were Scotch, Major Sutherland Scotch with an Irish mother, Miss Cochran Australian, Dorothy herself a Canadian with more than half her interests American. There were also a couple of Americans and a bank clerk just out from London, whom Mrs. Alexander was trying to prop up till he should find his Indian legs.

Dorothy enjoyed the international chaffing and the tall stories told by the Americans to nonplus the uninitiated, but she herself was rather quiet. She could not help wishing that her lot had been cast here in Bombay, where she might visit this adorable Alexander family, and where she might occasionally relax from mission problems in an atmosphere like this. Then she glanced across the table at the kind face of her shipboard friend. He was devoting himself to his little partner Betty, and to judge by the animated conversation and the chuckles, they were both evidently having a perfectly glorious time. He was her one link with the pleasant life of the last three weeks. But tomorrow even that link would be broken. She would find herself away at the back of beyond with no white folk about her but the redoubtable and rather doubtful Miss Perkins.

When Miss Cochran left, Dorothy and Major Sutherland, at his request, drove down with her to her home in the Fort and then came back by the sea. As they turned north along the fine, wide carriage road that skirts the curve of Back Bay, Dorothy lay back in her corner and watched the twinkling shore-lights and the indistinct row of palms between her and the sea.

“Tired?” queried her companion.

“I was awfully tired when we started, but this is refreshing.”

“Would it tire you to go home a roundabout way? I’d like you to see Bombay from a vantage-point.”

“Thank you, I’d love to.”

They sped up Malabar Hill, that fashionable suburb on the west that runs out to a promontory capped by Government House. They alighted and walked out to a little stone platform built at a strategic point, and they watched from this eminence the magnificent panorama. Along the curve of Back Bay shone a row of lights familiarly known as “The Queen’s Necklace.” Here and there on the shore tiny pin-points of light showed where vendors had their booths, boasting by way of illumination only smoking cotton wicks floating in cups of oil. Away beyond, in the heart of the city, blazed a few high electric signs. Close by, a palm tree rustled. A bird, disturbed in its sleep, complained querulously. From the immense, indistinct area spread out before them, rose the weird, composite murmur of city life. The air was comfortably cool, and it carried the indescribable, haunting, Eastern scent composed of burning wood, sweet spices, strange flowers, and a hundred other ingredients.

“Oh, it’s lovely—lovely,” whispered Dorothy, as she gazed entranced. “How beautiful India is!”

“Yes, indeed, and especially beautiful when the kindly night has hidden the unlovely things. In the pitiless glare of daylight—-well, one sees the true India.”

“I’m afraid I don’t want to see that side of it.”

“I wish you didn’t have to. But that’s the side missionaries are bound to see. In fact, if it weren’t for that side of things, they wouldn’t be needed at all. But try not to get so absorbed in the sordid, seamy elements of your work that you forget about the beautiful ones. By the way, I see you have quite fallen for the Alexanders. I was sure you would.”

“I surely have. What is the secret of their charm?”

“It’s hard to define it. For one thing, they’re optimistic; and in this aggravating land an optimist is worth his weight in gold. Then, although they are magnificent missionaries—both of them—they haven’t forgotten how to be just human, just kindly and sociable. They’re never so taken up with their own particular problems that they haven’t time to spare for other folk and their problems. Their home in Bombay is a perfect haven for the depressed and lonely folk that need a little cheering up.”

“Like that Mr.—what was his name?—we met to-night, the bank clerk?”

“Yes, indeed. In fact, he owes Ruth Alexander his life.”

“His life? How?”

“The Alexanders saw him one day sitting on one of the benches by the seashore. There was something about his lonely, dejected air that struck Ruth, and she made her husband go up and speak to him. She often has impulses like that, and they’re always true. This one was particularly fortunate. It transpired that the poor fellow was down and out and just contemplating ending it all.”

Dorothy shivered. The heavy Eastern scents suddenly seemed offensive. “They’re wonderful people, both of them,” she said at length. “How did you first meet them?”

The Major paused a moment. “Fifteen years ago,” he began, “my fiancée was on her way out to me. She travelled with the Alexanders. She took typhoid on the boat and was in a precarious condition when she landed. Ruth Alexander took her straight to her home in Bombay, and nursed her like a sister till she died—a fortnight later.”

“Excuse me,” said Dorothy, her eyes filling. “I’m sorry I asked.”

“I’m very glad you did. You can understand how I feel about the Alexanders. They have been my friends ever since. Ruth is the kind of woman who loves the whole world—her heart is so big, bless her! Don’t for a moment hesitate to consult her if you ever need help. She’d appreciate it.”

“Thanks, I’ll remember.”

Dorothy continued to gaze at the beautiful scene before her. It was still beautiful, but the sounds of city life that surged up to her now seemed to contain the cry of pain, the moan of despair. She shivered again.

“Don’t forget my advice so soon,” said the kind voice. “Remember the beautiful things. By the way, too, please don’t forget that I am your friend as well as Mrs. Alexander. I should be sorry to think this was the end of our friendship.”

“So should I. But, you see, Anamabad seems to be at the back of nowhere.”

“But you’ll be having a holiday away from it now and again.”

“I don’t know. Miss Perkins says she hasn’t been out of Anamabad for four years.”

“That’s nonsense, in fact, criminal. Every one should have a vacation occasionally, especially those who live in lonely stations. Do no white people ever go to Anamabad?”

“I believe not.”

“But, you know, good friends sometimes make a way of meeting again. My berth for the present is in Poona, and that isn’t more than a hundred miles or so from you. I might happen to find that I had very important business in Anamabad.”

“Oh, that would be lovely! Please do find some important business there soon,” cried Dorothy naively.

The Major smiled in shelter of the darkness. “Very well,” he said, “I’ll try. But meanwhile, until that very important business turns up, I was wondering whether you would allow me to write to you, and whether you would be so good as to answer? I am extremely interested in your work, and you are sure to have some peculiar cases that I should be glad to hear about. Perhaps, too, I could give you a little help in the way of buying medical stores and things like that.”

“Oh, thank you so much,” replied Dorothy gratefully, staggered by this incredible bit of good fortune, that her Desirable Big Brother was actually going to keep in touch with her. “You’ve already helped me in so many ways. It’s tremendously good of you to bother with a greenhorn.”

Then they fell silent as they took one long, last look at the exquisite prospect before them. As they turned to go, Dorothy felt rested and refreshed, and ready for Anamabad and The Great Unknown.

VI

The Redoubtable Miss Perkins

Hustle and bustle. Shouting and screaming. Jingle and jangle. Hurrying figures with loads on their heads and babies on their hips. Clinking and clanking of bangles and anklets on waving arms and scurrying feet. Rattling of trucks. Banging of doors.

Women from the north with long, full, pleated skirts of brilliant reds and yellows; with flimsy veils of saucy pinks and greens covering all but one bold black eye; with ivory rings from ankle to knee and from wrist to elbow; with metal toe-rings, gold necklets and jewelled nose-rings and ear-rings: the family bank book! Mohammedan women enveloped from head to foot in voluminous white cloaks to hide their alluring curves from the public eye. Women of the Maratha country with their sleek black hair coiled into a knot at the nape of the neck, and with their bare brown legs peeping out at every step from the folds of the long, straight piece of cloth wrapped loosely round them.

Everywhere babies and baggage: babies in their mothers’ arms: babies riding on their fathers’ hip or shoulder or head; babies sprawling on the ground: babies crawling under the feet of the passers-by: babies tumbling over the bed-bundles—most of them howling with excitement or fear.

Heads of households with flapping white nether garments and shirts, coloured turbans or fezzes, many-hued waistcoats, clumsy wooden sandals or turned-up, red morocco slippers, rushing to and fro, gesticulating frantically to their tardy families, hustling their womenfolk into already bulging compartments, pushing their boxes and baskets and bundles through the windows, shouting at the pitch of their voices, and altogether getting their money’s worth out of their train ride.

When Dorothy Maxwell alighted at Anamabad Station, she stood bewildered for a moment by this novel medley of sounds and sights. Then she strained her eyes in search of some person or some thing that might have some connection with herself. She suddenly distinguished amidst the seething mass of figures a white sun-topi bobbing up and down, and she watched its progress with eager interest. It gradually approached, and she found herself face to face with the great Miss Perkins. Her first swift impression was of a small, rotund woman with extraordinarily bright black eyes and enormous spectacles who shook hands in a sort of pump-handle fashion, and said:

“Glad to see you, child. Where’s your baggage? Haven’t got it out yet? Dear, dear, hurry up, or the train will go off.”

“Oh,” cried Dorothy in consternation, “I thought it stopped here half an hour.”

“Stuff and nonsense; it comes when it likes and it goes when it likes. Here, you, Joseph, get Missy-sahib’s things out quick. And you, Moses, run with them to the bullock-cart.”

Two Indian lads stepped forward. Dorothy was pushed aside as of no consequence, and with some trepidation she watched her hold-all transferred from the compartment to Moses’ head, and carried somewhere through the crowd and out of sight. When the boy reappeared for a second load she felt relieved, and she turned to study the eccentric figure beside her.

Miss Perkins’ dress was of black alpaca of the style of thirty years before. It had a long, full skirt, and a tight bodice buttoned up the front. With this she wore a boy’s rubber Eton collar, and a small, red cotton bow tie. Her sun-topi was enormous, and as she looked down at the luggage it quite extinguished her features. But when she raised her head to give an order, she disclosed a little round face, aquiline nose, ruddy complexion, thin lips, and the brightest, beadiest, most disconcerting black eyes twinkling through her spectacles. In one hand she carried a large black umbrella with a white cotton cover. With this she gesticulated violently, and even rapped Joseph and Moses when they were not smart enough. By the other hand she led an Indian child of five or four, the afflicted Tommy, perhaps.

When at last Dorothy’s numerous items of luggage had been carried out of sight, Miss Perkins jumped into the compartment, gave a penetrating and all-embracing glance round, poked under the seats with her umbrella, and finally hopped out again, heaving a big sigh of relief.

“That’s that,” she remarked. “Now, we’ll move out to the dumny. Come along, Tommy,” and half guiding, half pushing Dorothy with the handle (fortunately) of the ubiquitous umbrella, Miss Perkins threaded her way out of the station and over the road to where a vehicle was standing.

“Vehicle” was the only word Dorothy Maxwell could think of. She had never before seen anything remotely like this two-wheeled cart covered with a rounded cloth top and drawn by two bullocks. The door was at the back, and when the new-comer mounted the step, she found two wooden seats attached to the sides and running the long way of the dumny. She and Tommy occupied one, and Miss Perkins the other.

“But where is the baggage?” she asked.

“Look over there, child.” Dorothy, following the direction of the ever-useful implement in Miss Perkins’ hand, looked through the door of the dumny and saw her precious belongings piled up on a bullock-cart behind, and just being roped on by Joseph and Moses.

“Chelau, chelau, Jevan,” shouted Miss Perkins, clapping her hands vigorously. A third boy appeared from nowhere, jumped up and sat on the cross-bar behind the bullocks, gave an unearthly yell that made Dorothy jump, and then, by alternately whacking the animals and twisting their tails, he persuaded them to start.

They did so with a jerk that pitched the unsuspecting greenhorn back against the side of the dumny and knocked her topi askew. She laughed good-naturedly and held on firmly to the seat. She was anxious to make polite conversation, but the progress of the dumny was too noisy and erratic. Miss Perkins made no attempt in that direction. She stared fixedly out of the door of the dumny as though oblivious of anyone’s presence. So Dorothy sat silent, watching with the ardour of the new-comer the peep of landscape visible above the driver’s head.

The station stood on the outskirts of the town. They were evidently heading for the country. There was little to be seen but the long stretch of road lined with cactus bushes and an occasional stumpy, scraggy mimosa. Round a bend in the road ahead, a procession suddenly swung into view. Above the clatter of the dumny, Dorothy could hear the clashing of cymbals and the shouting of men’s voices. “How interesting!” she thought. “This must be a marriage procession.” The confused blur of figures passed on the side of the dumny behind Miss Perkins. Dorothy leaned forward and looked through the door. Then she started back in horror. In the middle of the procession was a rude bier borne by four men. On it lay a corpse wrapped in a red cloth strewn with yellow flowers and powder. The uncovered face, hideously smeared with white ashes, indicated an old man, and the dead head lolled from side to side as the bier was jostled on the shoulders of its trotting bearers.

Dorothy, in her profession, was naturally accustomed to death in its various forms. But death, at home, was associated with quiet and dignity and reverence and a darkened atmosphere. Even in the lowest slums, where she had eased some poor spirit in its flight from an unlovely abode, she had been conscious of a Something that touched the neighbours, coarse as they were, and stilled for a time at least the raucous quarrels and the crude jibes. But to see death in the blazing sunlight, accompanied by bright colours, jarring music, loud singing, laughing voices—it was a little staggering. Tired with the journey, bewildered by the new sounds and sights, somewhat overpowered by her companion, Dorothy felt momentarily unstrung. Miss Perkins seemed to wake up suddenly from her reverie. She looked back along the road.

“H’m,” she snorted. “It’s only a funeral—on its way to the burning ghat. You’re surely not squeamish?”

“Oh, no, thank you. It just gave me a bit of a shock, for I supposed in the distance that it was a wedding procession.”

“Stuff and nonsense, child. Now, don’t begin by getting bits of shocks, or you won’t stand India. Mind, now. And you a doctor, too!”

Dorothy felt the bright eyes examine her critically. She almost heard them snap in disapproval. Then Miss Perkins suddenly laughed aloud.

“You’ll soon get over funerals, child,” she resumed cheerfully. “Our bungalow stands on the road to the Lingayet cemetery. The Lingayets bury their dead, you know, instead of burning them, and they carry the corpses sitting up in a chair with a bunch of palm leaves waving over them. We see all the funerals pass. In plague time they come so fast that they can’t all get the official drummers.”

Dorothy did not speak. She wished that her informant had not seen fit to hand out this interesting item just at this particular psychological moment.

But there was little time for meditation, melancholy or otherwise. Another violent jerk precipitated Dorothy right into Miss Perkins’ lap, as the dumny swerved abruptly to the left, missed a dilapidated gate-post by half an inch, and drew up in front of a bungalow. Dorothy, still apprehensive of the erratic tendencies of the bullocks, alighted with caution and began to look about her.

VII

First Impressions

Anamabad was at one time a cantonment, now abandoned for lack of an adequate water supply. There still remained in tolerable condition half a dozen of the officers’ bungalows. Of these Miss Perkins had bought two; and by pulling down the wall between the compounds she had acquired an area of over three acres, with two large bungalows and a miscellaneous assortment of smaller buildings—servants’ houses, stables, and storerooms. One of the bungalows was occupied by Miss Perkins and any little protégés she happened to have on hand. The other served as day school, girls’ hostel, and dispensary.

Miss Perkins’ bungalow, in front of which the dumny had stopped, was a long, low, one-storied, whitewashed building, with a row of ponderous stucco pillars edging the verandah and supporting the sloping roof of thatch. On the ground beside the plinth and on each side of the entrance steps, were ranged numerous earthenware pots filled with many varieties of crotons. Dorothy took this in at one hurried glance and turned to the compound.

In a stretch of ground between the drive and the enclosing wall, a couple of water buffaloes were nosing round in the scanty grass. Dotting this “lawn,” as she mentally dubbed it, and lining the drive and the smaller paths, were trees and bushes, large and small. From some of them depended silvery seedpods, rustling and whispering in response to a modest breath of wind. From others, long, heavy green pods hung stolid and prideful. Here and there flamed a bush of purple bougainvillaea. Chumpa trees reared great, fan-like clumps of glossy green leaves, and many of the stalkless, starlike blossoms of waxy white with yellow centres, had fallen from their perch and were making a fragrant carpet beneath it.

Dorothy ran over and picked up a couple of blossoms. “Oh, how sweet, how exquisite!” she thought as she inhaled their mystic, haunting scent; and she felt both physically and mentally refreshed.

Miss Perkins was all this time interviewing a group of Indians who had been awaiting her arrival. Dorothy wondered when she was to be invited indoors, but she looked about her to get her bearings. She tried to locate a peculiar, creaking noise, and decided that it must come from a well in the farther corner of the compound, for she caught sight of two bullocks being driven down a slope and automatically raising a big leathern bag of water. She walked a little way towards it and leaned against a tree, fascinated each time the big bag opened out suddenly at its base and precipitated a flow of clear, sparkling water into the little earthen runnels that carried it off into a neighbouring field.

“Good morning, Doctor-missysahib,” said a sweet voice with a marked accent. “Welcome to Anamabad.” Dorothy wheeled round, and found herself face to face with a young Indian woman. Her sleek black hair was brushed smoothly back from her forehead; her large-brown eyes were sparkling with joy and friendliness; and her lips were parted in a smile that displayed thirty-two faultless, glistening white teeth.

“Oh, good morning,” replied Dorothy, shaking the outstretched brown hand and feeling puzzled as to how to proceed.

“Please, I am Susanbai, your dispenser.”

“Oh, really? Then you and I are going to work together, aren’t we, Susanbai?”

“Please, yes.”

But just then Miss Perkins, having satisfactorily interviewed her Indian visitors, seemed suddenly to remember that she had a guest. Beckoning vigorously with her umbrella, which had been tucked under her arm as she talked, she swish-swished along the verandah. Dorothy sped up the steps and followed her through an open door at the extreme end. Her heart beat fast at the thought that this was actually her destination, the goal towards which all her previous life had been leading, the point to which all lines of activity and interest, of knowledge and ambition, had converged. The voyage and the shipboard friends and the visit to Bombay—these were mere incidents. Here her life work was to begin.

The room was foursquare. Its high ceiling and walls were whitewashed. Its mud floor was covered, imperfectly, with straw matting. There were no windows, but a door in each wall. One led to the front verandah, one to the west verandah, one to the dining-room, and one to the dressing-room. In the middle of the floor stood an ancient, rusty iron bedstead, with its four upright rods supporting four horizontal ones and evidently awaiting the mosquito-net in her trunk. A table, a chair, an empty bookcase, and a couple of rugs completed the furnishings.

It was not an inviting room. Compared with the one she had occupied in Bombay, with its dainty cushions and curtains and its white-enamelled furniture, this was more like a prison cell. But Dorothy, with the eye of faith, saw it enlivened by her books and pictures and photographs, and she was content.

As she was looking about her, a scuffling and a chattering and a suppressed giggling heralded the advent of a dozen little imps in pink cotton pinafores. They invaded her room and each presented her with a droll little nosegay. In answer to their dumb show she removed her topi; one of them tied a wreath of tube-roses round the knot of her hair, while two others tied on her wrists bangles of flower-heads strung together. Then they joined hands and sang a weird song, Miss Perkins standing alongside, gesticulating and exhorting.

“I wish I knew what it means,” said Dorothy when they had finished.

“It’s a song of welcome to you. Susanbai composed it. Dinner at seven,” and she and the children departed.

After a survey of her quarters Dorothy started to unpack. It was five o’clock and appreciably cooler than at any time during the journey. But she was desperately thirsty. She had long ago exhausted the contents of her water bottle, and had ardently hoped that afternoon tea might figure on the programme. But there had been no mention of it, and she was too much in awe of the mistress of the house either to ask for a drink or forage for one. As she bent over her trunk she heard a rap on the open door, and Susanbai entered, carrying a large cup of tea and a huge slice of bread and butter.

“Why, Susanbai, what is this?”

“Please, Doctor-missysahib, I hear Mudum-sahib say ‘Dinner at seven’ and I thinking Doctor-missysahib maybe have thirst.”

“Indeed I have, Susanbai. How awfully good of you! Did you ask Miss Perkins for this?”

Susanbai put her fingers on her lips, turned her expressive brown eyes dramatically towards the door, and shook her head. “Mudum-sahib not knowing. This is my tea.”

Dorothy gratefully gulped down the luke-warm, syrupy-sweet liquid, and turned again to her trunk, inexpressibly cheered by Susanbai’s thoughtfulness.

On entering the dining-room at seven o’clock, the new-comer was staggered to find three little Indian children, including Tommy, already seated at table and enjoying their meal with an enthusiasm appreciable both to ear and eye. She sat down on a horsehair sofa to wait, and as Miss Perkins did not appear for fully half an hour there was ample time to look round and get acquainted with things.

The room was an extraordinary mixture. The walls were discoloured: perpendicular streaks of yellowish-green on the whitewash indicated the effects of a leaky roof. The lower half of each wall was well covered by lithographs, family portraits and texts. The horsehair sofa on which she sat had a couple of red and green woollen antimacassars over the ends. A shaky reed table was propped against the wall, with one leg three inches off the ground. On it lay a large Bible, a row of dilapidated books, and a bundle of English periodicals. The tablecloth was of coarse, red-checked cotton. A thick glass jar—presumably a Horlick’s Malted Milk bottle—was placed in the centre of the table, and contained a bunch of red, yellow, crimson, orange and purple zinnias that absolutely screamed at each other and at the tablecloth.

Dorothy was not particularly fastidious, but she was well aware of the psychological effects of environment, and her heart sank. Her soliloquy, however, was interrupted by the entrance of Miss Perkins, who waved her to a horsehair chair at table, took one opposite, said a long and earnest grace, and then rapped smartly on her glass to summon the butler.

“By the way,” she remarked to Dorothy, “these children are not well, so I have them over here to see that they get enough to eat. I hope you’ll examine them to-morrow, Doctor.”

“Certainly,” replied Dorothy, noting the round cheeks and bulging stomachs, and mentally deciding that they were overfed. “How long have they been ill?”

This started Miss Perkins on a lengthy description not only of the children themselves, and their ailments, but of the work in general: the new doctor’s future duties, the primitive dispensary, the outbreak of plague in a neighbouring village, and many other items which, being entirely new to her, left her with only a confused and hazy idea as to what it was all about. The only question asked of her was, whether she had brought everything on the list?

Even Dorothy Maxwell’s unpractised eye soon recognized that Miss Perkins was a person of one, and of only one idea. That idea was WORK, always writ in capitals. Only in so far as a subject had some direct bearing on mission work, did she evince the slightest interest in it. It seemed to be nothing to her whether Dorothy had had a pleasant voyage, or where she had stayed in Bombay. Her only value lay in the fact that she had arrived safely and was ready for the work that had awaited her so long.

Miss Perkins, in her lonely and specialized life, had long since left behind her such trifles as the common courtesies of life, the conventional but kindly inquiry after health or concerning a journey. In the interests of work everything superfluous had been rigidly eliminated. She was glad to see Dorothy, not because she was a fresh young woman with high ideals and buoyant enthusiasm, new knowledge and new methods, but because she represented so much work, so much service, so much efficiency. Her value to Miss Perkins was not to be in companionship or in inspiration, but in simple worth as a valuable adjunct of missionary effort—-an agent, who, by healing bodies, would prepare minds and souls for Miss Perkins’ ministrations.

All this, of course, was not immediately apparent to Dorothy Maxwell, but from the first she had a disquieting intuition that Miss Perkins was not quite human, that the ordinary things which interest ordinary men and women had no meaning for her, and that she was, to a very real and almost terrible degree, a woman apart and peculiar.

However, with the healthy appetite of youth, Dorothy enjoyed the simple dinner of tomato soup, curry and rice, and home-made bread and snow-white buffalo butter. Everything tasted good, in spite of the erratic behaviour both of Miss Perkins and the children, and in spite of the painful consciousness that the beady black eyes were weighing her in the balances and alas, finding her wanting!

A stroll in the cool, fragrant garden with Susanbai, brought to an end Dorothy Maxwell’s first day in Anamabad. Her mind was full of questions and problems which she determined to thrash out before going to sleep. But five minutes after she had crept in under her mosquito-net and tucked it in carefully on all four sides, the sandman came along, threw a handful of Indian sand in her eyes, pocketed all her perplexities, and continued his rounds.

VIII

From Different Points of View

(From Miss Perkins to Lady Brixton)

Mission House,
Anamabad, India,
January 15, 1914.

Lady Brixton,
Brixton House,
Berwickshire,
Scotland.

Dear Lady Brixton:

I trust you had a happy time at Christmas and that the Lord will richly bless you in the New Year, and make you fruitful in all your works, especially the work at Anamabad. Thanks to your Christmas box, the orphans had a fine feed, and send you their respectful salaams for the same.

Well, she’s here, as she no doubt has written and told you. It behooved me to wait and see what’s what before reporting to you. “Hope deferred maketh the heart sick.” For twenty long years my heart was sick, hoping and praying and wrestling with the Lord for a doctor to heal sick bodies, that many souls might be turned into the way everlasting. Well, as I said, she’s here, and my heart is more sick than it was, aye, sick unto death.

Now, I have nothing against her personally, mind you. I hope I am a just woman, judging not that I be not judged. She is a good girl and a good Christian, according to her lights. But a missionary—NO. To begin with, she’s delicate. You’ll hardly believe me when I tell you that she sometimes (in fact, often) lies down in the afternoon—in the afternoon, mind you, as though she were a lady of leisure with nothing else to do but pamper herself. I make it a point of conscience to find out every time she does it, and try to bring her to a sense of her duty, but she always says she is tired. Pure imagination, of course. Here am I, bearing the heat and burden of the day for five and twenty years in India, and I would be ashamed to touch my bed before nine o’clock at night.

Then, secondly, her dress is unbecoming to anyone who has dedicated herself to be a missionary of the Gospel. She looks exactly like the Collector’s wife, or any other ordinary person like that. And she has two evening dresses! She says she wore them both at home and didn’t buy them with any of her missionary outfit money, but the idea of a missionary being taken up with fashions and fol-de-rols! I sometimes wonder if it isn’t my sacred duty to burn those evening dresses. I can only pray for guidance.

As for medical work, she does very little—just a few hours in the dispensary in the mornings, and a little visiting in the afternoons. Of course, it’s better than nothing. I’ll admit that. And the Indians nearly worship her. But compared with all my expectations, it’s a sore disappointment. No doubt the Lord knows best.

Well, I’m glad to tell you that Tommy is better again, though not himself yet, poor wee man. The new convert I told you about has run away. I am afraid he was a deceiver. For three whole months I fed him free and instructed him in holy truths, and then he was baptized to our great joy. But whenever I suggested that he should begin to work, he disappeared. The Lord knoweth the hearts of men.

One of the bullocks has a swollen knee-joint, and the pastor is down with indigestion, otherwise we are all well.

With respects to Your Ladyship,

Yours truly,

Mary Anne Elizabeth Perkins.

(Dorothy Maxwell to Major Sutherland)

Anamabad,
January 15, ’14.

Dear Major Sutherland:

Many thanks for your letter of the 10th. The box of stores arrived a couple of days ago, in excellent condition. I am most grateful to you for buying them for me, and will be bothering you soon again, for—I have a tremendous bit of news for you.

I have just received a check for Rs. 1000. I must write it out in words, it looks so much bigger that way. One thousand rupees for dispensary equipment. And just guess who sent it. Of course, you couldn’t possibly guess, so be ready for a shock. It was Mrs. Sandeman! And she wrote the loveliest letter, saying she didn’t believe a bit in missions yet, but she believed in me and in medical relief! Wasn’t that delicious? If all the folk who won’t believe in missions would act like Mrs. Sandeman, missionary work would soon get boosted. I’m so excited. I’ve heaps of plans about using that one thousand rupees. I’ll tell you some of them later, and ask your advice. Meanwhile, I must just answer your questions.

First of all for the daily round. Well, after sleeping like a top from ten till six, I am awakened by a gentle tap at the door and the appearance of Susanbai with a chota-hazri tray, a fragrant flower and a great big, loving, glistening smile and greeting. As you know, Susanbai is not my ayah. Officially she is my dispenser, and unofficially my guide, philosopher and friend. One day she discovered quite accidentally that Miss Perkins’ cook had sent up burnt toast and cold tea, which I had left untouched. She asked me exactly how I liked things done and immediately installed herself as chota-hazri manager. Her loving smile and floral greeting put me in excellent humour for the day’s work.

By the way, let me digress right here and tell you a story. About ten years ago Miss Perkins was riding through a village in her bullock dumny and suddenly heard screams of pain and terror coming from an enclosed courtyard. She stopped the dumny, jumped out, pushed open the door, and saw a woman dragging a child viciously across the floor. Miss P. rushed forward, brandishing her umbrella. I believe there was a free fight. I needn’t tell you who won! The victor took the trembling child in her arms and carried her to the dumny and drove home. It was a little Hindu widow of nine years of age. Her husband, a boy of twelve, had died two years previously, and since then her life had been one long, unspeakable martyrdom under her mother-in-law. As the family was of good caste, there was quite a little fuss over the matter, but Miss P., intrepid and resourceful as usual, threatened to make a court case of it, and even to write to His Majesty, the King of England! The family got so scared that they came and begged on their hands and knees that she would be graciously pleased to keep the good-for-nothing child! I believe that a judicious “present” of a few rupees, especially as it was a famine year, had something to do with the sudden change of front. Anyway, the child stayed, and she grew up strong and clever. By and by she asked to be baptized, and she dropped her own “heathen” name and was given—guess what! Susan! Yes, this is the story of my dear, loving incomparable Susanbai, who has smoothed away many a rough place for me in Anamabad.

Well, to get back to the daily programme. At 7 a. m. my pundit arrives. Mr. Krishnaji Madhavrao Palnitker is a Brahman of the old school. He is about fifty years of age, tall and stately, with an erect bearing that is a mixture of pride of birth, conscious intellectual superiority, and supreme indifference to the ordinary mortals about him. He is a model of correct deportment. I could not imagine him condescending to be flurried or flustered under any circumstances whatsoever, and he bears with admirable equanimity my cruel mangling of his beautiful language and my crude attempts to repeat the gymnastics of his lips and tongue when he teaches me hitherto unknown sounds. I have not yet got used to the quaintness of his outfit, and I catch myself studying his stiff little cap of purple silk with the piece of gold fringe hanging from it, or the brilliant pink suspenders that show up so vividly against his bare brown leg, or the pearl ear-ring in the top of his right ear, or the Ingersoll nickel wrist-watch on his left wrist, or his large black umbrella with his full name, Krishnaji Madhavrao Palnitker, painted in large white letters on the outside! I’m sorry to confess that I’m making little progress with Marathi, for besides this hour with my pundit I get no time for study till after dinner, and my eyes are beginning to get strained with the deciphering of the Marathi characters by lamplight. So, perhaps I’ll have to get a pair of enormous spectacles after all, and then I’ll look the part of a lady doctor, according to your ideas!

At eight o’clock I put on my topi and walk over to the other compound, where, as I mentioned before, three rooms have been fitted up as consulting room, dispensary and waiting-room. Two Bible-women are always there to speak with the patients until it is their turn. I just love those dear, gentle, lovable Indian women. My heart went right out to them the first day I saw them, sitting on the floor nursing their darling little brownies. In most cases simple remedies are all that is needed, but how my heart aches at sight of the hopeless cases that, humanly speaking, could easily have been cured if they had been taken in time. I simply must have an hospital here by and by. I already see it in my mind’s eye.

Well, this dispensary work takes me from eight till about eleven, when I go over to the other bungalow for breakfast. On three afternoons per week, I visit sick folk in Anamabad. On the other three I go with Miss Perkins and some of her Indian preachers to villages in the vicinity. The people flock to get their ills cured—they still bring their lame and blind and multifariously diseased, as they did nearly two thousand years ago by the Lake of Galilee.

I am awfully fond of the village work; it is so romantic to hold an open-air dispensary and treat folk who have never even seen a doctor before. We usually go into the village first and if possible speak with the head man and ask his permission to have a service. Miss Perkins and her preachers provide the religion—hymn-singing, prayers and very simple sermonettes. Then it is announced that the Missy-sahib will see sick folk, and I go off to a corner of the rest-house, or under a tree. Strange to relate, nearly the whole crowd follows me. They are not all sick, but they are all curious, and I have to diagnose all sorts of ailments and prescribe all sorts of remedies in the presence of a host of inquisitive witnesses. Later on we go out of the village and round to the wretched out-caste quarters. The enthusiastic crowd following us thins out when it sees where we are going, but we soon get a new crowd of those poor untouchables, and here we go through very much the same programme.

The thing that gets me more and more all the time is the fact that this crude village life is the real India. Did you ever hear this staggering calculation, that if Christ had started, nineteen hundred years ago, and visited one Indian village each day, He would not yet have visited every village in India? When I look at a crowd of poor, dirty, ignorant Indian villagers, and think of the cleaning up that is needed—physical, mental and moral cleaning up—I feel as if I were trying to bale out a leaky ocean liner with a teaspoon. It seems plain to me that religion is the explanation of the whole problem, for as long as you have a religious system that keeps the top dog top and the under dog under, the great bulk of the people are not going to enjoy the advantages of the educational and economic facilities which we think every man’s birthright, and ideas of brotherhood and fair play must permeate the land before each man, and especially each woman gets a really square deal.

Now I must quit declaiming and finish my letter. On Sundays I try to forget that I am a doctor. I follow the long line of orphans as they walk two by two to church, a small bare hall with mud floor, whitewashed walls, and a tin roof that makes it very hot. A blind boy plays the wheezy organ, but the singing is so hearty that the organ is effectually drowned.

The pastor, Mr. Deshmukh, is a fiery little man who thumps his wooden desk and shouts prodigiously. Of course, I cannot understand him yet, but I try to look intelligent. I am ashamed to say that I thought Mr. Deshmukh the funniest sort of specimen when I first came; but now I admire, I revere him so much that if I just sit and look at him, I am soon ready for a good cry. He was a Brahman, of a wealthy family in Hyderabad. While still quite young, he was dissatisfied with the religion of his fathers and his forefathers and began to search for “some better thing.” He started out on a pilgrimage to try and find God and peace. He travelled all over India, visiting famous temples and shrines, bathing in the Ganges and the Krishna and other sacred rivers, and measuring his length on the ground from one holy spot to another, to persuade the gods to give him some sign. But it was all in vain.

And then one day he happened to travel in a train beside a white man who spoke kindly to him and inquired about his journeyings. On hearing of the quest for peace, the stranger smiled, pulled from his pocket a little book, and handed it to Mr. Deshmukh. “Here’s the very thing you’ve been looking for,” he said. “Read it, and you will find God and peace.”

The white man got out at the next station, and Mr. Deshmukh never saw him again nor found out who he was. But he started to read the little book, which was underlined in many places with red ink. Why, it was the very thing he had been searching for! This man called Jesus had solved the problem of life, the riddle of the universe, with His simple message of love and peace between God and man, and between man and man. The result was that Mr. Deshmukh became a Christian, though it meant that he was persecuted and ostracized by his family and friends. They even performed the death ceremony for him, and blotted out his name from the family records.

Since then he has been a lonely man, spending his time and strength for the outcastes. He not only preaches to them, he lives among them. When he goes out touring, he will sleep in a dirty mud hut in the Mang quarter, and eat food cooked by untouchables whom he was taught to consider lower than dogs. In plague times he nurses the sick and buries the dead without a qualm. He is absolutely without fear. He is another Paul. And he is so happy! The light in his eye shows him to be gloriously happy—he has found himself.

And so, you see, it does me good just to go to church and sit and look at him, and thank God that the faith and courage of the early martyrs are found here, in India, in the twentieth century.

Well, now to finish up this epistle and answer your questions.

Yes, Mrs. Talbot invited me for a week-end at Poona, but I can’t possibly get away yet. And there isn’t the slightest hope, I’m afraid, of my getting to the Hills in the hot weather. Miss Perkins calls it “stuff and nonsense,” so that’s that, as she herself would say.

You ask if I am well. Yes, thank you. So far I have escaped all the dread ills of a tropical climate, except for an occasional bout of low fever, and a daily, almost hourly feeling of extreme fatigue. Miss Perkins assures me it is only the enervating effect of the climate and that I must fight against it. So I try to ignore it and shall no doubt soon throw it off.

Now, this is an absolute whale of a letter, but you mustn’t blame me, for you asked all these details.

My love to Mrs. Talbot when you see her, and my kind regards to yourself.

Yours cordially,

Dorothy J. Maxwell.

IX

The Heat and Burden of the Day

It was two o’clock on a hot day near the end of March. On all sides the land lay parched and brown, with only a few greyish-green spots where the sisal plant maintained its circle of pointed leaves. Even the usually perky prickly-pear hedges looked dusty and depressed. Not a breath stirred in the branches of the mimosa trees, under whose meagre shade the cattle and buffaloes were huddled together, drooping dejectedly as though to say, “If this is the heat in March, what will it be next month—and the next—till the Rains break? The road stretched out like a long, unending white ribbon. Now and then a stray dog or goat crossed it, and a tiny spray of white dust rose and fell. The sky was a dazzling blue, with wisps of useless clouds floating high. The sun, like a great lidless eye, glared down upon creation with unblinking, merciless, exhausting insistence.

Under a tree by the roadside lay several lumps of cloth. As a noise was heard and a bullock-cart came rattling along, one of the bundles rolled over, jerked itself violently, wriggled a little. And behold, an elderly man disengaged himself from the folds, sat up, rubbed his bleary eyes, yawned loud and long, gazed at the approaching vehicle, and muttered to himself, “What fool can this be, exerting himself in the heat of the day?”

As the cart drew near at the trot, he yelled in Marathi, “Hi, you there, bullock-cart driver, stop a minute and talk, can’t you?”

“What do you want, old fellow?” asked the driver, drawing up gladly enough in the shade, jumping down from his seat, stretching his limbs, and pretending to adjust the rope through the bullocks’ noses.

“Oh, nothing particular. Who is inside? What sort of a man is your master to have no more care for his animals than to drive them in this heat?”

“Aye, care for his animals, did you say? What about me, sitting on the perch in the blazing sun when I should be sleeping—as every sensible person does at this time of day?”

“Good, fat, well-fed bullocks these look. I warrant they eat four bundles of grain stalks, and a couple of pounds of cotton-seed, and a cake or two of peanut-oil cake every day, don’t they?”

“H’m, they’re supposed to get more than that, but I find they thrive and look all right on less, so the extra grain stalks and the cotton-seed and the oil-cake help to feed and clothe me and my family, see? Ha, ha, ha!”

“Ah, then it’s easily seen that your master is a white sahib. Only sahib-folks would be so stupid as to let a fool like you pull their leg.”

“Sh-sh. The missy-sahib is inside; but, well, it doesn’t matter anyway. She doesn’t know Marathi yet.”

“Who is she?”

“Oh, she’s a doctor-missysahib—fearfully clever—works magic, you know.”

“You don’t say so?”

“Yes, indeed. Why, my wife had borne me four dead children, and I told her that if there was another one, I’d get a new wife. I suppose she went and wept and blabbed it all out, for the doctor-missy heard of it and scolded me dreadfully. Of course, she knows nothing about our customs. In her land the men are such fools that when their wives are barren they don’t take other wives.”

“Who ever heard such nonsense? The white men must be great cowards to be so frightened of their wives.”

“Well, as I was going to say when you interrupted me, the doctor-missy took my wife into a small room off the medicine room, and then she turned out all the family—my wife’s four sisters, and my mother and my mother’s two sisters, and all the other female relatives who ought to be present at any properly conducted childbirth. That’s what makes us know that she works some sort of magic, for she doesn’t let anybody into the room but Susanbai, a stuck-up, good-for-nothing young person who thinks herself above us all. Well, anyway, in the morning, the doctor-missy brings me a living man-child—he’s an ugly little rascal, of course.”

“By the holy Rama, I never heard anything like that. I wonder if she can make my wife give me any more sons.”

“Chelau, chelau, Jevan,” cried a tired voice from within the dumny, and a tired white face looked out. “What’s the matter? Who is that old man? Can’t we go on?”

“Yes, yes, Doctor-missysahib. Going on now. But this poor old man, he say, wanting to know white doctor-missysahib’s God, so I telling him leetle ’bout Him.”

“Oh, I see. Well, I think we’d better go on now. Tell him to come to the bungalow and talk with Miss Perkins.”

“Very good, Doctor-missysahib, very good. And you, there, old grandfather,” cried Jevan as he jumped up behind the bullocks and gave them a preliminary whack, “the doctor-missy says you’ve to come to Anamabad and hear about her new religion from a crabbed old fright of a woman. And if you don’t, she’ll work a curse on you, and your wife will die in childbirth, and your eldest son . . .”

“Oh, stop, stop! Mercy, mercy!” And as Jevan, with a wicked chuckle, started up his bullocks, the poor old man fell on his knees with hands uplifted in agony to ward off the threatened curse.

Dorothy Maxwell looked through the door of the dumny and saw him in this attitude. She concluded that he was praying, and her heart smote her for not turning back. But the pain in her head and the smarting in her eyes and the aching in every limb bade her go on.

“Oh, dear,” she soliloquized, “I’m not worthy to be a missionary. I’m more concerned about getting home and getting a rest, than about converting that poor, ignorant fellow. What’s the matter with me? I’m not a bit loving and gentle.”

She fell into a melancholy reverie. Was she really the same enthusiastic young visionary who, last November, had made a pilgrimage to the burial ground of the Maxwells near a quaint old parish church in Scotland; who had thrilled at this assurance that her roots went down deep into good soil; who had stood in awe before the Covenanters’ Stone and spelt out with swelling pride the name of a Maxwell among the martyred heroes; and who, in a very ecstasy of fervour, had renewed her vows of consecration, praying passionately that she might prove worthy of the great traditions of her line—of those who had never flinched from sacred duty but who, on rocky hill-side and in darksome cavern, had defied the wrath of their fellow-men. Had her enthusiasm, her inspiration, evaporated so soon? Was she already a failure?

Since arriving in Anamabad four months previously she had spoken with no white person but Miss Perkins, and of her she saw little except at meal times and when they rode out in the dumny. To be sure, she had seen a white man one day at the station, evidently a Government official on tour and she had been seized with an almost irresistible impulse to go up and speak to him. She wanted a link with the past. How she longed for a chat with an old friend!

Mrs. Talbot had written frequently and had urged her to join her for April and May at Mahableshwar, a hill-station in the Western Ghats, where she could escape the worst heat of the year and have opportunity for language study. But when Miss Perkins was consulted she had pointed out, in no measured terms, the absurdity of coming to India in November and going for a holiday in April; so Dorothy, with a bad heartache, had refused. Then the Alexanders had invited her for a week-end, but that pleasure, too, she had been obliged to forego. How well she remembered the painful interview with Miss Perkins! How the beady black eyes had pierced her to the very marrow of her bones!

“Bombay for a week-end? And you’ve only been here four months? Stuff and nonsense! I haven’t been out of Anamabad for four years. But of course, if you like to gallivant down to Bombay and enjoy yourself among worldly folks instead of doing the Lord’s work, as Lady Brixton sent you out to do, then you must arrange the matter with your own conscience and with the Lord.” And Miss Perkins had swish-swished out of the room—to engage in the Lord’s work, no doubt.

That had settled things for poor, amenable Dorothy Maxwell. She remembered ruefully how she had looked forward to India as a place where she would at last be free from the petty tyranny of her great-aunt. Alas, it had been out of the frying-pan into the fire.

A jolting dumny that flings one backwards and forwards, pitches one sideways, bangs one’s topi against the wall, and throws the lunch basket down on one’s toes, is not conducive to connected or concentrated thought. Dorothy’s mind became an uncomfortable jumble of headache, dust, glare, and flitting memories. She was glad that she was alone to-day and need not exert herself to talk, and she sighed with relief as a bend in the road brought the bungalow in sight. When the dumny stopped under the porch she alighted, called “Salaam” to Jevan as he drove off, then she slowly and painfully mounted the steps, leaning heavily on her parasol. On reaching the verandah she removed her dark glasses, rubbed her tired and dazed eyes, and turned towards her room.

“How d’ye do, Miss Maxwell?” said a familiar voice.

In front of her stood Major Sutherland.

Dorothy stepped back stunned. The shock and the pleasure together almost unnerved her. Her lips quivered and she could not speak. She just wanted to sit down and cry her weary heart out.

After one quizzical glance at her the visitor took her hand, held it firmly to steady her, led her to a wicker lounge chair, and gently seated her in it. Then he pulled forward another and sat down beside her.

“You seem surprised to see me?” he began.

“Why, yes,” replied Dorothy unsteadily, throwing down her topi and pressing her ruffled hair back from her aching brow. “It’s nearly bowled me over.”

“But didn’t you get my wire?”

“No. What wire?”

“Isn’t that too bad? I found yesterday, about five o’clock, that I had some really important business in Anamabad,” and they both laughed, “so I wired you at once. You certainly ought to have got that wire last night. I said I would call to-day about two.”

“How strange! And have you been waiting here all this time?”

“Yes. That is, I went and had a look through Anamabad—interesting old place it is, especially the Fort. I’d have come to meet you, of course, but I couldn’t find out which way you’d gone.”

“Then you haven’t seen Miss Perkins?”

“Not yet. I sent in my card, but the message came out that she was busy and that you’d be back directly.”

Dorothy smiled a rather wry little smile. To think that she had lost two precious hours with so good a friend! To think that she might have ridden back comfortably in his car instead of in that abominable, rickety, nerve-racking dumny, if only Miss Perkins hadn’t been so—so—so devoted! Dorothy would not let herself be disloyal, even in thought.

“But you look frightfully tired and ill,” remarked the Major.

“Oh, I’m all right. I’ve had a heavy day, and the sun tires me dreadfully. It makes my head ache so.”

“Then suppose you go and lie down now?”

“Indeed, I should think not,” replied Dorothy with a flash of her old buoyancy. “Isn’t it bad enough to have lost so much time already? But tell me, how long can you stay?”

“Till seven. I must get back to Poona to-night without fail.”

“But what about dinner?”

“Well, I hardly dared to expect an invitation from Miss Perkins, so I brought a well-packed lunch basket. I thought you and I might have a picnic dinner off somewhere.”

“Oh, that would be glorious, scrumptious!” cried Dorothy, clapping her hands in glee. “I know a splendid spot—under a spreading banyan tree—a few miles from here.”

“Right-oh!”

“Well, let’s have tea now. I’ll just run and get a few inches of village grime and dust removed.”

It was a disturbed and thoughtful man whom Dorothy left on the verandah, tugging mercilessly at his moustache. He was staggered by the change in her. The delicate pink colour was gone. The cheeks were thinner. The large eyes seemed still larger, with lines and shadows beneath them. The fair hair had lost its lustre. It did not need a professional eye to detect that Dorothy Maxwell was living on her nerves and on the edge of a breakdown. But how could he help her? As a friend or as a medical man, could he offer advice?

X

A Respite

Major Sutherland had reached no solution of his problem when the object of his solicitude reappeared, followed by the butler and a tea-tray.

A merry time followed, but it was not the visitor who did the talking. It seemed as though the small talk, and the big talk too, that had been pent up during the past four isolated months, must rush out in overpowering flood. Dorothy spoke of her medical work, to be sure, the frightful infant mortality, the hopelessness of teaching hygiene to the ignorant and fatalistic mothers, the cruelty and danger of many Indian practices, the growing faith of the people in her and in her dispensary. But these subjects all got mixed up with books, and the sun, and her topi, and the bullock dumny, and letters from mutual friends, and other seemingly irrelevant topics.

The Major sat listening in silent amusement and perfect understanding; and it was only when Dorothy asked his advice about cutting short the sleeves of a gingham dress, that he lost his gravity and laughed aloud.

Dorothy pulled herself up with a start. “Horrors, how I must be boring you! I don’t often have a talking spell like this. Do forgive me. I feel as if I had to talk for weeks.”

“I’m enjoying it hugely. And, to please me, do run and fetch that dress—cambric, satin, gingham—what kind of a dress did you say it was?—and let me pass reasoned and deliberate judgment on it. Do.”

Dorothy laughed. “Oh, it’s so lovely just to be able to talk and talk, and talk, about anything that comes into my head. It’s so refreshing.”

“But doesn’t Miss Perkins talk to you, or let you talk to her?”

“Oh, yes. But it’s only about mission work, or other really vital matters. I couldn’t possibly discuss with her anything so worldly as a gingham dress. As it is, she thinks me frightfully frivolous. You see, she’s so absolutely devoted that she’s no thought for anything or anybody but her work.”

“H’m, I think I see. Well, now, shall we start? It should be comfortably cool now.”

“Yes, indeed. Oh, here comes Miss Perkins. I must introduce you.”

Miss Perkins had emerged from her office at the other end of the verandah. She was dressed as usual in her black alpaca dress, rubber collar, and red cotton bow tie. Her large spectacles were resting on the extreme tip of her aquiline nose, and she was looking fiercely over them at a small Indian boy, who, to judge by his abashed countenance, was being made to feel himself a terrible criminal. She piloted him along the verandah towards the steps, scolding all the while in Marathi. Dorothy and her visitor had risen, and stood ready to greet her, but she took not the slightest notice of them. When at last she let the child go, Dorothy stepped forward and said:

“Miss Perkins, may I introduce Major Sutherland, a fellow-passenger on the way out?”

Miss Perkins nodded briskly, looked the Major up and down over the rim of her spectacles, and remarked:

“Your wire arrived last night, young man.”

“Oh,” cried Dorothy, “I didn’t know.”

“Well, why should you know, child? It was your duty to go to Padoli whether any visitor was coming or not.”

The Major was tugging at his moustache. “But the wire was addressed to Miss Maxwell, was it not?”

“Perhaps so, young man. But those who truly love the Lord and are engaged in His work, have nothing to do with wires and worldly engagements.”

“But,” cried Dorothy, “if I had only known about it, I could have hurried back.”

“‘Ye cannot serve God and mammon,’” quoted Miss Perkins with decision.

Dorothy was about to reply with some heat, when she caught a twinkle in her friend’s blue eye, and he actually winked a wicked wink above the head of the third party. “We would be happy, Miss Perkins,” he interposed gallantly, “if you would accompany us for a little run in my car.”

Dorothy trembled with apprehension lest the offer should be accepted. She need have had no fear. “Certainly not, young man,” came the brusque refusal. “I must be about my Father’s business.” And without another word the bristling little figure turned her back on them and swept along to her office, her voluminous skirts rustling with disapprobation.

In somewhat embarrassed silence the two culprits made their way to where Sakharam and the car were waiting beyond the gate; but when they were out of sight of the bungalow, the cool air revived Dorothy’s spirits, and she became quite talkative again.

“Now you understand how I couldn’t discuss the length of my sleeves with Miss Perkins. Don’t you, Mr. Mammon?”

“Indeed I do. Poor little girl! But I’ve got a surprise for you. Miss Perkins is an old acquaintance of mine, though she evidently doesn’t recognize insignificant little me.”

“What?” said Dorothy, astounded. “Why didn’t you remind her you had met?”

“Well, you see, it was she who tore up Mrs. Sandeman’s playing cards. I spotted her when her bright black eyes looked me up and down. I thought it wiser not to refer to an unfortunate episode.”

“Well, I declare, that’s curious. Won’t Mrs. Sandeman be interested? Did I ever tell you that she proposed coming to see me some time?”

“Delicious! How the mighty have fallen! But really, I don’t think it would be safe, unless perhaps I came, too, as a go-between. You see, there would inevitably be fireworks.”

“I’m afraid there would. Miss Perkins never balks at what she considers her duty.”

“I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed anything so much as being called ‘young man,’” said the Major with a broad grin. “It almost makes me forget my forty odd years and my grey locks. I haven’t been called that since college days. Miss Perkins certainly doesn’t beat about the bush.”

“No, indeed. And I always feel so small, and mean, and worldly, while she is so perfect.”

“Terribly perfect—and perfectly terrible, I should say.”

Dorothy laughed merrily. “Oh, no. You didn’t see the best side of her just now. You see, you interfered with WORK, writ with large capitals, and therefore you were anathema. That’s the whole explanation. I wish you knew her absolute devotion. I just love her and admire her. The fault is in me for being so worldly. But I’ll improve.”

“Please don’t, or you can’t possibly survive.”

Just then they turned a sharp corner and passed a straggling row of mud huts. A tiny puppy wobbled out in front of the car. The Major pulled up sharply, but a terrific yelping indicated that some damage had been done. Dorothy jumped out, ran round, and found that the puppy’s tail had been pinned down under the front wheel. At her bidding the car moved forward and released it. She picked up the ugly little mongrel, gathered it in her arms, stroked and comforted it, and returned it to its careless little owner.

“I’ve often wondered,” she sighed as they drove on, “why puppies are so much nicer than dogs, and kittens than cats, and babies than grown-ups. That was a dear, wriggling little fellow; but in a few months he’ll be the usual, snarling, vicious pie-dog.”

“I’ll go farther than you, and say that some dogs are far nicer than lots of people.”

“I guess you’re right. We had a lovely collie at Sayton—where I was brought up, you know. When I thought people horrid, I’d go and tell it all in Bunty’s ear. . . . “

“And I bet you she understood every word.”

“Of course she did. She’d cock her head on one side and listen with the most intelligent interest. Then she’d put a paw up on my knee, as much as to say, ‘Never mind. I know all about it. Horrid folk aren’t worth bothering about. Come on and play.’ And then I’d laugh and feel all right. I often wish I had her here.”

“It’s just about impossible to keep collies in India, and they’re too hot to be happy. A fox terrier is as safe as any. Did you ever think of getting a dog?”

“Yes, I’ve often thought of it, but I simply daren’t suggest such a thing. Miss Perkins isn’t in the least ‘doggy.’ I don’t believe she’d allow a dog round the place. And then, you know—awful thought!—it might damage those priceless red and green crocheted antimacassars on the sofa!”

“Then for goodness’ sake get a dog at once.”

Dorothy laughed delightedly. “Those antimacassars are a frightful eyesore to me. I can’t seem to get used to them at all. I try not to see them, but when I’m all tired out, they seem to rise off the sofa and flaunt themselves triumphantly in front of my weary eyes. I sit right opposite them at meals. I can’t escape them.”

“Couldn’t you make away with them somehow?”

“I’ve thought of it, but I daren’t. A certain pair of bright black eyes would pierce my very soul and discover I was the culprit if they disappeared.”

“You don’t think you could shut a puppy in that room overnight—accidentally, of course? You could safely leave it to him to remove some of the atrocities.”

“Lovely! But I daren’t. Miss Perkins scares me to death—just like a great-aunt who ruled me when I was a child.”

“You shouldn’t let yourself be scared. You should take the bull by the horns.”

“I suppose I should,” replied Dorothy rather slowly and thoughtfully, “but I’m not made that way, evidently.” And her companion, glancing at the delicately cut, sensitive profile beside him, mentally agreed.

“Tell me about to-day,” he said. “How long were you away?”

And Dorothy told of the start at six in the morning, the three-hours’ trundling in the bullock dumny over a rough road, the two hours’ open-air dispensary work in a dirty village, with the Indian Christian teacher to translate the people’s ailments and her remedies, the lunch under the meagre shade of a tree with an interested crowd watching every bite she ate, and then the hot drive back.

“But why didn’t you rest there all afternoon and come back in the cool of the evening?”

“I had to start back at one o’clock, for Miss Perkins needs the dumny to-night, and she wanted the bullocks to have a rest.”

“I see. The bullocks’ convenience had to be considered, not yours,” and Dorothy was startled by the fierce glint that momentarily flickered in the usually mild blue eyes. “I’m amazed to hear that that dreadful affair is your only way of getting about. To-day, for instance—let me see—you must have used up about six hours jogging along in it, to do a couple of hours’ dispensary work.”

“Yes. I really think it a frightful waste of time and energy. I proposed getting a horse and buggy, but Miss Perkins won’t hear of it. She says she’s used a bullock dumny for twenty-five years, and she doesn’t see why anybody should want anything else.”

“She’s as bad as the Indians. Whatever hath been in the past, is now, and evermore ought to be—that’s evidently her creed. I wonder, now, whether she doesn’t actually enjoy the jolts, as being part of the discomforts of a holy life!”

“I shouldn’t wonder,” agreed Dorothy with a smile.

About six miles out of Anamabad they left the car and, followed by Sakharam and the lunch basket, climbed a hillock topped by a spreading banyan tree. They unpacked the wonderful contents of the wonderful basket, Dorothy keeping up an excited chatter and running commentary. “A white damask tablecloth! How like a man to bring that to a picnic! But I’m awfully glad you did. I’ve been aching for the sight of one. . . . Oh, chocolates wrapped in silver paper! I haven’t seen one since the Thanksgiving dinner at the Alexanders. . . . Ice cre-e-e-e-eam! Oh, how terribly civilized!”

When the highly successful picnic dinner was over, Dorothy and her visitor-host strolled over to the banyan tree.

“A holy place, you see,” remarked the Major pointing to a large oval stone daubed with red paint, in front of which lay coco-nut sherds and decayed flowers.

“These little shrines always strike me as so pathetic,” said Dorothy, as they sat down on a fallen branch near by. “This feeling out after the Unknown God, lest haply they might find Him: it makes me think so often of Paul’s words at Athens.”

“And to think that now, two thousand years after the founding of Christianity, people are still feeling out after the Unknown, bowing down to pieces of wood or stone like that or worse.”

“Worse, I should say. These roughly-painted stones aren’t nearly so repulsive to me as some of the hideous gods and goddesses in the temples. It beats me how grown-up men and women—educated, too—can worship an image of a monkey, or an elephant-headed man, or a cobra. It seems such child’s play.”

“It does—to us. And of course some of the thoughtful Hindus insist that they worship the spirit back of the stone, and only use the images to concentrate their thoughts and visualize God.”

“Perhaps so. But the poor ignorant folk that I work among don’t think anything about that. To them the tangible image or stone is the actual god. And they’re so earnest about it, so devoted.”

“That, to me, is one of the saddest yet one of the most hopeful things about India. The Indian is full of devotion. He wants to worship something. In fact, he must worship something, but he doesn’t always know what. Let me tell you what I saw at the big festival at Pandharpur. I’ll never forget it. I was allowed up on the temple roof, and looked down into a courtyard where crowds of men were waiting their turn to pass before the image of Vithoba and pay their respects. From that seething mass of humanity rose shout upon shout of adoration. Then they filed out and I looked down an airshaft and saw them passing into the shrine, each with his offering of flowers. Then I saw them pass out to an outer court where they prostrated themselves in ecstatic self-abasement, their faces transfigured with devotion—and the object of that devotion was a stone image decked out in silks and satins and jewels. It appalled me to think of that incalculable capacity for worship directed to a stone.”

“It will take a long time to re-direct it higher.”

“Many generations. I wonder if you ever heard this little poem?” and the Major took a clipping from his pocket-book and read:

“‘Land of the shimmering sea and stately palm,
Recurrent restlessness, majestic calm!
Land of the sun-parched plain and snow-pearled peak,
Sublimely strong, pathetically weak!
Land of unfathomed age, yet fount of youth,
Swiftest yet slowest in the Quest of Truth!

‘Of old, in cave and cell and hermitage,
In forest dim dwelt many a saintly sage,
Striving by prayer and penance for the key
To ope the door of Karma and be free.
Yet millions now bow down to wood and stone
That haply they may find the Great Unknown.

‘Land of the Quest, I hear within thy breast
The throb of that great heart that yearns for rest.
I come to claim thee,’ thus the Master saith.
‘I am the goal of all thy groping faith,
Thy longing and thy love. Come unto Me.
Thy quest is ended. I can make thee free.’”

And then the young missionary and her friend talked quietly and thoughtfully of many things, drawn together by a common love of that great land that stretched before them—so vast, so unhappy, so impelling in its needs.

But all too soon the sun silhouetted a few straggling trees on the horizon, and they rose to go. Dorothy’s heart was filled with a great peace and a great refreshing, for their talk had reminded her that hers was not a lonely task, however isolated, but that she was one of a great multitude of men and women who were working, in diverse ways, for the uplift of the land they loved.

And yet, when she had said good-bye to her friend at the compound gate, and had listened to the last throb of the engine as the car dwindled out of sight, she felt like some poor exile on a desert island watching the departure of the ship that had brought a message from the outer world.

XI

Ruth Alexander to the Rescue

“Hello!”

“Hello! Is that 22xy?”

“Yes.”

“Can I speak with Dr. Brentner, please?”

“He’s with a patient just now, but I’ll ask him. . . .”

“Hello!”

“Dr. Brentner?”

“Yes. Who is speaking?”

“This is Mrs. Alexander. Good morning.”

“Oh, good morning, Mrs. Alexander. Coming down to see me?”

“No, thank goodness.”

“Now, I call that real mean. Am I not always gentle and kind and patient with you?”

“H’m, perhaps! But I want to send down a nice young lady to see you.”

“Sounds exciting. But, honestly, I haven’t a spare five minutes all day. I’m absolutely booked up—and then some.”

“You simply must see her. Three minutes will do.”

“Now, how on earth do you happen to know that?”

“Well, I’ll tell you. This young lady has got to be made to stay with me at least a week, otherwise she’ll have a bad breakdown. I’m going to enlist your help. I believe the stopping of a tooth fell out—excuse me, I should call it ‘filling’ shouldn’t I? Anyway, I want you to insist that it will take a week to complete the job.”

“And how am I, a countryman of George Washington’s, to stoop to such deceit?”

“Dear me, have you no imagination? Can’t you ask her to come down every day and have the nerve dressed?—or use some other stock phrase? You’re surely clever enough to invent some high-falutin’ formula just to oblige an old friend like me.”

“I see. Well, what is my reward to be for perjuring my soul?”

“Reward? Let me think. Oh yes, you can come to dinner on Friday.”

“Right-o, it’s a bargain. Now I must run. I left a patient with a gag in his mouth. He’ll be purple with indignation or apoplexy. By the way, what is the young lady’s name?”

“Miss Maxwell. She’s tall and fair and very good-looking, but frightfully fagged out.”

“Tell her to call at four-thirty, then. Thank you for the invitation. Good-bye till Friday.”

“Good-bye. And don’t forget—a week at least.”

With a sigh of relief and a smile of supreme satisfaction Ruth Alexander hung up the receiver and went upstairs to the guest room.

“May I come in, my dear?” she called. “Well, I ’phoned Dr. Bretner. He said at first he was absolutely booked up for all to-day. But I begged a few minutes for you, and he’ll see you at four-thirty.”

“Four-thirty?” echoed Dorothy Maxwell aghast. “But I meant to catch the afternoon mail!”

“Impossible! You’re lucky to get an appointment at all. March is about the worst month for the dentist. Everybody is going Home and up-country folks pay him a visit en route. Last time I was down he told me he was refusing scores of would-be patients.”

“Oh dear, what shall I do? I promised Miss Perkins to be back to-night without fail.”

“I’ll send her a wire directly. Just tell me what to say.”

“Say, ‘Travelling by the evening mail.’”

Mrs. Alexander was nonplussed for a moment. Then she brightened up. “I’ll tell you what, Dorothy,” she said briskly. “Let’s wait till you see what the dentist says about your tooth. Perhaps he can’t finish you off in one sitting.”

“Then I’ll have to go with it unfinished.”

“My dear, don’t be foolish. I thought you told me you had lost three nights’ sleep.”

“So I have.” Dorothy was sitting relaxed in a low wicker chair, her arms hanging listlessly by her side, her thin cheeks flushed with pain, her whole attitude betokening the most profound lassitude. Her friend and hostess was bustling round, drawing the bed into the airiest spot in the room, adjusting a sun-blind, unstrappping the hold-all.

“And are you still enjoying India, my dear?” she queried cheerfully, diplomatically ignoring the appalling change in Dorothy’s appearance.

“Oh, yes, immensely,” came the weary reply.

“It must be getting pretty hot these days in the Deccan, isn’t it?”

“Horribly. In the middle of the day you can see the heat vibrations quivering, and feel them strike you. It’s exactly like a stokehold.”

“But you’re never out in the middle of the day?”

“Oh yes, very often—in fact, usually.”

“I wish you’d tell me your usual programme. I’m really quite ignorant but awfully interested. You see, life in the Deccan is an entirely different matter from life in Bombay.”

Dorothy sketched a typical day’s work.

Ruth Alexander sat down on the floor by the open hold-all, her guest’s dressing-gown in her hand. She gazed at Dorothy. “Then you’re doing two hours’ study and about six hours of medical work or travelling every day?’

“About that. It varies of course with the villages I happen to go to.”

“And your meals? Are they always on time?”

“N-no. You see, Miss Perkins is often delayed. If a poor fellow has walked ten or twelve miles from his village, you can’t very well send him off just because it happens to be your breakfast hour.”

“Can’t you? He’d probably enjoy sitting round and gossiping for an hour or so; and he’d think twice as much of the interview if he had to wait for it. Time is no object to most of the Indians you have to deal with. But tell me, what is the latest time you ever have breakfast?”

“It’s usually about half-past eleven, but sometimes quite a little later.”

“How much later? Out with it.”

“Well, yesterday it was after one.”

“After one? My child, that is dreadful. Why can’t Miss Perkins let you have your breakfast on time, and take hers when she’s ready?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of asking it. It’s just that she’s so wonderful, so devoted, so p-p-perfect. . . .” And then Dorothy did something that surprised herself far more than it surprised her friend. She suddenly burst into tears and cried as though her heart would break.

Sympathetic Ruth, kneeling on the floor, gathered her in her arms and silently comforted her. “Poor little girl,” she thought. “I know what’s the matter. I know all the symptoms. Overwork, loneliness, uncongenial company—they’ve killed off more young missionaries than the Indian climate, though it always gets the blame.”

When the paroxysm had somewhat subsided Ruth said, “Now, my dear, we won’t talk any more now. I hear the boy knocking at the dressing-room door. Have a hot bath and a good sleep if possible, and I’ll look in just before breakfast and see whether you feel like coming down.”

“Oh, Mrs. Alexander, I’m so ashamed of myself,” sobbed Dorothy. “I don’t know what’s the matter with me. I’m behaving like an hysterical schoolgirl. I never did this in my life before.”

“Don’t you worry. After three nights’ loss of sleep I would be a howling maniac. Your nerves are probably upset with the pain in your tooth. And the hot days are always trying. But I can’t for the life of me understand why you didn’t come down the moment the stopping fell out.”

“Miss Perkins felt I couldn’t possibly get away. She calls it ‘stuff and nonsense,’” and Dorothy smiled a watery smile of reminiscence.

“Has she never had toothache?”

“Never. She has perfect teeth—-all because she’s never gone to a dentist all her life, she says!”

Mrs. Alexander burst out laughing. “Delicious! Perfect teeth because she’s never gone to a dentist! I must tell Charles that,” and she waved a cheery adieu to her guest and went off to the accumulated tasks of the morning.

Ruth Alexander was one of those rare women who are blessed with a mental compass so delicately poised, so magnificently perfect, that its sympathetic needle invariably points to the biggest job on their horizon. Her life was packed full of routine duties, of social calls, of the hundred and one contingencies that crop up in India and upset the most carefully planned schedule. Yet she responded instantly to a cry of special need, and her heart was forthwith “at leisure from itself to soothe and sympathize.” She had a genius for happy solutions of knotty problems—her own and other people’s. Her fortunate husband had long since discovered this and had benefited by it. His pet phrase in all emergencies was, “Leave it to the Commanding Officer.”

This priceless quality of intelligent and practical sympathy, partly inherent, partly acquired, had gained for her the gratitude, the love, the adoration of innumerable friends. Indian women with refractory husbands, Indian men out of work and out of tune with life, rival parties at deadly strife over some insignificant trifle, orphan boys and girls who called her “Mother,” lonely bachelors recently out from Home and suffering pangs of homesickness, new brides struggling with the intricacies of Indian housekeeping, weary young missionaries obsessed with grave doubts as to their own worthiness—all these found in Ruth Alexander a friend who was never too busy to listen, who never thought their visit an intrusion, whose kind hazel eyes brimmed with understanding and goodwill, who sent them away feeling immeasurably comforted and strengthened and refreshed.

Of all those who came to her for help, Ruth had a special tenderness for the young missionaries. She knew all about the doubts and fears and perplexities, the heart-burnings, the self-accusations, the spiritual battles. She often smiled to think how many dear, good people at Home take it for granted that missionaries thoroughly enjoy their hardships: that in entering upon their chosen vocation they automatically become immune to hunger and thirst, heat and cold; that the ravages of white ants and cockroaches and rats in their few precious belongings leave them unmoved; that they hear with only a glow of consecrated resignation a sudden crash of irreplaceable china-ware; that they positively relish a close acquaintance with snakes and scorpions and with the lesser pests that sting and bite and creep and crawl by day and by night; that they cheerfully bury all their social and artistic instincts; that in lonely outposts they never crave the amenities of civilization; that when two or three of them foregather together they invariably dwell in perfect brotherly and sisterly unity, in honour preferring one another!

True, they do learn to put more and more value upon the treasure of heaven, and less and less value on the treasure which moth and rust do corrupt and which Indian thieves do break through and steal. A few, like Miss Perkins, attain a state of supreme indifference towards anything but mission work, writ large. But the great majority, alas, remain, to the end of the chapter, just plain human—intensely, uncomfortably, painfully, horribly human!

When Ruth Alexander’s quick eye noted Dorothy’s precarious condition, she felt it imperative to devote herself to this sensitive young life fighting against so great odds. As usual, she consulted her Oracle.

“Charles, I’m worried.”

“Where’s your notebook and pencil, C. O.?”

“Oh, I’m not at that stage yet. I haven’t got my facts to work on.”

“Better hurry up, or there won’t be anything to work on. That slip of a girl will slip through your fingers and be promoted to the next world. I hardly recognized her when she came off the train. She looks ten years older, and must have lost about fifteen pounds.”

“I know it. That dreadful Miss Perkins is wearing the child to a frazzle, as Dr. Brentner would say, but she won’t own it.”

“Ruth, I’ve an idea. Let’s go up to Anamabad, and beard the lioness in her den. I’d enjoy a tussle. I’m in fairly good condition,” and he felt his biceps complacently.

“Oh, Charles, you dear, I’d love to see the encounter. I don’t believe Miss Perkins would flinch for a moment, in spite of your six feet odd. But really, it isn’t as bad as all that yet. I’ll pump Dorothy, and then think out something less drastic.”

“Right-o, C. O. I’m at your service of course.”

Ruth was worrying quite a little over the prospective argument with Dorothy when the dentist should have, according to instructions, suggested a week’s treatment. But Fate was surely working on her side. As they were stepping into the car at four o’clock, she caught sight of a khaki-clad individual sitting on the step of the cook-room, engaged in an animated conversation with the cook. His legs were stretched out luxuriously, his turban was pushed back at an undignified angle, his whole bearing suggesting the delightful pose of the man of leisure.

“That looks uncommonly like a telegraph messenger,” quoth Ruth.

She clapped her hands vigorously. The sprawling figure pulled itself together with a start, hastily adjusted its turban, came forward with a profound salaam, and produced from the leather pouch at its waist a yellow envelope.

“You rascal,” cried Mrs. Alexander. “What were you doing sitting there instead of delivering your message at once?”

“Kind Mudum-sahib,” replied the man, “I bringing the message quickly. But your boy he say, ‘No disturbing Mudum-sahib now. Mudum-sahib in bath-tub.’ So what could I do?” And he turned his hands out and looked up to heaven to witness his blamelessness.

“Well, I declare,” cried Ruth. “Listen to this, Dorothy. ‘Keep Maxwell one week. Perkins.’”

Dorothy gazed blankly at the pink paper, then at her friend.

“You’re not playing a trick on me?” she asked.

“Dorothy, dear, I wouldn’t do that. Look at the name of the station where it was sent off—Anamabad, at seven-thirty-five this morning.”

“I beg your pardon, Mrs. Alexander. I shouldn’t have asked that. But I can’t believe my eyes. Miss Perkins said not long ago that those engaged in the Lord’s work had no need of telegrams. I don’t believe she ever sent one from Anamabad before. What can it mean?”

“It means that you’re going to settle down here for a week and forget Anamabad. Bombay isn’t exactly a health resort in March, but the change and the rest will do you heaps of good. Now, my mind is absolutely at peace,” and Ruth threw in the clutch and started off and out of the compound with a flourish, for she felt that she had the approval of heaven.

XII

Explanations

In the blissful week of complete relaxation, Dorothy accepted the unspoken invitation to confide. “Mrs. Alexander,” she said hesitatingly one day, “I feel I’m all on the wrong track, somehow. When I compare myself with Miss Perkins, I feel I’m a dead failure.”

“But we can’t all be Miss Perkinses. In fact, it wouldn’t do if we were. The most effective missionary I ever knew was a saintly little invalid who lay on her back for twelve years before her friends were bereft of her.”

“Really? I wish I had known her. I get so awfully depressed about myself. There’s such a lot I’d like to talk over with you.”

“Do.”

“But have you time?”

“Heaps and heaps,” prevaricated Ruth cheerfully. “Let’s take your difficulties one by one, and find a solution.”

And Mr. Alexander smiled knowingly when his wife dashed into his office one morning for a pencil.

“I perceive by the light of battle in her eye and the notebook in her hand,” quoth he, “that the C. O. has a particularly brilliant plan of campaign.”

“Charles, my dear, I’ve just this moment got an idea—a great, big, beautiful idea,” she called over her shoulder, and she disappeared into her guest’s room.

When Dorothy Maxwell got home to Anamabad, Miss Perkins was out at a village, so they did not meet until dinner-time; but the casual greeting, “Well, child, feeling better?” sounded quite cordial to Dorothy’s highly sensitized ears. The meal was much brighter than usual. Miss Perkins had a number of incidents to relate, and she actually inquired about Dorothy’s doings in Bombay.

But through it all the younger woman was painfully conscious of a momentous step to be taken by and by. Was her courage going to ooze out? Now that Miss Perkins was almost friendly, dare she risk making a certain revolutionary proposal? If crafty Ruth Alexander had not extracted a solemn promise to broach the subject within three days, she would probably have been sorely tempted to slide back into the old amenable ways.

“Anyway,” she concluded to herself, “I’ve still two days’ grace before I bring down a storm of wrath on my head.”

When Dorothy was writing at her desk in her own room after dinner, she was astonished to hear the heavy footstep and the swish-swish she knew so well. She involuntarily straightened herself up as Miss Perkins entered.

“I won’t keep you a moment, child, but I’ve something to say to you.” Dorothy’s heart sank.

“Yes, Miss Perkins?”

“You were surprised to get that telegram from me in Bombay?”

“Very. I thought it so good of you to let me stay.”

“Well, the first night you were away, the Lord spoke to me in a dream.”

Miss Perkins paused. Then she went on:

“Yes, in a dream—and about you.”

“About me?”

“Yes, about you. I needn’t tell you all the dream, but this is what He said,” and the little figure swelled out and spoke solemnly and emphatically, as though reciting Holy Writ. “The Lord said, ‘Mary Anne Elizabeth Perkins, I gave thee the doctor thou hadst begged for twenty years, and thou art flinging away the gift.’ And I said, ‘How so, Lord? Thou knowest that I have thanked Thee day and night upon my knees.’ ‘True,’ said the Lord, ‘but thou dost not understand how fragile nor how precious is my gift, and thou art treating it as some coarse clay.’ And I said, ‘Show me the way, Lord.’ And, child, the Lord showed me the way. Now, I know I’m a hard woman, hard on myself and hard on others, but the Lord never yet spake to me in vain.”

“Oh, Miss Perkins, dear Miss Perkins,” cried Dorothy, profoundly touched. “I’ve been so happy here, only distressed and impatient with myself for getting so easily tired. I’ve felt so unworthy to be your colleague.”

“Tut, child, stuff and nonsense. I was pretty green myself at your age. Of course, Lady Brixton made a great mistake in sending out a frail little bit of a thing like you—just a bairn yet, for all you’re a doctor. But now that you’re here, we’ll have to make the best of a bad job. To come to the point, you’re to go to Mahableshwar.”

“Mahableshwar?” echoed Dorothy, astounded.

“Yes, and it’s all settled, so you needn’t say a word. Off you go in a fortnight to Mahableshwar, and you’ll stay six weeks, and you’ll study your Marathi, and get all braced up.”

“Oh, Miss Perkins, how good of you to think of it! But I’m afraid I can’t possibly get a room now. I heard it was to be packed this season.”

“H’m,” snorted the Unconquerable One. “You surely don’t think that Mary Anne Elizabeth Perkins would be beat off for a room, when the Lord had spoken to her? You’re to be with Mrs. Talbot at Geranium Lodge.”

“With Mrs. Talbot?” cried Dorothy, almost faint with surprise and joy. “How perfectly lovely!”

“Well, to be sure, I hope you’ll think it lovely. You haven’t a room exactly. They’re putting up a little chupper for you—a straw house in the compound, you know. I wired Mrs. Talbot the same morning I wired you—just after the dream, you know. Here’s her answer. You can read it afterwards.”

“How can I ever thank you enough, Miss Perkins?”

“No thanks but to the Lord, though no doubt that Major-man will take all the credit.”

“That Major-man?”

“I thought you called that young person who was here, Major Something-or-other?”

“Oh, Major Sutherland?”

“Perhaps. Major Fiddlesticks would do as well. He wrote to me and said you wouldn’t last six months unless you got off to the Hills.”

“I never knew he wrote.”

“Why should you, child? It was a private matter between him and me. He knows nothing whatever about what a devoted missionary can or cannot do, if she is willing; and I let him know that jolly quick. However, as I said, the Lord took up the matter, and I listened to Him. Now, off to bed with you.”

And then something urged Dorothy to take advantage of this intimate talk to broach the subject that was positively burning a hole of apprehension in her amenable mind. “By the way, Miss Perkins,” she blurted out timidly, as her intrepid colleague was nearing the door, “I, too, have been having a good hard ‘think’ over various problems, and though I hadn’t a dream, I have a suggestion to make that might help us both. You know, that room we have for the dispensary is far too small. Besides, I simply must have a place where I can accommodate a few specially urgent cases.”

“Well, well,” Miss Perkins kept repeating impatiently. “What about it? I can’t give you any more room. You know that perfectly well.”

“I know. I didn’t mean to ask you for any more room. But there’s that empty bungalow on the west side of the compound. It’s in pretty bad disrepair, but if the owner would make it habitable, I’d rent it. The lower story would be capital for a dispensary and a couple of wards, and Susanbai and I could have our quarters upstairs.”

“And your meals?”

“I thought I’d have separate housekeeping. Then, you see, I’d arrange my hours to suit the dispensary work, and that wouldn’t interfere with you.”

Dorothy stopped, breathless and apprehensive. Would it be “stuff and nonsense”? Miss Perkins’ bright black eyes peered like jet beads over her spectacles. For a few moments there was tense silence.

“Good idea!” she remarked at length, rapping the table with her forefinger. “To tell the truth, child, it’s been a sore trial to have you here in the house.”

Dorothy flushed. “I’m very sorry,” she said.

“Don’t be sorry, child. But you see, for five and twenty years I’ve come in and gone out and eaten and drunk when I pleased, or rather, as the Lord’s work gave me opportunity. But now I’ve had to think of another person’s convenience, and have meals at a certain moment, even though some poor sinner was sitting waiting for me to show him the way of life; and so on, and so on. I tell you it’s been a trial.”

“I do wish I had known,” said Dorothy. “I might have thought of this new plan sooner.”

“Never mind now, child. But you leave it all to me. I’ll manage it all. When you come back from Mahableshwar you’ll find your bungalow standing repaired and cleaned, and all ready for you to step into. I’ll get it done at once. I’ll get it done cheap, too. And I’ll look you out a respectable couple, the man to cook, and the woman to do the housework. You leave everything to me.” And Miss Perkins fairly bristled at the prospect of a big job to organize.

“Oh, you dear,” cried Dorothy, between tears and laughter; and to her own amazement the cold, undemonstrative, imperturbable young stoic found herself hugging the redoubtable Miss Perkins.

“Tut, child,” snorted Miss Perkins, disengaging herself, and blinking like an owl over her spectacles. “Off to bed with you, and no more palaver,” and away swept the quaint figure, leaving Dorothy thrown back in her chair, staggered and stunned with happiness.

XIII

In the Cool Green Woods of Mahableshwar

The imposing range of the Western Ghauts extends for nearly seven hundred miles, roughly parallel to the west coast of India, and exercising a prodigious influence on the climate, peoples and industries of the adjacent regions.

The narrow strip of coastland, the Konkan, is indented by innumerable creeks, is blessed with plentiful moisture, and supports a hardy race of fisherfolk and small agriculturists. The people of the Konkan are optimists.

East of the barrier of mountains stretches the dry Deccan, that vast and unfortunate area that is cursed with inadequate rainfall even in normal seasons, that raises its millet crops only by dint of hard work and the help of primitive irrigation, and that has learned by long and irrefutable experience to expect a famine every three years or so. The people of the Deccan are pessimists.

The Ghauts rear themselves in stupendous dignity. The destructive torrents of incalculable rainy seasons have beat upon them, breaking everything that would break, crumbling everything that would crumble. Here and there where the rock was tractable, fantastic relics project into the heavens—spires and pinnacles, domes and minarets, gnarled pyramids, leaning towers, ponderous pillars, twisted stumps, fragile columns. But for the most part, the mountains consist of huge masses of basalt, their tops barren, their bases covered with vegetation, and their precipitous sides gashed with watercourses which become cataracts, large and small, for three months in the year.

A hundred miles south-east of the city of Bombay, the mountains throw off into the Konkan the plateau of Mahableshwar. Four thousand feet and more above sea-level, it sprawls on the plain like a huge, unwieldy green starfish, spreading out its rocky tentacles in every direction. Between these tentacles, modest streams scramble down through wooded gorges, meander along the level, and finally make their way either east or west to the sea. One of these numerous streams is the beginning of the sacred river Krishna. Starting towards the north, it turns east and pursues its sanctified course right across the country until it finds its rest in the Bay of Bengal. Its source has long been a place of worship and pilgrimage. Costly temples endowed with rich lands cluster round the holy spot, which is believed to give birth to five mighty rivers.

Near the end of the eighteenth century, an Englishman in the retinue of the Peshwa of Poona mentions in his diary that he had visited the plateau of Mahableshwar; but it was not until thirty years later that white men sought it out and considered its possibilities as a hot-weather resort. Good roads were made; trees and shrubs were planted; wells were dug; a lake was damned up; numerous bungalows were built. Finally, the Government of Bombay decided to make Mahableshwar its headquarters for April and May of each year.

The hill-station immediately grew by leaps and bounds, and now boasts its English club, racecourse, golf-course, tennis courts, churches, hospital. Every hot season it teems with both Indian and white folk—Government officials, business men, globe-trotters, missionaries. Every bungalow, every hotel, is crammed to its utmost capacity, and little straw huts appear like mushrooms overnight, to provide overflow accommodation. At this altitude many flowers are found that cannot thrive on the Plains, so homesick hearts are gladdened by the sweet-scented orchids in the woods, and the nasturtium, phlox, begonias and other familiar favourites in the gardens, while jaded palates are tickled by the fresh fruits and vegetables that smack of Home.

(Letter from Dorothy Maxwell to Mrs. Alexander)

Geranium Lodge,
Mahableshwar.
May 10, 1914.

Dear Ruth:

I was delighted to get your letter of the 2nd, and to hear what a good time you were all having at Ooty. Give my love to Billy and Betty, and tell them I am looking forward to renewing their acquaintance next Thanksgiving.

I envy you your wood stove. Here it has not been cold enough for fires, though it is pleasantly cool nights and mornings.

Life here is tremendously enjoyable, so enjoyable that I often have qualms as to whether it really can be right for me to have such a glorious holiday when poor Miss Perkins is sweltering in self-abnegation in fiery Anamabad. But I always manage to stifle my qualms and saw wood. I am finding Marathi horribly hard wood to saw, even with the help of two excellent pundits and with classes every day at the Language School. My greatest comfort is the fact that there are a dozen greenhorns at about the same stage of despair as myself, so I am by no means the only one who trembles when the direct-method teacher dives into his box, produces a knife or fork or spoon or other implement of torture, and demands in Marathi, “What is this?”

I’m trying hard to be a better “mixer,” and I’m succeeding wonderfully—for me! Ruth, you with your easy, cordial, friendly manner, simply can’t realize the agonies of shyness! To stand tongue-tied and aloof and get the reputation of being “stiff” or even snobbish, when you’re feeling perfectly genial and are lashing yourself to think of something suitable to say—I can assure you it is humiliating. However, as I say, I’m improving. I’ve made quite a number of new acquaintances, mostly language students, and we’ve gone for picnics in the woods, and long tramps out to the Points to see the view.

Last Friday a bunch of us trekked down the valley to Pratapgud, stayed overnight at the dak bungalow, and then climbed Shivaji’s Fort the next morning. Then we are planning a four-days’ hike over the mountains. So, you see, although I am boning in to study, I get plenty of relaxation, and lots of opportunities to blow away the Marathi cobwebs.

I’m also getting a liberal and gratis education in mission matters. There are ten of us at Geranium Lodge, and we represent seven denominations! We don’t talk shop very much, but, especially when the post comes, some harassed missionary can’t help spilling over and telling us his or her particular problem. Peculiar problems seem to have a habit of cropping up whenever the missionaries go to the Hills! I usually sit still and listen and try to imbibe as much information as I can, for of course I’m too new and inexperienced to have opinions worth repeating. But it’s interesting how many things have come to my notice here that I myself have run up against in Anamabad.

The pay and status of Indian teachers and preachers, how to test a would-be convert, what to do with a Hindu with two wives who wants to become a Christian, how to deal with backsliders and other unworthies, how to put a little more backbone into the Christian community, how to reduce the fifty per cent infant mortality—I have heard Miss Perkins descant on all these. She never asks my advice, of course, but she makes statements and thinks aloud, and then decides according to her own sweet will—and prejudices!

Really, Ruth, to be frank, even I can see that her judgment is not infallible. For instance, she has a few favourites who get salaries far beyond their qualifications or deserts. I’m certain that everybody knows they are rascals. But they have a “way” with them, and have pulled the wool over Miss Perkins’ eyes for years, so nobody dare say a word. Things like that make me realize acutely the disabilities of an independent venture which all hangs on one woman’s judgment and another woman’s money. It is isolated, abnormal and without permanence. In fact, ‘L’état, c’est moi!’—the Mission, it is Miss Perkins! And when she drops out it will fall to pieces.

Well, to change the subject, I’ve great news for you. Mrs. Sandeman is in Mahableshwar and called on me. By the greatest good luck I happened to be out, so Mrs. Talbot and she had a splendid opportunity to get acquainted with each other properly. They evidently succeeded famously, for when Mr. Sandeman came up for a week-end we were both invited to dine with them at the Club. We enjoyed it immensely. It was refreshing to get into a new, non-missionary atmosphere—of course Miss Perkins would dub it “worldly”!

I’m so amused at Mrs. Sandeman. She is genuinely interested in us and our work, but she thinks it due to her dignity not to show it. Prejudice no doubt dies hard with her. The Sandemans are very fond of Major Sutherland and asked a great deal about him. They were surprised and interested to hear that he had been to Anamabad. “He’s a grand fellow—one of the best”—that was Mr. Sandeman’s man-like summing up.

Well, I’m feeling so well and strong and rested now. In Anamabad the days were so full that there seemed no time to think, and my mind and soul seemed starved. But here, among the everlasting hills and in the inviting solitudes of the green woods, I am regaining both physical health and mental poise. I wonder if you remember Geranium Lodge, half a mile down the road from the little Union Church? It nestles in a kind of pocket between two ridges of the Plateau, and faces directly west. The woods have been cleared away in front, so you can look right down the valley, over the tops of the receding trees, and see a glint of silver here and there when the erratic little stream peeps out from the green. And beyond that, the hills loom in roughly parallel rows, with colourings constantly changing—greys and blues and amethysts that were never found on any earthly palette merging into each other and into the misty depths of transient cloud-banks, and then losing themselves somewhere between sea and sky.

Have you anything quite as good as that at Ooty? And then the sunsets! Oh, Ruth, I just sit on the verandah breathless, while the weird kaleidoscopic show goes on. I watch the red-gold kite, and the Chinese lantern, and the flattened orange, and the glowing hexagon, and finally the copper pear that sinks into the Indian Ocean forty miles away. No wonder folk used to worship the sun.

And I just love my chupper with its quaint little door and window, and its haunting smell of hay that takes me right back to childhood days, and romps in the barn at Sayton. It is two hundred years old, that barn, and has belonged to the Jeffersons all that time. Of course, I don’t need to tell you that the first Jefferson came over in the “Mayflower”!

This peace and privacy are making me look forward immensely to my new bungalow, though I can’t get any information from Miss Perkins as to how things are going. Her laconic postcards deal with strictly mission business. Oh, Ruth, to think I won’t have to be distracted with orphans reciting texts on the verandahs in the afternoon! To think I can have my meals when and how I like! To think that when I feel tired I can rest without the awful possibility (or rather probability) of Miss Perkins coming in, looking surprised, and then inquiring icily whether I am ill! And to think I can invite my friends for a visit without asking permission from anybody! Oh, I feel joyfully, guiltily, wickedly independent! By the way, there’s no hurry for that furniture I asked you to get in Bombay. Just take your time when you get back from Ooty.

Now, I’ve simply got to quit, and sidetrack my energies to Marathi grammar. Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell you that we’re going to the garden party at Government House next week. I’m so excited over it! What a thrill it gave democratic, Americo-Canadian me to receive the imposing invitation from Their Excellencies! The only flaw in the pleasures so far is the bother about a tonga.

It’s really curious how scarce tongas suddenly become, when all Mahableshwar wants to drive out at the same time! The tonga wallahs are putting up their prices outrageously. However, I leave all these unpleasant details to long-suffering Mrs. Talbot, and have no doubt that we’ll get there sometime, and somehow.

With kind regards to all the family,
Your affectionate and grateful friend,
Dorothy Maxwell.

XIV

The Garden Party

As matters turned out, the tonga problem was solved in an unexpected fashion. A couple of days before the event, Dorothy received a hasty note from Major Sutherland, saying that he was coming to Mahableshwar for the garden party and would call for her and Mrs. Talbot in a carriage and accompany them.

Major Sutherland going to the garden party, and going with them! But why had he not written directly to Mrs. Talbot? Letter in hand, Dorothy rushed to her friend’s room, and watched for a telltale blush as she broke the news. But Mrs. Talbot only looked pleased and relieved. “How good of him, Dorothy,” she remarked. “And what a difference it will make to have a cavalier of our own! Now my mind is at rest, and I can call that rascally tonga wallah and tell him we have made other arrangements.”

It was a very excited and anticipatory young person who waited on the verandah of Geranium Lodge. With her flushed cheeks and sparkling eyes, with her simple blue silk frock and shady hat, Dorothy Maxwell looked just a slip of a schoolgirl setting out for her first party. As she heard the sound of hoofs on the drive she started up from her rocking-chair. Then she gasped and clutched at Mrs. Talbot’s arm; for a gorgeous private carriage had swung into sight, with its prancing greys and its scarlet-liveried equerries. It drew up with a great flourish, and Major Sutherland, smiling and debonair as ever, stepped out and greeted his friends.

“This is staggering,” said Mrs. Talbot. “I chuckle to think of a couple of ‘poor, dear missionaries’ as some kindly folk call us, swaggering along in an equipage like this. I think ‘equipage’ is the only term at all commensurate with the style. Did you beg, borrow or steal it?”

“I didn’t even ask for it,” replied the Major as he took his seat opposite the ladies. “It was offered to me, thrust upon me.”

“Really? Then you must have been hobnobbing with Indian aristocracy. Dorothy and I have noticed this carriage in the bazaar. Somebody told us it belonged to the Rajah of Kaisangoo.”

“Exactly! And that’s why I’m here, bless him! His little son and heir had a slight operation last month, and I promised the Rajah-sahib that I’d take a run up here and look him over. So here I am, combining work with pleasure. I only wish I were free to-night, so that we three could have a little jollification à la ‘City of Timbuctoo.’ But the Rajah-sahib is giving a dinner-party, so I couldn’t beg off. And I’ll have to leave first thing in the morning for Poona.”

As the carriage skimmed along, Dorothy gazed up at the gorgeous personages on the box, and was acutely aware of the gorgeous personages perched behind her with their fly whisks waving in the wind. She imagined herself a fairy princess in a fairy dream, with a fairy carriage and attendants. Cinderella must have felt like this when she went in her pumpkin to the ball. But the very modernly attired male figure on the seat in front rather spoiled the illusion, so she tried to shake it off and to join in the conversation.

The afternoon was a memorable one for a newcomer. The long line of guests filed up, to be introduced by the aide-de-camp. Their Excellencies stood on a raised platform with a smile and a cordial greeting for every one, and a special word for old acquaintances. Then the guests passed on and down to the grounds, where they watched a tennis tournament, played clock golf, ate refreshments in the big marquees, or strolled about admiring the incomparable view of the mountains and valleys.

Major Sutherland introduced the Rajah-sahib, a fine-looking man of thirty or so, who spoke beautiful English and immediately proposed a foursome at clock golf. Dorothy, as the Major’s partner, played very badly, because she was so interested in her opponent’s long, yellow satin brocade coat, his heavy gold and ruby necklace, and his flaming orange silk turban ornamented with an aigrette fastened by a huge diamond brooch. This gaudy hero of an Oriental fairy-tale seemed so ludicrous as he manipulated a very Western putter.

When the game was over and the Rajah of Kaisangoo took his leave, Mrs. Sandeman joined the party, and they found seats at a good vantage-point where they could enjoy their ices and cakes, and also the wonderful panorama of colour among the guests.

Dorothy had visited few rich families in Anamabad. Her work took her mostly among the very poor, those who were thankful for the coarsest cotton garments to cover them. Now she gazed in amazement at the beautiful Indian women with their voluminous folds of exquisite silks and satins, some fabrics fragile as cobwebs, others covered with heavy silver and gold embroidery. The dainty little feet were shod in the loose Indian slippers of red morocco, with broad, upturned toes, or else in up-to-date high-heeled shoes. On hair and throat and arms and fingers were priceless jewels. What was more, these cultured women walked alongside their menfolk, not behind them.

Amid all the shimmering hues were quieter patches where English men and women mixed with their Indian friends. And all over the grounds one could pick out the Governor’s Indian bodyguard—those handsome six-footers with their scarlet tunics, white breeches, glossy black leggings, long lances, high blue turbans, and black beards parted in the middle and held back on either side by a hair net!

What a fancy fair it all was! It affected Dorothy as did her first day in Bombay. But here were no squalid, sordid specimens of humanity. The cream of Indian and European society in Western India met here on equal terms. Near by, Her Excellency was standing chatting in animated and friendly fashion with a Maharajah clad, like the heroes of the Arabian Nights, in resplendent satin-brocaded coat and jewelled turban. Over there by the tennis courts was the Governor with a group of Indian ladies and gentlemen. Surely, surely, surmised the onlooker, the two races are coming to understand and appreciate each other when they can mingle on an occasion like this with the utmost manifestation of goodwill!

By and by, the four friends started to stroll through the grounds. Dorothy thought this would be an excellent opportunity for Major Sutherland and Mrs. Talbot to have a private talk, so she determined to monopolize the fourth member of the party. But she was not quick enough. Mrs. Sandeman seized Mrs. Talbot’s arm and fell behind with her, so Dorothy was perforce obliged to walk with the Major. When she looked back a little later in the hope of changing partners, the ladies had got lost in the crowd, and they did not find them again until it was time to leave.

As the swift Indian twilight descended, the guests began to head for the drive. There was shouting of numbers and orders as the long succession of carriages drove up, received their human burdens, and hurried off. Dorothy soon found herself with a very Cinderella-like feeling, stepping once more into her elegant turn-out. Soon she would wake up and find the carriage and the prince and the party all a confused memory, and she would have to lash herself on to the task of worrying out the hieroglyphics of an impossible language!

As the three friends bowled along towards Geranium Lodge they were almost silent. Dorothy was thinking how pleasant the day had been—pleasant beyond all anticipations. She had had almost an hour with her Desirable Big Brother, and a splendid chance to tell him all about her new plans, and get his advice on them. Yet she was conscious of an undercurrent of disappointment. The two persons whom she believed to be specially interested in each other had had no chance to be together, and she felt herself the helpless obstacle. There would be no time now, for the Major had to go straight to the Rajah’s. She admired their self-possession, their magnanimity towards herself. But was it necessary to be quite so stoical? Or—awful thought!—could it possibly be that Mrs. Talbot was unresponsive, that she had actually avoided a tête-à-tête? What a puzzle life was! She roused herself when they reached home and the Major took a hurried farewell.

“Now,” said he, “’when shall we three meet again, in thunder, lightning or in rain’?”

“In rain most probably, or rather, the Rains,” replied Mrs. Talbot. “This little girl has promised to come to Poona for a week-end soon.”

“Splendid!” cried the Major. “July?”

Dorothy shook her head. “September, most likely. That will break up the time nicely between now and Christmas.”

“Oh, September? That’s an awfully long way off. This is only May. You really ought to see Poona in June or July. Shouldn’t she, Mrs. Talbot?”

“Of course she should. I’ve done my best to persuade her. However, we’ll see.”

“I think Miss Perkins will probably see too,” remarked Dorothy with a twinkle in her eye. And they all laughed.

And so one more episode was over, and hard study filled in Dorothy’s remaining days before the general exodus from Mahableshwar. Motors, carriages, tongas, cycles, bullock-carts—these were all requisitioned to take back to the Plains the eager folk who had sought health and rest on the Hills. Pleasant house-parties were broken up and scattered to various districts of Western India. Empty buildings were “chuppered” with thick straw shutters against the coming deluge. And the birds and beasts, with a long sigh of relief, relapsed into their wonted freedom and privacy.

XV

The New Venture

When Dorothy Maxwell descended to the Plains, she was amazed at the change in the landscape. Bare and brown as it had been in April, it was barer and browner now. Hardly a green blade was to be seen. The ground gaped with cracks. The roads were covered with inches of white dust. Man and Nature alike seemed to be panting for the coming Rains.

But in the dull monotony of colour, her eye was arrested and her mind refreshed by the brilliance of the gold mohr tree. From the first moment she saw it this tree had an extraordinary effect on Dorothy’s imagination. From ground that is apparently burnt dry and colourless for want of moisture it raises a luxuriant crop of fronded green leaves and clusters of geranium-red blossoms. There must be, she pondered, some secret source of power. Nature must have a hidden reservoir of sustenance which she can draw upon in this dry and thirsty land. And as she sped onwards in the train she found herself watching eagerly for the sudden patch of vivid red blossoms in the barren landscape. The thought grew, though she could not define it properly, that these blazing red blossoms were symbolic—that they stood for things in the spiritual realm, the flowering of unexpected qualities from poor and unpromising soil.

As the dumny swung into the compound at Anamabad, Dorothy’s heart beat high with expectation, though she had been unable to extract any information from Miss Perkins beyond the bare fact that the new bungalow and the servants were ready. Susanbai, of course, was waiting by the steps. After an affectionate greeting Dorothy turned towards her old room, but was restrained by a brown hand on her arm.

“Missy-sahib’s things all over in new house,” said Susanbai. “Breakfast ready there, please. Come.”

“What? You don’t mean to say you’ve moved them over? Did you do it all yourself?”

“Some of it only, please,” replied Susanbai with a mysterious smile; and she and her beloved missy-sahib walked arm-in-arm across the parched brown “lawn,” through the turnstile recently made in the wall, and into the new domain.

“This way, please,” said Susanbai, leading the way upstairs, drawing aside a curtain, and ushering Dorothy into a cheerful room with a wide verandah on two sides. Her belongings were arranged very nearly as they had been in the other bungalow, but there were bewildering additions—curtains and cushions of bright yellow cretonne, a rocking-chair, a new desk, a rotary fan, a lamp with a green shade.

“But have my things come from Bombay?” she cried in amazement. “And I didn’t order all these!”

“Missy-sahib soon finding out. Come this way, please,” and Susanbai proceeded into a bright little dining-room with whitewashed walls and ceiling, and straw-matted floor. In the middle stood a round table with covers laid for three.

“Why, Susanbai, who is coming for breakfast?”

“Miss Perkins and one visitor.”

“A visitor? I thought she never had any visitors.”

“Not often, Missy-sahib,” said Susanbai evasively. “Now won’t you taking off things, please? Breakfast in ten minutes,” and she glided out.

Dorothy threw aside her topi, sank down on a chair, and tried to adjust her bewildered thoughts. Then she jumped up and ran on to the verandah to see her view, and was thrilled to discover that a gold mohr tree reared itself close to the bungalow and sent out a branch laden with brilliant red blossoms to touch her verandah. Then she caught sight of two figures walking across from the other bungalow. One of them was unmistakable, but the other? Dorothy strained her eyes and then gave a whoop of mixed amazement and delight. Ruth Alexander and Miss Perkins looked up and waved a welcome.

It was the jolliest breakfast table that Dorothy had ever known in Anamabad. Miss Perkins was not only in excellent humour, but took pains to be agreeable. She tested Dorothy’s progress in Marathi by asking questions and then clapped her hands vigorously and cried “Shabas!” if the answers were correct. Mrs. Alexander, as usual, radiated happiness and goodwill.

When the meal was over and the swish-swish of the perennial black alpaca had retreated, Dorothy turned to her good angel.

“You wonderful, wonderful woman,” she cried, “I never saw Miss Perkins like this before. Do tell me how you charmed the dragon.”

“Oh, I’ve had the time of my life. She’s delicious.”

“But how did you ever get an invitation?”

“Never got one. That’s the joke.”

“Goodness! What happened?”

“Last Monday I wired that I was coming, and left Bombay before there was time for a reply. You see, I brought my own bedding and provisions, and a boy to cook for me, and I’ve been using all your new cooking vessels that I brought up for you. Cheek, wasn’t it?”

“Horrible cheek,” agreed Dorothy, “especially as you had done nothing whatever for me,” and she pointed expressively over all her friend’s handiwork. “But where on earth did all this furniture come from? Not half of it was on my list.”

“You don’t mean to say you haven’t discovered yet? Come along and look.”

In one of the pigeonholes of the desk was Mrs. Sandeman’s card. The student lamp was from Mr. Alexander, the rotary fan from Mrs. Talbot, the rocking-chair from Miss Cochran, and a folding table from Billy and Betty.

Dorothy was speechless.

“You see,” explained her friend, “I just let folks know that you were setting up housekeeping. I knew they’d love to have a share in it. In fact, Mrs. Sandeman wrote me from Mahableshwar. You evidently had been telling her your plans.”

“I had,” agreed Dorothy. “And now that I remember it, she asked very particularly about a desk. How stupid I am! I never see through anything unless it’s put down in black and white. But what about the curtains and cushions and so on?”

“Oh, that’s nothing. I ran them up for you at Ooty—a pleasure, my dear, I assure you. To sew a brilliant yellow cretonne is a complete recreation from mission problems. By the way, I believe another piece of baksheesh is due to arrive this afternoon.”

“You witch!” cried Dorothy, “but I don’t believe I can stand any more,” and she bit her lips and turned away her head.

“Well, my dear,” continued tactful Ruth, “you asked me how I charmed the dragon. In the first place, from what I had heard of her, I had concluded that Miss Perkins was one of those women who love Power—with a capital P. They expect people to be afraid of them.”

“You’re right, Ruth, absolutely right. I’m afraid of Miss Perkins and she knows it. What’s more, I know that she knows that I know that she knows so much better than I. She’s exactly like a great-aunt of mine who ruled me from the time I was a baby.”

“Well, I made up my mind that even if I felt horribly afraid of Miss Perkins away in my innermost soul, I wouldn’t let her know it. She met me on the verandah with what was evidently meant to be an annihilating stare, and remarked that she wasn’t in the habit of entertaining unbidden guests. I was inwardly trembling. My knees knocked together. I prayed that she wouldn’t hear them! But I smiled my very sweetest and assured her I hadn’t come as a guest. I was prepared to camp out, and meant to save her all the trouble of removing your possessions to the other bungalow. She turned away with a non-committal snort. So I set about my job and never intruded. On the second day she thawed a little and condescended to ask a few questions; and she has continued to thaw until, as you see, she has almost melted into a human being!”

“You’re a witch—that’s all there is about it,” laughed Dorothy.

“My dear, she’s an amazing woman. I’m thunderstruck with admiration—though I can’t say I would enjoy living with her. But she’s a heart of gold tucked away somewhere under that boned bodice, and she’s awfully fond of you—though she wouldn’t show it for the world.”

About five o’clock, when the two friends were sitting on the verandah exchanging experiences at Ootacamund and Mahableshwar, the sudden shriek of a motor-horn startled them. For one wild, foolish moment, the impossible idea flew into Dorothy’s mind that it might be the same visitor who had come by car before. But the car that now approached contained only an Indian chauffeur.

“What can it mean?” cried Dorothy. “No one in Anamabad has a car.”

“Suppose we go downstairs and find out,” suggested Ruth innocently.

When they reached the porch they found Sakharam, Major Sutherland’s chauffeur, standing on the top step with a struggling puppy in one hand and a letter in the other. He salaamed and presented the letter, which was in a familiar handwriting. Dorothy excused herself, dashed upstairs, tore it open, and read:

Dear Dr. Maxwell:

Will you honour me by accepting two small gifts, one for yourself and one for your mission work? I am sure you will find the puppy a good companion. He may chew up a few shoes and rugs if not forcibly prevented; but if you provide a juicy rag he will probably concentrate on that. He is a good breed though not quite blue-blooded. Keep him off all meat for a year, and he will probably avoid distemper.

The car is a contribution to your mission work, in which, as you know, I am deeply interested. As a substitute for the dumny it will save many hours of valuable time, and many ounces of still more valuable energy. Use it as much as possible. I noticed that the roads around Anamabad are moderately good. There should be few days, even in the Rains, when you cannot get about in it.

A pal of mine has gone home on leave and left me his roadster, so you must not think that you are depriving me of my means of transit by accepting my five-passenger. Sakharam, of course, is to do all the repairs and cleaning, and he knows enough English to teach you to drive, if you care to learn. Keep him as long as you wish.

I hope you will like your new quarters, and I would be glad to hear how the new housekeeping progresses.

With every good wish,
Your sincere friend,
Patrick Sutherland.

As Dorothy did not reappear, Mrs. Alexander went upstairs to investigate. She found her, sitting with the letter in her hand and a puzzled expression on her face.

“What’s the matter, Dorothy?”

“I can’t accept it. Of course I can’t.”

“Accept what?—the puppy?”

“No, the car.”

“I didn’t know anybody was asking you to accept a car.”

“Read that, then,” replied Dorothy, handing over the letter and studying Ruth’s face as she read it through.

“Well,” said Ruth at last, “I still ask—who’s offering you a car? Major Sutherland has made an extremely useful contribution to mission work, not to you.”

“But it seems so personal. I can’t help feeling it’s for my comfort, for he was awfully distressed when he was here to find that we’d no way of getting about but the bullock dumny.”

“Well, I’ll give you a bit of comfort. Our car was a gift from a friend at home who is interested in us because we are missionaries, and we’ve never ceased to bless him, and we never had one qualm about accepting it. And I’ll give you a still bigger bit of comfort. This isn’t the only car the Major has given to a missionary. I don’t think I’m betraying confidence when I tell you that he gave one a few years ago to a doctor he met at Ooty—a magnificent woman who runs a large hospital and a huge district all by herself in a remote corner of Hyderabad State. There certainly was nothing personal in that.”

“But it seems such a luxury.”

“You don’t call a tradesman’s motor-truck a luxury? It’s a good bit of business if it lets him deliver his goods quickly. And the main job in missionary life is to ‘deliver the goods.’ That’s good American, isn’t it?”

Dorothy nodded and smiled in spite of herself.

“Of course,” resumed Ruth resignedly, “the idea is new; and old-fashioned fogies like you, for instance, who enjoy riding in a bullock dumny so much, think it a luxury and not a necessity.”

“Don’t be too hard on me, Ruth, I honestly never thought of it at all till now. You see, in Sayton it was only the really well-to-do people who owned cars, and so I’ve always thought of them as luxuries. I’m staggered.”

“Well, cheer up, my dear, you don’t have to decide straight off, for you can’t possibly send the bone of contention back to Poona to-night. And you certainly won’t refuse the puppy. Come down and see him. He’s perfectly killing.”

Dorothy fell a victim to the puppy at once. He was a two-months-old fox terrier, mostly white, with a black patch covering one ear and half of his face, like a circus clown. He was playing about on the verandah trying to chew Sakharam’s bare toes; but when he heard the ladies come downstairs he stopped in the midst of his game, right fore-paw arrested in mid-air, and his ridiculous little head cocked in an attitude of expectation and interest. Then he caught sight of Dorothy’s shoestrings dangling in a way calculated to distract any self-respecting puppy, so he rushed over and began to catch at them.

“You little rascal,” she cried, as she picked him up. He promptly climbed on her shoulder, licked her nose, and put a paw in her ear. Victory was complete.

XVI

Rain!

On the morning of the fifteenth of June, Dorothy Maxwell was awakened out of a deep sleep by the banging of doors and window-shutters. That in itself was nothing unusual, for a hot wind had raged round and through Anamabad every day and every night since she came down from the Hills. It had dried up her skin. It had made her eyes ache. It had seemed to suck the very marrow out of her bones. She felt wilted and withered like an unwatered plant.

But now, as she lay listening to the rattling and roaring, she sniffed the air. The oppressive sultriness was gone, yes, gone! She sat up and sniffed again excitedly. Yes, there was a distinct suggestion of damp earth. The split bamboo curtains on her verandah were loose and flapping, so she slipped over to fasten them, and discovered that it was raining.

Raining? Oh, glorious relief! The monsoon must have broken. For weeks the farmers had watched the sky. Would the rain keep off till it was too late to plant? Then there would be no first crops, and prices would run away up and up, and poor folk would begin to starve. And if the latter rains failed too, then there would be no latter crops, and that meant famine, and in India, famine spells Misery and Death. But now, the monsoon was a fact. The blessed rain was actually here. The land would drink in the life-giving draughts. The farmers would plant their seed. Everybody would rejoice and would thank their various gods for their bounty.

The patter became a deluge. The wind howled through the bungalow, bent the trees in the compound, lashed the rain far into Dorothy’s verandah, tossed her rugs in a heap, coquetted with the papers on her open desk, and whirled some of them out into the storm.

In the morning a droll sight met her. Half the compound was under water, and the children, laughing and shouting, were wading through it, holding their skirts above their knees, and their books and bundles on their heads. When she herself, clad in raincoat and rubbers, had stepped carefully across to the other bungalow, she stood and laughed aloud. On the verandah was a weird collection—water-jugs, wash-basins, bath-tubs, brass pots—in fact, anything that would hold water. Each stood under a little stream that dripped from the leaky roof.

Indoors it was the same tale. The horse-hair sofa was pulled into the middle of the room, which seemed to be the only dry spot, and on it was piled a selection of antimacassars, pictures, books, chairs, and other odds and ends. Excited little kiddies were running to and fro, emptying the vessels as they began to overflow. Everybody was in the best of spirits, for the monsoon, the best friend of India’s millions, had condescended to bless them.

As Dorothy emerged from the dining-room, she caught sight of a figure that made her stuff her handkerchief into her mouth and pray for self-control. There stood Miss Perkins, fortunately with her back to her, talking to some children. An elastic band encircled her just above the knees, and through this was pulled the voluminous alpaca skirt, thus making a wide, full frill. From under the edge peeped out a red flannel petticoat. The feet and legs were encased in an enormous pair of military gum boots.

As Dorothy strove to absorb all the details yet keep her gravity, Miss Perkins wheeled round and saw her.

“Mornin’, Doctor,” she cried cheerily. “Fine weather this. How d’ye like my outfit?” and she planted her feet apart and gazed down at them in admiration.

“Oh, it’s . . . it’s . . . it’s very efficient!” gasped Dorothy.

“I should say so! You ought to get a pair. You can walk all over the compound and keep perfectly dry, even when it’s flooded. Would you like me to order a pair for you? I know an old rascal in Poona who keeps a second-hand clothes shop. I could ask him to look out a pair for you at the next auction sale.”

“Oh, thank you very much. I’ll think it over.”

“Just as you say. Did your roof leak last night?”

“Not a bit.”

“Good! You see what mine’s like. I was so busy looking after yours that I hadn’t time to do anything to this bungalow.”

“Too bad! But won’t you come over and share mine? There’s plenty of room.”

“I’d like to see myself—when I’ve lived in this bungalow for twenty-five years! It’s been like this for ages, only getting worse all the time. But I never felt that I could spare the money from the Lord’s work just for my own comfort.”

“I’m awfully sorry, Miss Perkins.”

“Don’t be sorry, child, but lend me your bathtub, will you? There’s a new leak right over my bed.”

The rainy season promised to be a very happy one for Dorothy Maxwell. In a few weeks the compound grew into a place of beauty and luxuriance. The bare brown earth softened and yielded waving green grass over a foot in height, and flowers in abundance. From her verandah she could see great clumps of brilliant zinnias and pink and white cosmos. Bushes of her favourite bougainvillaea made purple patches among its glossy green leaves. The gold mohr that had gladdened her in the barren landscape only gradually shed its vivid red blossoms; and as they went, a couple of tall, graceful cork trees began to put forth their fragile, waxy white, inverted flowers, and the exquisite, haunting fragrance was wafted across to her—a restorative from Nature’s own laboratory.

Here Dorothy Maxwell could relax, happy in the peace and comfort of her own bungalow, happy in the increasing success of her dispensary work, happy in the comfort and efficiency of her means of transit. For, of course, as Ruth Alexander had prophesied, the car had proved a huge success. Miss Perkins had naturally been indignant at first at this innovation in consecrated mission work of a conveyance that savoured dangerously of the world, the flesh, and the devil. For weeks she had ignored its presence and had kept faithfully to the bullock dumny that she had used for twenty-five years. Fortunately, one of the bullocks fell sick. In her dire extremity she was persuaded to take her Indian preachers with her and Dorothy in the car. Her acrimonious remarks soon ceased when she found that she could “do” four villages or more each day, instead of one or two; and her accounts of its extraordinary usefulness were so glowing, that Lady Brixton offered to make its upkeep one of the regular items of the budget.

And so Dorothy’s cogitations would often lead to the friend whose wise gift had so revolutionized her daily programme. She had not seen him since the fairy ride in Mahableshwar; but his fortnightly letters continued to be an unfailing source of comfort and inspiration. She was looking forward eagerly to the promised visit to Mrs. Talbot in September. Then she would surely see the Major and be able to thank him personally, and she had a conviction that her two friends would let her into the delightful secret which they thought they had been clever enough to hide from her penetrating eye.

But long before the anticipated visit had materialized, the war cloud had burst in Europe. To be sure, this far-away struggle of nations did not immediately affect the tenor of Indian life. In Anamabad, as in most Indian cities, life remained practically normal. Exaggerated and impossible rumours were rife in the bazaars, but nobody lays much stress on bazaar gossip, least of all those who spread it. He who had the power continued to rob him who was at his mercy. Millions of people continued to go to bed hungry every night. Half the babies born in the land continued to die within the year. Infants of a few months and children of a few years continued to be given in marriage. The great wheel of life whirled its victims round as before.

Miss Perkins absolutely refused at first to take things seriously. “Silly fools, the Germans—as if we couldn’t smash them to smithereens!” That classic utterance pretty well summed up her opinion during the early days of the war. She subscribed to no Indian newspaper. The British Weekly, sent from Scotland, represented her sole literary, political and spiritual food beyond her Bible. She therefore did not pretend to keep up to date with current events, and if Dorothy ventured to read a paragraph from her daily Times, or started a discussion of war matters, Miss Perkins would immediately turn the conversation into really important channels, such as the orphans’ latest stomach-ache, or the delinquencies of her latest convert. These loomed upon her devoted horizon as of far greater significance than the life-and-death grapple in Flanders.

Dorothy was appalled by this apathy, this want of interest in a matter which seemed to her so terrible, so vital. It was inconceivable to her how any intelligent person, Indian or European, could go about his or her daily work as if the world were exactly the same now, in August, 1914, as it had been a month or two months previously. Like many another exile she greedily devoured the all-too-meagre telegrams in the daily papers, and longed for details. If only she could have discussed things with Miss Perkins, it would have eased her heart, but she felt bottled up, choked off from any expression of hopes and fears.

It was therefore with peculiar relief that she set out for Poona in the end of September, with the hope of getting among people whose confidence in Britain was unshaken, yet who were intelligent enough to realize the actuality of a great crisis. When she stepped out of the train at Poona Station, the sight of many khaki-clad figures was in itself an instant reminder of things not seen in Anamabad, and during her stay, the movement of troops in the cantonment, the sound of rifle practice from the butts, the reveille and the military bands—these were all proof positive that every one was not so complacent as Miss Perkins.

Dorothy particularly enjoyed meeting Mrs. Talbot’s three colleagues, strapping young women who had managed to keep brisk and optimistic even in strenuous mission work. She saw their school and their hostels and their dispensaries and their classes for “purdah” women. She realized the unspeakable influence rising from the impact of these devoted and vigorous lives on the lives of the secluded Indian women and girls around them; and when Miss Boylston, who specialized in work among the better classes, offered to take her to visit a wealthy Mohammedan woman, she accepted with alacrity.

XVII

A Poor Rich Woman

The guests had been invited for three o’clock, but in true Oriental fashion they were kept waiting in an ante-room for almost an hour until Sultanbai, the lady of the house, was ready to receive them.

When at last they were shown into the reception room, Dorothy’s gravity was almost upset, warned though she had been of what to expect. The master of the house had evidently a taste for Western civilization, and had gathered various items of Western furniture to adorn his Indian home. Arranged in a stiff row round the room, with their backs propped against the wall, stood a mirror-doored wardrobe, a marble-topped wash- hand-stand, a mahogany dressing-table, a bridge table, a blackwood sideboard, a roll-top desk, and a complete suite of sofa and six chairs upholstered in bright green plush with red roses sprawling over them. From the roof hung numerous glass globes and a couple of cut-glass chandeliers. The tiled floor space was left empty, and there, hunched up in bundles of cushions, reclined the mistress of it all.

Sultanbai was a middle-aged woman, enormously fat. She wore red cotton trousers and a three-quarter-length coat of rich blue satin. She was adorned with the inevitable necklaces, bangles, toe-rings, ear-rings, and nose-ring. She was smoking a cigarette; and when she smiled in greeting she showed lips and teeth and tongue all stained scarlet with the betel nut she had just been chewing. She waved her cigarette towards the chairs. Miss Boylston pulled forward three for the guests, and then began a conversation in Hindustani which she occasionally translated for Dorothy’s benefit.

Sultanbai was very curious about the new-comer, and gazed at her from top to toe while she asked questions: “How many children has she?” . . . “Not married? Horrors!” . . . “How old?” . . . “Twenty-seven! Dear me, could her father not give her a suitable dowry?” . . . “She wanted to come to India?” . . . “She didn’t want to be married?” . . . “How extraordinary!”

Sultanbai tapped her own forehead and nodded questioningly towards Dorothy. “Was she just a little bit off?” Miss Boylston assured her that the new-comer was perfectly right in her mind, and that many white women preferred not to marry, but to come to India and help their Indian sisters. Sultanbai shook her head in disbelief, and her soft brown eyes rested on Dorothy as if she were a stuffed museum specimen of some now extinct and almost unimaginable type.

The questions went on. Over and over again must these ignorant women hear of our customs—our marriage age, the freedom white women have, the extraordinary fact that they can go for a walk with a man who is not a relative, the still less conceivable fact that if there are no children of a marriage the husband does not bring in another wife! The questioner paused to digest these staggering ideas, and Miss Boylston got a word in about the cause of all this freedom for women; and she told of that religion of brotherhood and justice and goodwill that has made white women what they are.

As they rose to go, Miss Boylston asked if she might show her friends the view from the verandah?

“Certainly,” and the hostess waved her cigarette in acquiescence.

“Won’t you come, too?”

“Oh, no, I can’t. You see, I haven’t got my veil here, and if I should step on to the verandah one of the gardeners might happen to look up and see me.”

Dorothy gasped when this remark was translated to her. Reaching the verandah she drew a long breath. In the distance loomed the purplish- brown Western Ghauts. Nearer, a famous Hindu temple reared itself in striking isolation on its jagged rocks. Beneath lay the great, seething city of Poona. As she gazed at the expanse of sky above and the crowded city below, her heart went out in yearning pity for this poor rich woman who had money and jewels and as many sweetmeats and cigarettes as she cared for, but who was chained by the fetters of centuries-old custom and prejudice to be a virtual prisoner in her own gorgeous house. All she knew of the great wide world was what she could see through a crack in the straw curtains that closed in her carriage when she went for a drive, or what she could spy from a corner of this secluded verandah, when carefully veiled!

The visitors were served with rich sweetmeats made of sugar, coconut, clarified butter and spices. Then they left, with many salaams, and with an urgent invitation from Sultanbai to come soon again and tell Her once more about their strange customs.

“Isn’t it an extraordinary life?” remarked Mrs. Talbot when they had made their way through a lane filled with gaping children and had climbed into their tonga. “Her husband is one of the best educated and most polished Mohammedan gentlemen I have ever met. I met him first years ago when he visited my husband’s school.”

“But does he like having his wife so ignorant?” asked Dorothy.

“No, indeed, he deplores it. In fact, he has tried to teach her himself. But she is like an abnormal child. When he shows her the alphabet she goes into fits of laughter, and he can’t get any further.”

“But do you feel that you get very far with a visit like this?” asked Dorothy. “Do you really feel much hope for the future?”

“I do,” replied Miss Boylston, “but with the children. I can’t honestly feel that we can make much progress with women like Sultanbai, whose minds are irrevocably stunted. But it means a lot to get friendly with them, and especially to persuade them to let their daughters and their daughters-in-law be educated and get a better chance in life than they themselves had. For instance, Sultanbai lets her three children come to our ‘purdah’ class, and her eldest daughter, who takes after her father, is actually studying at the Women’s Medical College at Ludhiana.”

“Really? That’s marvellous.”

“It is indeed,” agreed Mrs. Talbot, “ especially when I remember how things were even fifteen years ago. Indian women are coming into their own gradually, and the few who have ‘arrived’ are working for the others. They can do it far better than we can, only there aren’t enough of them yet to go round. But there’s a day coming when we missionaries will be superfluous, obsolete. I wish I could live to see that day, but I’m afraid it won’t be in our generation.”

XVIII

A Revelation and a Resolution

During the remainder of her visit, Dorothy pondered much over all that she had seen and heard, and she longed passionately for some one in Anamabad who would talk over these great big vital questions of the hour and day. But on Sunday evening, as the time of departure drew near, all thoughts and wishes were merged into a sinking feeling of acute depression.

When Dorothy faced the matter frankly in her own mind she had to confess that it was due to the quite extraordinary fact that she had not seen her Desirable Big Brother. She had looked forward to meeting him for almost four months. He himself had frequently mentioned it in his letters. She had let him know the exact date of her visit. She had secretly hoped he would meet her at the station. Yet, she had now been in Poona for three days and he had neither put in an appearance nor written. Still more strange, Mrs. Talbot had actually avoided so much as a reference to him. What could it all mean? It surely showed plainly that he felt no personal friendliness towards herself, no brotherliness, as she had fondly hoped. He evidently regarded her simply as a hard-worked missionary with whom he sympathized, a lame dog to be chivalrously helped over Indian stiles.

Did Mrs. Talbot’s unusual reticence about their mutual friend mean that she had definitely refused his advances? If so, Dorothy’s castles in the air would come tumbling down to earth. What about that new home where, she had fondly anticipated, she would be welcomed by a Big Brother and a Big Sister? On the other hand, did it mean that everything had been definitely fixed up between these two dear people, but that in view of the uncertainties of wartime, they had decided to delay any announcement?

And then Dorothy fell to thinking what it would mean to her personally if the Major should go to the Front. And if anything should happen to him, and Mrs. Talbot be left desolate again? Oh, the very idea was gruesome. Dorothy was beginning to realize how closely human lives and relationships are intertwined, how much one must pay for the privilege even of friendship. And if this nightmare of apprehension were her penalty for mere friendship, then how doubly, trebly, incalculably poignant must be the penalty of love I She gave the rein to her Celtic imagination and worked herself into a very fury of gloomy prognostication and despair.

In this attitude of mind she was naturally rather quiet during dinner, and when she went to her room to pack, Mrs. Talbot followed her in.

“My dear Dorothy,” she said, “I’ve enjoyed your visit so much.”

“It’s been perfectly lovely for me, I assure you.”

“But I’m inconsolably disappointed about one thing,” resumed Mrs. Talbot. “Ever since we knew exactly when you were coming, Major Sutherland and I had planned a little dinner-party at his Club for last night.”

“Oh, really?” said Dorothy, suddenly standing bolt upright.

“Indeed we had. But on Friday afternoon, just before you were due to arrive—he had been planning to meet you at the station, of course—he was called by wire to Belgaum. He had no idea how long he might be kept, but of course he couldn’t possibly get back for the Saturday dinner. I purposely didn’t say anything at all to you, for I had a sneaking hope that he might turn up to-day. But, you see, he hasn’t. And I can’t understand how he hasn’t wired us some message.”

“Do you think he may be called to the Front?” asked Dorothy, fixing her friend with a clear and searching gaze.

“Possibly. He sent in his application immediately. But I think it more likely that he’ll be kept in India for the present. Nobody knows what may happen here. But he himself wants to get to France.”

“That would be dreadful, wouldn’t it?”

“Why, yes, Dorothy, it certainly would. Major Sutherland is a good and brave man, but so are thousands of poor fellows who may have to give up their lives.”

Dorothy stared in consternation at this callousness. “I’m afraid I’m awfully rude to ask you, but really and truly, wouldn’t it break your heart, wouldn’t it kill you, if anything happened to him?”

“Dorothy, my dear,” cried Mrs. Talbot in amazement, “what on earth do you mean? Would it break my heart, would it kill me, if anything happened to Major Sutherland? What are you talking about?”

“Oh, I thought . . . I thought . . .” stammered Dorothy in confusion.

“You thought what? Out with it at once,” and Mrs. Talbot shook the younger woman’s shoulders and made her look up.

“Oh, I thought it was all so plain on the boat, that he cared for you, and I’ve wanted and wanted you to care for him. I’ve prayed about it every single night since we went through the Canal and I thought I had discovered his secret. Is it that you don’t believe in second marriages?”

For answer Mrs. Talbot flung herself into a rocking-chair and went into peal after peal of laughter. She tried to stop herself but seemed to have lost all self-control. Finally, Miss Boylston looked in to see what was the matter.

“Nothing,” sobbed Mrs. Talbot. “Dr. Maxwell was telling me a funny story, that’s all.”

“She doesn’t seem to think it funny,” remarked Miss Boylston, as she glanced at Dorothy’s flushed and distressed countenance and then discreetly withdrew.

“No, I don’t,” said Dorothy indignantly. “If I made a mistake, I beg your pardon; but I don’t see anything to laugh at. I’m cruelly disappointed. I wanted him so badly as a big brother.”

“As a big brother?” repeated Mrs. Talbot, going off into another fit of convulsions. “My dear, you certainly did make a big mistake, and you needn’t beg my pardon. I’m remorseful for being so rude, but really, it strikes me as being the funniest thing I’ve heard for ages. I do believe thoroughly in second marriages, though not for myself. But Major Sutherland and I have never at any time had the slightest thought of each other except as good friends. So finish your packing, my dear, and put your mind at rest. He can be your big brother quite as well without my intrusion as a third party,” and she dried her eyes vigorously and tried to compose herself.

Dorothy finished her packing almost in silence. She was not only disappointed, but hurt. If she had made a mistake, then Mrs. Talbot might have let it go at that, and not have laughed so much. What a muddle everything was, to be sure! The solid ground seemed to have given way beneath her feet, and she was mentally staggering about for balance.

Dorothy’s train did not start till two in the morning, but out of thoughtfulness for her hostess she had decided to go down to the station at ten o’clock and wait there. It was a beautiful night, such as frequently comes near the end of the Rains, and the moist, fragrant air cooled her troubled brain.

Just as the carriage neared the station, Mrs. Talbot took her hand and said simply and earnestly, “Dorothy, my dear, I’ve something to say to you. I want to explain my apparent rudeness, and I want you to promise not to interrupt me or ask any questions. Will you?”

“All right,” replied Dorothy in a nonchalant voice. “I don’t feel that anything matters very much now.”

“Indeed it does. Now, I haven’t the slightest wish to intrude. Please forgive me if I seem to do so. But I must tell you that you are entirely off the track. You’re perfectly right in thinking that Major Sutherland fell in love with some one on the boat, but that some one was not myself. It was some one so innocent, and unselfish and unsophisticated that she never thinks about herself or her own attractions. Now, you know the few ladies with whom our mutual friend fraternized on the boat. Eliminate me and you’ll find the solution. Here we are at the station. I see you’re simply panting to contradict me, so I’d better not come in with you. The porter will put your baggage in the waiting-room. Good-bye, my dear. Cheer up. Life is not all tragedy.”

“It feels like it to-night,” said Dorothy with a rather wry smile, as she kissed her friend goodbye. Mrs. Talbot watched her disappear into the station followed by her luggage bobbing on the head of a porter. Then she gave the order to the coachman to drive home, and she sat back in her corner with a broad smile of satisfaction.

The waiting-room was swarming with recumbent figures of women and children. Floor and table alike were strewn with innumerable packages and bundles of every size and sort. Some were gaping open, some had their contents pulled half out. The windows were tightly shut, and the air was stuffy with the smell of oranges and stale bread. So Dorothy beat a hasty retreat, closed the door softly behind the unconscious sleepers, and directed the porter to put her baggage on the platform beside a vacant seat.

Poona Station at night is no particularly pleasant place either as regards quiet or company. As it is an important junction, trains frequently whirl through, and engines shunt to and fro with hideous screechings. Glaring electric arcs light up the tracks, the platform, and the idle people strolling backwards and forwards. Through the grated doors of the third-class waiting-room can be seen an uneven carpet of inert bundles of coloured cloth—Indians in blissful repose on the hard stone floor, waiting for their slow passenger trains. But Dorothy was oblivious of her surroundings. Drawing a blanket from her hold-all, she wrapped it round her and settled down on the hard wooden bench, not to sleep but to think.

Her first impulse had been indignation over Mrs. Talbot’s revelation, or supposed revelation. Even she was not so unsophisticated as to misunderstand the meaning of the remarks. Eliminate her friend, and there was no one left but herself as the object of Major Sutherland’s affections. But it was preposterous to think of an experienced, middle-aged man of the world falling in love with a simpleton like herself. However, be that as it may, the main problem to be faced now was her attitude to him in the future. She had always been perfectly frank with herself that she liked and admired him immensely, that she would love to have him play the role of Big Brother, and that his friendship had been indescribably precious and comforting through the difficult months of acclimatization and adjustment.

Yet she could not but blame herself. Taking it for granted that he and Mrs. Talbot had actually been interested in each other, as she had fully believed and hoped, she had let herself be friendlier than she ought with a man in no way related to her. She ought not to have let a stranger write to her every fortnight. She ought to have concentrated on work like Miss Perkins, and let even Friendship severely alone. Besides, platonic friendship was such a new experience for her that she had no doubt muddled things.

Her pride was sorely hurt. She who had always preened herself on her aloofness, on her set-apartness, on her immunity from the trials and troubles of ordinary life with its loves and friendships, now found herself involved in an incipient love-affair, with herself as one of the main personages. This, too, after she had reached the goal of her ambition and had come to India for a life of service to her Indian sisters! It was absurd, it was ridiculous! Again, had she not unwittingly been guilty of a great wrong towards Major Sutherland? Had he understood her blindness, her “brotherly” ideas? Had not he, versed in the ways of the world, interpreted her companionship as showing that she was open to his advances?

Dorothy’s brain reeled with the thoughts and fears that whirled through it. Humiliation, perplexity, apprehension, remorse—these chased each other relentlessly. Why, oh, why could she not have kept to her young ideals of selfless service, and shut up her heart to the call of human entanglements as she had done all her days? Why must this great, unsought experience of thrilling to the voice of a friend coincide with her very first year of actual service on the field? Happy, happy Miss Perkins, whose consecrated virgin heart had never been torn asunder like this! And happy, happy, miserable Sultanbai, who had never faced a problem in all her circumscribed existence, who was content if she could eat well, sleep well, please her lord and master, and bear him an abundant progeny! There was something to say for Indian customs after all!

Before her train pulled in, Dorothy had disposed of the main problem. There would be no misunderstanding in the future. Now that her eyes were opened, she would watch her steps carefully. There must be no more correspondence—that was perfectly clear. Would she write and explain? No, she would simply ignore her friend’s next letter, and he would understand and let the matter drop.

Wise, discerning, far-sighted Dorothy!

XIX

The Rich Merchant and His Heir

A wealthy merchant and banker of Anamabad was in desperation for an heir. His first wife having proved barren, he had naturally taken a second wife; but she had been a miserable failure, having produced only one dead-born infant, and a female at that!

He heard tales through his servants of the magic exercised by the white woman doctor in similar cases, and especially of the advent in the family of Jevan, her bullock-cart driver, of a fine son after four disappointments.

Now, the merchant was a man of high caste and irreproachable orthodoxy; but when his wife once more gave promise of a progeny, he determined, in his dire need, to invite the assistance of the foreigner. Dr. Maxwell visited the house, but she refused to take any responsibility unless the patient should be removed from her rich but insanitary surroundings.

“Impossible!” cried the husband. “She is already haunted by the ghost of her sister-in-law, who threatens death if she so much as crosses the threshold.”

“It is certain death if she remains here. The case requires an immediate operation.”

It was a deadlock. The poor man was torn between fear of the ghost on the one hand, and anxiety for a safe delivery on the other. The white doctor remained firm.

Next day, the merchant called at the bungalow in the hope that she might have relented. She had not; but she showed the distracted man a small room adjoining the dispensary where she was willing to treat the case. He shook his head in despair, but proceeded to an astrologer, who, in consideration of a handsome fee, consulted the gods. They graciously consented to the removal of the woman on condition that it was accomplished on the next Thursday at four in the morning, that being a particularly auspicious hour when the obstreperous ghost might haply be kept at bay. The excited husband rushed back to the dispensary with this happy news. Then he brought a priest, who muttered incantations and wrote hieroglyphics in the air; and under his direction an army of servants purified this room of a Christian missionary and made it fit for the reception of an orthodox, high-caste Indian woman.

In the early hours of Thursday morning, the whole compound was awakened by the arrival of a noisy procession, escorted by a band, and lighted up by two enormous incandescent lamps carried on the heads of servants before and behind. The patient was borne in a palanquin and accompanied by a dozen female relatives and attendants, who to their indignation, were not allowed to camp out overnight in her room.

All went well. On the Friday morning the anxious father was presented with a couple of fine boys. Twin boys! The gift of the beneficent gods, the acme of domestic felicity, a safeguard for the soul of the father in the next world! Incidentally the doctor was overwhelmed with thanks; and in the afternoon the proud papa reappeared with a pair of heavy gold bangles for her, in token of his gratitude.

Dorothy Maxwell was particularly happy over this success. Her work hitherto had been almost confined to women of the lower castes and of no caste. This was the first time that a high-caste woman had been allowed to stay overnight in her bungalow; and she felt sure that it would encourage sensible men to throw aside their prejudices and risk the terrors of caste pollution in order to save their wives and children. She was right. That very day she had several callers, anxious to book her assistance in advance for imminent family additions.

How pleased Major Sutherland would be to know that at last the barriers of caste were breaking down in Anamabad! He had often encouraged her in her depressed moments, by assuring her that it was only a matter of time, and he had been hoping for a beginning like this. She must write at once and tell him all about it.

Then Dorothy Maxwell pulled herself up with a start. She had actually forgotten that there were to be no more letters. How horrible, just when she had such special news to tell him! How complex human relationships were! She might write with impunity to Mrs. Talbot or Mrs. Alexander or any of her new Mahableshwar acquaintances. But just because Major Sutherland happened to be a man, she must all of a sudden lose a valuable guide and confidant. How absurd, how unreasonable it all was! And Dorothy, in the reaction that follows a mood of unusual exaltation, found life flat and unfair.

Mrs. Talbot sent on a telegram of regret which had evidently been delayed in transit from Belgaum and which had not reached Poona until after Dorothy had left. Saturday brought a long letter from Major Sutherland, explaining his sudden call to Belgaum for consultation on war contingencies, and expressed keen disappointment at missing her visit. With set lips Dorothy read the letter through once only, then locked it away. “That’s probably the last I’ll ever get from him,” she sighed.

Of course Dorothy was wrong.

The following Saturday brought another letter. Her friend did not ask why she had not written. He merely presumed that she was specially busy, but hoped she would find time to send him even a line. It hurt quite badly to ignore this letter, but Dorothy locked it away with the others and tried to concentrate on work.

On the following Wednesday this wire arrived:

Are you well reply prepaid Sutherland.

As the messenger was waiting, Dorothy had to gather her scattered wits and write an answer:

Perfectly well thank you Maxwell.

She read it over. It sounded crude and unfeeling. He evidently was anxious, then. He was not going to take the hint and drop writing, as she had presumed he would do. Well, she could do nothing now but let things slide.

When Saturday came and went without any letter from the Major, Dorothy began to be afraid that her friend had taken the hint. Of course, she ought to have been glad that he was so sensible, and that things were going to adjust themselves so simply. It was exactly what she had planned when she thrashed the matter out in Poona Station. But she was miserable.

On Sunday, everything went wrong. In the morning she lay thinking about her affairs too long, and left far too short time to dress for church. She hastily opened the bundle of clothes which the washerman had brought late the night before. She pulled out dress after dress. Not one was fit to wear. There was either a rent or a button pulled off. She left just five minutes to get to church. A tire punctured on the way and she and half a dozen presumably delicate little orphans had to walk the rest of the distance. They of course arrived late, and the whole congregation watched them trying to slip unobtrusively into their places, followed by Miss Perkins’s all-seeing, disapproving black eye above her spectacles. The pastor shouted louder than ever, and made her head ache. The organ squeaked abominably, and the choir sang out of tune. She arrived home just in time to catch her cook filling her drinking-water jug from a pail of germ-laden well water. What a martyrdom missionary life was!

Dorothy decided that the Indian climate must be getting on her nerves. What else could account for this sudden ruffling of a usually tranquil temperament? She determined to sleep all afternoon. But no sleep would come. The air was stifling. A couple of mosquitoes took a fancy for her and buzzed round her, tantalizingly out of reach. In the branches of the gold mohr tree that touched her verandah, a crow evinced a desire to develop his croaking talent. In desperation she rose and pitched at him the stone that served as a paperweight. He flew off cawing, and returned to his perch the moment she lay down again. She tossed from side to side; she tried to read; she sucked an acid drop; she sprinkled her aching forehead with eau-de-Cologne; and she was as wide awake as ever.

About three o’clock Dorothy Maxwell was at last falling into a restless doze when a motor-horn shrieked. She sprang up and peeped over her verandah in time to see a car enter the gate. She drew back hastily as she caught sight of a man’s topi inside, and a man’s hand feeling for the lever of the door. It must be Major Sutherland. This was a new turn of affairs. Why, oh, why couldn’t he let things drop?

She heard him calling “Boy! Boy!” and she smiled to herself, for she knew that all the servants were taking their usual afternoon siesta in their own quarters. He evidently sent his chauffeur to hunt somebody up, for after an interval she heard a great scolding and altercation, as some unwilling sleepy-head was forcibly roused out of a blissful dream. By and by up came her cook, heavy-eyed and cross, and wearing a hurt and martyred expression. He presented Major Sutherland’s card.

Dorothy had not known what she was going to do; but now, as she fingered the card, she decided that she could not see her friend now. Her mind was too much perturbed. She must regain her old self-control and air of aloofness before she could risk a personal interview. So she tore a page from her scribbling pad and wrote:

Dear Major Sutherland:

Thank you very much for coming. I would rather not see you to-day, but I promise to write.

Sincerely,

Dorothy J. Maxwell.

Dorothy waited wide-eyed and breathless while the cook shuffled downstairs. Would her friend jump into the car and drive right off? Must she watch him disappear down the road and out of sight—yes, and out of her life? Indeed, yes. She heard him give an order. The engine was cranked up, and the door of the car was banged with a flourish of finality.

She rushed on to the verandah. The car was emerging from the porch. She gazed down on the relentless, non-committal auto hood. It was insupportable. “Major Sutherland, Major Sutherland, oh, please, please,” she cried in agony.

“I’m here all right. I’m waiting,” came the reply; and the visitor, pencil and notebook in hand, stepped out from under the porch, looked up, and waved his topi.

Dorothy staggered back. He was waiting! He wasn’t driving off! He must have sent his car to wait for him outside. Oh, what a fool she had made of herself! She covered her hot cheeks in shame and vexation. Then she pulled herself together hastily as the cook’s grumpy voice once more called at her door, “Missy-sahib, letter,” Dorothy unfolded it and read:

Dear Dr. Maxwell:

Pardon my insistence, but I must see you. If you are ill, I shall come up and prescribe for you. If not, will you please come down at your earliest convenience? I am due back in Poona this evening, but I can, and I shall, wait on your verandah till I see you.

P. S.

That settled the matter. For convention's sake, if for no other reason, a mere man must not sit all day on a missy-sahib's verandah. So Dorothy had perforce to send down the verbal message: "Very well. Coming." As she dressed and bathed her flushed face, she racked her brains as to what tack to take, but she could think of nothing that would be equally friendly, firm and final.

XX

“Prosperine” and Her Big Brother

With Spunky joyfully leaping beside her, Dorothy Maxwell descended and caught sight of her visitor standing on the farther end of the verandah. His masterful back was towards her, his feet were apart, he was tugging at his moustache. She concluded that he would probably take matters into his own hands. He did.

When he heard her, he wheeled round, came quickly forward, fixed her with a very stern expression that she had never seen before, took her hand, and led her to a chair—all without a word.

“Now,” said he, standing over her, “what does all this mean?”

“All what?” asked Dorothy lamely.

“You don’t need to hedge. Why haven’t you answered my letters?”

“I decided not to write any more.”

“I see. But we had made a bargain. Is it fair for one person to break her side of a bargain without even consulting the other party?”

“Perhaps not.”

“Of course not. I suppose you were offended because I wasn’t in Poona when you were there.”

“Offended? How could I be, when you were on duty?”

“Well, I simply couldn’t think of anything else. Is there something else, D-D-Miss Maxwell?”

Dorothy continued stroking Spunky’s alert ears as he snuggled on her lap. Then she looked up. The commanding light had died out of the kind eyes. They were puzzled and pleading like those of a faithful dog who is trying hard to understand what his master wants him to do.

She braced herself.

“I think I’d better tell you all about it,” she said suddenly.

“Please do.”

“It would be easier if you’d sit down.”

“Right-o,” replied the man cheerfully, drawing forward a wicker chair.

Dorothy paused for a moment. “I hope you won’t be offended,” she began. “You see, I’m awfully stupid. I’ve made a silly mistake, and when I found it out I got a dreadful shock.”

“Tell me what it was, poor child.”

“Well, somehow or other, I got an idea on the boat that you had fallen in love with Mrs. Talbot. I’m not versed in sentimental matters. I’ve always avoided them. But it seemed perfectly clear to me. I myself took a crush on her the first time I saw her, she is so sweet and calm and beautiful. I probably imagined that everybody must feel the way I did. But, you know, you liked to be together, you had always lots to say to each other. . . .”

“Pardon me, but was that why you were so elusive those last days, and fussed round Mrs. Sandeman far more than necessary?”

“Of course it was. I didn’t want to be in the way, and Mrs. Sandeman made a capital excuse.”

“You in the way? You droll child!” and the man patted her hand as it lay on the arm of her chair. Spunky promptly snuffed it and gave it a peremptory lick.

“Spunky objects to poaching on his preserves, I see,” laughed the Major. “However, please go on. When did you find you’d made a mistake?”

“In Poona, three weeks ago to-day.”

“And how did you find out?”

“Well, I’d been hoping and hoping that I’d hear soon of your engagement. I had hoped you would tell me that day at Mahableshwar.”

“But if your surmise had been correct, wouldn’t I have written to Mrs. Talbot instead of to you, about taking you to the garden-party?”

“I did think that funny, but I came to the conclusion that you two were playing a very clever game and throwing dust in my eyes, but that I was cute enough to find out for myself.”

“But would I have strolled about the grounds for an hour with you, if I had been in love with Mrs. Talbot?”

“I was distressed about that, but I thought it all due to Mrs. Sandeman monopolizing Mrs. Talbot and then stupidly getting lost in the crowd.”

“Now I really must rescue these two good ladies from the charge of stupidity. They were extremely good sports, and took care to make themselves scarce. You droll child!” repeated the man, lying back in his chair and laughing, while Dorothy looked aghast. “However, do tell me what disillusioned you?”

“We were discussing the possibility of your going to the Front, and Mrs. Talbot was so casual about it that I just couldn’t contain myself, and blurted it out.”

“And how did my supposed fiancée take it?”

“Oh, she just laughed and laughed and laughed.”

“Indeed, I don’t wonder,” said her companion with one of his good-humoured broad grins. “But I’m still all in the dark. Why should you stop writing to me because I’m not engaged, and not going to be engaged to your friend?”

Dorothy hesitated, confused; but there was no evading her tormentor’s catechism. “Well,” she continued timidly, “ it was like this. I had thought of you as a big brother. I wanted one dreadfully. I never had one, you see. Mrs. Talbot likes me, so I thought that when she married you, she would be like a sister and you like a brother.”

“Poor, brotherless little girl,” said the kind voice. “But why can’t we be your sister and brother even if we don’t happen to marry each other?”

“I suppose you could,” replied Dorothy slowly, “but it’s all so complicated somehow.”

“So you decided to cut out my friendship. It didn’t mean anything to you except in so far as it included Mrs. Talbot. You haven’t enjoyed it for its own sake.”

“Indeed I have,” cried Dorothy, distressed. “I hate to give it up.”

“Then why do so?”

Dorothy was silent. The Major waited a few moments, then asked permission to smoke, and lay back in his chair, puffing at his pipe for a good five minutes. Dorothy, fondling the soft little bundle that lay on her lap, studied her companion’s face. Then she looked away. She had no right to intrude.

The Major suddenly sat up, laid his pipe aside, and said, “Life is too short, too precious, for misunderstandings and the needless loss of friendship. You have been frank with me. May I be equally frank with you?”

Dorothy nodded, and he continued, “Well, I had the temerity to fall in love with you on the boat.”

She shivered a little. It was true, then. “But,” she said reproachfully, “you knew I was a missionary.”

“I did. But unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, little accidents like that don’t count in love affairs. Besides, you know, missionaries have been known to marry.”

Silence followed the Major’s words. Presently Sutherland looked up quizzically, head on one side, and a mischievous twinkle in his blue eyes. “Haven’t they?” Dorothy smiled in spite of herself.

“I know,” he continued, “that you feel set apart for a special service, that you hadn’t a thought of love and marriage. In fact, I believe it was your aloof little air that first attracted me. It seemed hopeless to try and make you care. I even wondered if it was right to disturb your tranquillity with talk of human affections. I’ve thrashed the whole thing out a dozen times. I’ve fought against it. I’ve wrestled with it. I’ve tried to be content with just your friendship. But I’m not happy, I’m not content, Dorothy.”

“I’m very sorry. Then you wish you had never met me?”

“No, I don’t wish that. But I wish, I do wish, that you were just a little more ordinary, a little more human, so that I could feel justified in bombarding you and making you care.”

Dorothy smiled and shook her head. “I really don’t know anything about love and caring,” she said. “I’ve always idolized my dead parents, but I’ve never loved any human being passionately. Perhaps it isn’t in me to do so.”

“I think it is,” said the man quietly. “The depths are there all right, but they haven’t been stirred. The angel of love hasn’t come yet and moved over the face of the waters.”

“I don’t think I want him to come and do that. Life is so much simpler if it isn’t entangled with human affections. I’ve found friendship quite bad enough.”

“But is simplicity the highest ideal in life? I don’t think so. Look at travelling, for instance. When I’m worried with my kit bags and bed bundles, and all the other paraphernalia that we white folks think it necessary to haul round with us, I’m inclined to envy the other fellow—the poor Indian who cheerfully sets out for a week’s sojourn with a handful of meal and other necessities wrapped in a cloth and carried on his head. That’s the simple life for you. But when it comes right down to a choice, I’d rather have the worry of my belongings and the comfort and self-respect they bring. Now, honestly, wouldn’t you?”

“I suppose I would.”

“Well, it’s exactly the same idea in the spiritual realm. Life is much simpler, and incidentally ever so much poorer, without encumbrances. If you want real comfort and satisfaction, you’ve got to take encumbrances; they’re worth the bother involved.”

“I’m afraid I’ve never thought much about these things,” said Dorothy. “You see, I haven’t been blessed with encumbrances. I’ve been lonely all my life.”

“And you’re afraid to launch out? That’s it isn’t it? Poor little girl!”

There was a long pause.

“Well,” resumed the Major, “as I couldn’t cure myself of caring for you, I determined to hang on for dear life to your friendship, in the hope that you might relent and marry me when your five years’ engagement at Anamabad was over.”

“Wait five years?”

“Certainly. It would really be just a little over four years now. And I’d planned how you could go on being a missionary even when you were married to a mere man of the world like myself. You see, I can retire any time now, and I thought that if the idea appealed to you, we might settle down somewhere in India, build a small hospital, and run it together. That would be quite a bit of mission work, wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed it would!” said Dorothy with glowing eyes. Build a hospital, and she and Major Sutherland run it? How perfectly wonderful!

“It would be a small contribution to India’s uplift,” he continued, “that I would be glad to make. You see, it would be team-work, you and I sharing it all. However, that was my private little castle in the air. I hadn’t meant to mention it to you yet, but your sudden tactics precipitated it. Now we’ll get to business. Let’s see where we stand. I’m in love with you, but you’re not with me, and you haven’t the slightest intention of being so. Isn’t that about right?”

“It sounds terribly crude that way.”

“Never mind how it sounds. I’m after facts. Now, wouldn’t you let me act the Big Brother rôle, if I promise not to overstep the privilege?”

Dorothy was silent.

“How would this plan work, then? Suppose I don’t write for a month. That’ll give you plenty of time to think it all over. If you decide to drop your big brother, tell me so frankly. If not, we can go on as before, writing once a fortnight. What d’ye say to that plan?”

“I think it’s excellent. This is the eighth of October. I’ll decide on the eighth of November.”

“And you’ll let me know your decision? I promise not to make any move.”

“Very well,” agreed Dorothy. “Let me see, that will be two letters from you that I’ll miss, besides the one that ought to have come yesterday,” she added naively.

Her friend stooped down and adjusted his puttee. “Will you miss them?” he queried at length.

“Of course I shall. I re-read them on Sunday afternoons. They are a tremendous help.”

“Well, you don’t need to miss them a day beyond the eighth of November. And oh, by the way, here’s a minor point. Suppose you decide to let me play the brotherly role, what are you going to call me? You couldn’t manage ‘Patrick’ or ‘Pat,’ could you?”

“I’m afraid not,” smiled Dorothy. “But I’d like to call you just ‘Brother,’ for I always think of you as that. May I?”

“Please do. I’ll consider it a privilege.”

“And what will you call me? I’ve never been called anything but ‘Dorothy.’”

“I was very fond of a little sister who died when she was eighteen. A young artist painted her as Proserpine, plucking flowers in the meadow, and that stuck to her as a pet name. I have the picture in my den in Poona. It refreshes me to look at it. There is such a spirit of buoyancy and wonder at the glory of the big, inviting, untried world. You have always reminded me of that picture—I thought of it at once when I first saw you on the boat, and took you for a little schoolgirl just stepping out into life.”

“I’m afraid there isn’t much buoyancy about me nowadays,” remarked Dorothy, a little despondently.

“There won’t be, if I keep you from your rest like this,” said the Major, rising to go. “I must apologize for coming in the afternoon, but it was the only time I could possibly get away.”

“But you’re not going now? You’ll stay and have tea with me?”

“Thanks very much, but I must get back to Poona immediately.”

“I thought you could wait as long as I wanted?” Dorothy reminded him.

“True, O Queen! But fortunately, or rather, thanks to your graciousness, it hasn’t been necessary. I’ll just walk to the gate. Good-bye, then, Proserpine—oh, beg pardon, I mustn’t call you that for a month yet.”

“If then.”

“If then—that’s so,” repeated the long-suffering man gravely. “You couldn’t call me ‘Brother’ just once, could you?”

“Oh yes. Good-bye, Brother.”

A handshake, a wave of the topi from the gate, the receding buzz of the engine, and he was off. But Dorothy went upstairs with a lighter heart than she had known since her visit to Poona. Her immediate course was clear, viz., hard work and no thinking for a month.

But long before the appointed date came round, Dorothy knew her decision. She was not going to deny herself a great privilege. She was willing to accept the enemy’s terms!

On the morning of the eighth of November she herself went to the post office and wired:

Please ask Brother to write to Proserpine.
Maxwell.

Next morning, not a letter but a packet arrived. Dorothy rushed to her room and tore it open. Out fell three closed letters and a note which said:

Dear Proserpine:

Thank you for your wire. Enclosed are the three letters which your big brother wrote as usual but did not post. Will look for a letter soon, and will write as arranged.

P. S.

Three letters! And there were three from Proserpine to him lying locked in a bureau drawer. Dorothy hugged herself in amusement.

And somebody smiled broadly when Proserpine’s packet arrived.

XXI

A Page from Indian History

Away back in the fourteenth century, when the Mohammedans were pushing south, conquering the land of India, monopolizing the power, setting up kingdoms and dynasties of their own, the harassed Hindus made one last stand. They rallied round a leader who, welding the diverse elements of the people into one united force against the common enemy, founded a Hindu kingdom.

This king chose as the site of his capital a stretch of land to the south of the Tungabhadra River which, rising in the Western Ghauts, flows north-east and joins the Krishna halfway in its course across to the Bay of Bengal. The land is wild and rugged on either bank. Gigantic boulders, the missiles of mythological heroes, lie strewn in imposing disarray on the plain, or are piled up to form miniature mountains.

From this excellent building material which lay at hand in inexhaustible quantities, a city came into existence which vied in extent and splendour with ancient Babylon. In the pride of his heart and the glory of his achievement, the king named it “Vijaya-nagar”—City of Victory; and his kingdom, which at one time embraced the whole of South India and Ceylon, was known by the same name.

An old chronicle tells of the magnificence of the city. Here rose palaces and harems, King’s Baths and Queen’s Baths, elevated platforms and watchtowers, guard-rooms and elephant stables. Most numerous of all loomed the temples—temples ornate with carvings of god and man and beast, temples decorated with priceless porphyry pillars, temples to shelter repulsive idols and the practices their worship demanded. An odd mosque or two indicated the presence in the city of hired Mohammedan bowmen. A strong and immensely thick wall enclosed the city. Its double gateways, one on the outside, one on the inside, with a twisted passage between them, provided an effective barrier to the enemy. A less imposing wall guarded the women’s quarters, where the queen and the other twelve thousand inhabitants of the royal harem lived in becoming seclusion. Huge slabs of granite hollowed out and raised on uprights formed an aqueduct that stalked majestically over the plain, carrying pure, sparkling water from the hills. Long avenues of granite pillars, roughly hewn but sturdy, led to temples, to shrines, to pleasaunces, to a tank of limpid water with a fairy island covered with a fairy temple. Here and there the solid ground would be broken by the entrance to a subterranean temple, or to a labyrinth excavated in the depths of the earth to form a cool retreat for the leisured classes in the heat of the hottest days.

Rows of open shops displayed their wonderful wares, for here gathered merchants and merchandise of every description, from north and south and east, but especially from the west, by way of the Portuguese seaboard colony of Goa. By land and sea, by row-boat and sail-boat, by horse pack and mule pack, by elephant back and human back, by camel caravan and bullock-cart, over hot plains and snowy mountains came the product of silkworm and cotton plant, of handloom and embroidery needle, samples of the goldsmiths’ and the silversmiths’ exquisite handiwork, spices and oils and unguents, gems from the mountains, pearls of the ocean, myrrh from the forest and gold from the mine—all that could contribute to the comfort and luxury of those who were connoisseurs in the pride of life and the lust of the eye and all that pertains thereto.

Dominating all rose the Throne Elevation—a series of granite platforms piled one on top of the other after the fashion of the early pyramids, and diminishing in area until they left but a modest square on top. Here, on special occasions, was placed the King’s throne that he might, from a dignified distance, view the crowds of loyal subjects and dazzle them with the splendour of his royal appointments.

Greatest of all celebrations was the yearly nine days’ feast, when the king received the fealty oaths of his feudatory princes. The whole city, and visitors from the uttermost parts of the kingdom and from foreign lands too, gave themselves up to merriment and shows and extravagances. There were mimic fights, there were horse races, there was a daily parade of harem inmates. Slowly and majestically the procession filed past, the women striking attitudes of modesty or allurement, of arrogance or humility, of dignity or self-abasement, as befitted their rank and temperament, and the chief wives so laden with priceless jewels that lowly handmaidens must support the arms raised towards the Throne in eloquent subjection.

And now? The City of Victory lies empty and desolate and mute. Jagged remnants of the great stone aqueduct stand out grim and useless across the plain. Of the royal palaces only the foundations remain. The mighty Throne Elevation is broken and uneven, and the dancing girls, graven in continuous series around it, smile and posture in their petrified voluptuousness. In a bare field the great grinning stone lion-god keeps watch from under his cobra hood, and gazes greedily with bulging eyeballs for the crowds of devotees that come no more. The wall of the harem is broken down, but there is no one to intrude. The baths lie dry and sun-baked. The watch-towers rear their futile height and dominate a land where no enemy comes. The temple courts are vacant. The shrines are silent.

No bold black eye peeps from the dancing girls’ quarters, no tinkle of bangle and anklet distracts the wayfarer. No elephant stamps the ground with his mighty paw nor rattles his chain in his domed stall. No silks or fine muslins, no perfume or oil tempt the passer-by. Hyenas howl in the homes of the haughty, owls and bats roost in the holy places of the gods, and the city of glory and gaiety, of pomp and power, lies lonely and desolate.

For the Mohammedan enemies, goaded by insult and arrogance, united to crush the Hindu kingdom. They marched with overpowering forces. They defeated the Hindu armies and their skilled mercenaries. They chased off the stricken defenders. With axe and lever they devoted five months to the destruction of the City of Victory. They succeeded. Since the Battle of Talikota in 1565, Vijaya-nagar has lain in abandonment and ruin, a tangible witness to the frailty of human glory and the efficacy of human hatred.

For months Dr. Dorothy Maxwell had been reading up whatever scanty literature she could find that dealt with Vijaya-nagar, and storing her mind and her notebook with facts to be verified by personal examination of the ruins. She was a very different person now from the greenhorn who had gone to Anamabad two years previously. She had settled down into the queer ways of India in inevitable resignation. She had acquired enough Marathi to get along comfortably though not accurately. She had passed another hot season with Mrs. Talbot at Geranium Lodge. She had attended another garden-party at Government House—this time unescorted by a cavalier. She had seen with satisfaction the gradual growth in extent and importance of her own particular sphere of work. Now, at the close of another Rains, she was looking forward eagerly to a short vacation with the Alexander family, who had invited her to join them for a few days at Vijaya-nagar.

But it was not merely the prospect of an exploratory excursion with the Alexanders that loomed so attractively in the future. An additional zest was due to the fact that Major Sutherland was to be the guide of the party. Dorothy had not seen him for over a year, since they had come to terms. He had been transferred to Belgaum soon afterwards. Yet it seemed extraordinary that he had not managed even a hasty visit to Anamabad, especially as he had been back in Poona several times. If it were impossible for him to take time to come, would it not have been perfectly simple to ask her to meet him in Poona, as a real brother most assuredly would have done? Dorothy had been puzzled and not a little chagrined.

Now, however, she was fast losing all sense of disappointment in the pleasant anticipation of an early meeting, when one of the fortnightly letters gave her a shock. It concluded thus:

“And now, Proserpine, I have something to say that may disappoint you. I am afraid that I cannot come to Vijaya-nagar. Of course, the Alexanders and you will not put off the trip on that account. I shall gladly make all the necessary arrangements for you beforehand, and lend you my boy who has been there twice with me. He knows all the ropes, especially the important rope of language, so there should be no difficulty.

“I shall be frank, and say that it is not because of military duty. Unless any unforeseen emergency arises, I can get leave all right. The real reason is this, Proserpine, that I cannot come to Vijaya-nagar as your brother. I have tried it out for over a year. I have been loyal to my pledge not to overstep my ‘brotherly’ privileges. But I can’t go on this way any longer. I am neither happy nor content.

“And now that I have given you fair warning, I am going to proceed, not as a big brother to his sister Proserpine, but as myself to the girl I love. If you don’t wish to hear me, stop reading.”

(Dorothy, naturally, read on.)

“Well, Dorothy, I’m not asking you now to marry me. I’m not even asking you to try to care. I’m simply asking you to give me a fair chance to try and make you care for me. It is true that I am still willing to wait for you, but I must have something definite to look forward to. In these days of war, somehow, the great big things stand out—life and love and death. One cannot trifle with them. They are FACTS and must be acknowledged. And the one big FACT on my horizon, filling it till it blots out everything else, is you. It is not my friendliness nor my brotherliness towards a hypothetical sister, it is my love for Dorothy Maxwell.

“And now, Dorothy, choose. Big Brother is dead, stone dead. Nothing can bring him to life again. And Proserpine is in truth my little dead sister. But you and I remain. If you cannot give me permission to woo you, then I cannot, I must not see you again.

“In giving that permission, Dorothy, you would not bind yourself in any way. It is all on my side. You have been the passive one, and you remain so. But having pledged myself not to be aggressive, I now implore you to remove the restriction.

“If you cannot give me this permission, please burn this letter and wire the one word ‘Impossible.’ Otherwise, I shall begin writing you love-letters.

Patrick Sutherland.”

Dorothy sat on her cool verandah far into the still, starlit, fragrant night. She had been playing a fascinating game. So far she had had things all her own way. Now, her partner was beginning to take things into his hands. Was it possible, at this stage, to throw down the pieces, close up the board, and pretend that the game had never been begun?

Next day, Dorothy sent no wire and burned no letter.

XXII

In the Old City of Victory

A nine-mile journey in a pony jitka is a privilege to be avoided when possible. A jitka is a two-wheeled, springless, seatless cart, with a low, rounded straw covering. The traveller usually begins his journey by reclining full length on the flat boards, with his feet hanging over the end. He feels shaken to pieces, so he sits up. His head is then banged against the low roof or against the wooden sides. After various experiments he finally assumes a half-sitting, half-reclining position which strains every muscle in his body and leaves him aching for days. Yet, one day in the beginning of January, 1916, six people climbed into the waiting jitkas at Hospet Station, and cheerfully endured the jolting for the pleasure that lay before them.

The little caretaker at the Travellers’ Bungalow not far from Vijaya-nagar, was all excitement and flutter when no less than three jitkas turned in at the gate and came to an abrupt halt before his door. To be sure, he had been expecting them. Had not the Major-sahib’s good-for-nothing boy been there for two days, getting in supplies, cursing the bad water, putting up camp cots, and generally fussing round and disturbing the even tenor of things? But it was an unusual event to have so many visitors; and the little fellow fairly trembled with mixed apprehension and delight when two sahibs, two mudum-sahibs, and two “babas” jumped down.

“Oh, do look at that,” cried Dorothy Maxwell, as she stretched her aching limbs, took her topi from her disheveled head, and pointed to the row of mutilated idols, and fragments of carved waterspouts and capitals and other archaeological relics standing on the verandah propped against the wall. “Isn’t it like a museum?”

“Wait till you get inside,” said the Major.

Dorothy and the children naturally made a rush for the door, and then stood still in astonishment, for there, in the dining-room, stood a carved stone pillar at each corner of the table.

“Golly!” ejaculated Billy, “fancy sitting eating and having those cross-legged johnnies looking down on you all the time! It looks like a temple.”

“That’s exactly what it is, or rather, was,” agreed the Major. “And those cross-legged johnnies, as you graphically call them, are little Buddhas in contemplation. You’d better watch out, Bill, and behave yourself.”

“But I don’t understand,” said Dorothy. “Isn’t it sacrilege to use a temple as a bungalow?”

“This one had been standing empty for several centuries. Besides, a temple ceases to be holy when the idol is removed—so I believe. Isn’t it ingenious the way they’ve turned it into a bungalow? They enclosed the pillared court to make this dining-room. Then the ante-room of the shrine is a dressing-room, and the shrine itself . . .”

“It’s a bathroom,” shouted Billy, who had been exploring.

“Yes, a bathroom. Ye gods! What shades of former inhabitants must haunt the place! How they must squirm to see the white man’s galvanized iron bath-tub in the sanctuary! I hope you won’t see or hear ghosts to-night, Bill.”

The four days at Vijaya-nagar were the most wonderful Dorothy Maxwell had ever spent. She had always been interested in things rather than in people, and here was a whole museum of the most wonderful stone relics, not arranged in glass cases, but left in their natural position as they stood when the citizens fled from the face of the enemy three and a half centuries ago. And with the interest which had lately been developing within her for people as well as for things, she tried to fill the ruins with their former inhabitants.

She sat in a balcony in the Queen’s Bath and looked into the great stone tank. But to her it was not empty. It was full of lithe figures that dived and swam and tumbled about, threw water at each other, or let it fall from their slender fingers to catch the sunlight. The air was full of laughter and chatter and alluring tinkles and seductive scents. Over there in the opposite balcony sat the Queen, being rubbed down and oiled with precious fragrances from far lands and near. She was watching and enjoying the pranks of the bathers.

Then at the Queen’s bidding the gorgeous procession set out. The principal ladies were borne in gaudy palanquins by men-servants who had waited their mistress’s pleasure at a discreet distance from the forbidden precincts. The lesser harem lights, the concubines and handmaidens that helped to make up the goodly sum of twelve thousand females in the household of the King of Vijaya-nagar, walked or ran alongside, a brilliant promenade of bright colours and glittering jewels. Dorothy watched it wind its way across the plain, till it disappeared through the wall into the women’s quarters.

Then she turned her eyes towards the ornate temple beyond the road. She peopled the pillared court with a crowd of worshippers. She heard the beating of the drum and the blowing of the conch shell to summon the devout. She saw them pass into the ante-room, pause at the threshold of the shrine, ring the bell hanging aloft to waken their god from his slumbers, bow down to the stone image within, and lay before it their offerings of rice and coconuts, sweetmeats and flowers. It was all so real, so familiar. The same thing was going on all over India at that very moment.

Dorothy was profoundly moved. She felt so near the throbbing problems—the mystery of life and death, the passing of gorgeousness, the silencing of vainglorious trumpetings, the futility of life and luxury against death and disaster, the rise and fall of nations, the explanation of this great whirligig of Chance that seems so unfair, that flings one man up and another man down, that delights in erratic gyrations, and that yet, when viewed in the perspective of history, pursues an onward course.

This whirligig to which we humans cling, and cling passionately, what does it all mean? All is vanity: that was surely not the ultimate explanation. The old pessimist was wrong. Some things were vanity—and the philosopher looked over the desolate plain. But some things were not vain. Had not she, like her Covenanting forefathers, learned the abiding love of God? That surely stood firm in the midst of death and decay. Was there anything in human relations that endured too?

Dorothy’s whole imaginative, sensitive nature was vibrating to some unseen force, like the strings of a harp in the wind. Her being was tense with an anticipation that she could not analyse. As in the physical, so in the spiritual realm, a crisis is often heralded by symptoms that defy diagnosis. But Dorothy knew that it had to do with human relationships, with friendship and perhaps with love. She knew that things were shaping to an unavoidable issue.

Major Sutherland’s constant companionship and guidance and thoughtfulness were inextricably bound up with the emotions she was experiencing now, and which she had begun to experience ever since she decided to send no wire and burn no letter. As she glanced at his bearing she marvelled. Was it possible that the tumultuous heart revealed in his letters really beat under that calm, conventional exterior? It must be true, as Browning says, that every man has two sides to his nature, one to face the world with, and one to show a woman when he loves her. Dorothy had seen both sides.

In awe she had read the revelation of a strong man’s emotions. It had bewildered her. She could not analyse her own feelings, except that she was deeply stirred. Was it, after all, the angel of love moving over the waters of her soul? If so, why did she not resent it as she had done before? She longed, she prayed, she agonized for light. Yet she felt like a stranger groping in a strange land, fearful of taking a false step. She wanted to be true to herself. How could she, when she did not understand that self?

And then there was the great, practical stumbling-block, her work. Was it right for one who had dedicated herself to God’s service to allow herself to be moved? Was human love compatible with the destiny she had mapped out for herself? Would it be a turning back from the plough, a backsliding, a proving unfaithful to the hopes and aspirations of a lifetime? In short, was it the voice of God or a snare of the devil? Should she yield gladly to it or fight against it? Could it be right to yield when she wanted to do so? Must not duty always be the harder path?

All these surmises and perplexities flitted through Dorothy’s brain again as they had flitted for the past month. But now they were intensified by the outward environment of sadness and desolation, and by that sharper realization of the great issues of life and death that the war brought in its train, a stirring to assess in true proportions and values what one had previously taken for granted, an endeavour to explain the seemingly inexplicable, to justify the seemingly unjustifiable.

Dorothy knew that the crisis must come on the last evening. She and the Alexanders were to travel next day to the junction at Guntakal, whence she would proceed north to Anamabad and the Alexanders south-east to Madras. The Major was leaving at midnight for a train west to Belgaum. In a few hours they would all be scattered.

There was an atmosphere of depression during dinner. Perhaps it was only the approaching departure that weighed heavily on the heretofore jubilant spirits. They all knew that it might well be the last time they would ever meet again. It was not only possible but highly probable that the Major might be called up any moment; and a call to Mesopotamia was a call to a very specialized danger. The Alexanders all loved him. Of course they felt apprehensive. Little Betty clung to him and caressed him as though she could never let him out of her sight. Billy looked up at his hero with worshipful and envious admiration. Dorothy fancied that she detected an unspoken question in Ruth’s eyes, and a trace of impatience in Mr. Alexander’s manner towards herself. Was she responsible, then? Was it up to her?

Immediately after dinner, Major Sutherland turned to Dorothy quite simply and frankly and asked her whether she would care to have a stroll and see the ruins by moonlight.

“I’m coming too,” cried Billy.

“And me too,” piped Betty.

“Indeed you’re not,” interposed the mother firmly. “An early start to-morrow, you know. We’ll pack now, and if you hurry up we’ll take a little walk later.”

“But Dorothy hasn’t done her packing,” objected Betty.

“True, my dear. But Dorothy hasn’t got a tyrannical mother,” and the wise woman bundled off the superfluous babas, and watched with a very understanding, sympathetic smile, the two principal figures of the drama as they left the bungalow. She put up a little prayer, as she invariably did in eventful moments, wiped away a suspicion of moisture from her eyes, and then set briskly about her business.

XXIII

Life and Love

The two human beings who had come to one of the big Affairs of Life took the road leading north to the city wall. They walked a little way in silence; then the man drew his companion’s hand through his arm and patted it. It trembled a little uncertainly, but remained. They passed under the huge boulder that forms the lintel of the gate. A pocket flash-light showed the road immediately in front of them. The landscape was dimly, mysteriously shrouded.

Then, away beyond the stretch of the ruined city a speck of light foretold the coming glory. It rose—that great, round, all-seeing, non-committal orb. It silhouetted a stumpy tree. It threw into relief the corner of a temple. A night bird flew across its face. It rose with extraordinary rapidity, tinging the dusky edifices, lighting them up, hiding the scars and cracks in the walls, blurring the lines of the defaced carvings, diffusing a soft radiance to belie the emptiness of the courts. Away in the far distance, village dogs began to bay at the moon. Nearer, a hyena howled. Nearer still, an owl hooted. In the City of Victory no human sound broke the magic stillness.

Dorothy was thrilled. Involuntarily she pressed her companion’s arm. He gently turned her face towards him. There were tears in her eyes. “What is it, dear?” he asked.

“Oh, it’s just so beautiful that it hurts,” she whispered.

“What a lot that old fellow up there has seen! Think of his rising night after night and looking down on this old world, the same old world yet different from age to age.”

“When I was a child,” said Dorothy, “I used to wish I were the man in the moon, so that I could look down and see how everybody was getting on.”

“And don’t you feel that way now? Or have you put away childish things?”

“I should hate to look down from a distance and not be able to help. I can bear almost any horrid sight if I’m doing something to help out—binding up a wound, for instance . . .” and Dorothy stopped short, sorry that he had thoughtlessly touched on a delicate subject in war-time.

The Major sensed her embarrassment. He patted her hand reassuringly and they walked on.

“The old moon is having a lot of queer sights to look down upon nowadays,” he remarked, “but probably not any worse than happened in this very city in the good old days of a few centuries back—except, of course, in number and intensity.”

“D-d-do you think you might be called up?”

“Why yes, any minute. I’ve been wanting from the very first to get to the Front. But I’m not among the young men nowadays, so I’ve been passed over. But with things developing as seriously as they are now in Mespot, and especially with this set-back at Ctesiphon, it can’t be long. Dorothy, my dear, would it matter to you if I went?”

Dorothy could not answer. Her companion led her to a prostrate fragment of the old aqueduct, and they sat down facing the moon. It was comforting to have him hold her wrap round her shoulders and take her hand in his.

“Dorothy, dear, have the letters made any difference? Have they let you know how I feel?”

“Oh yes, but I’m all perplexed.”

“What about, dear?”

“I’m so stupid, so inexperienced, that I don’t seem to be able to analyse my feelings. And it hurts my pride. I’ve always been so self-sufficient, so sure of myself. And now I feel like a foolish young schoolgirl with her first love-affair. In fact, you know,” she added naively, “this is my first love-affair.”

The man smiled broadly. “You can’t make me believe that nobody ever wanted to make love to you.”

“I’m sure nobody ever did. I never noticed it, anyway. I never had any use for boys.”

“No? But haven’t you any use for this particular old boy? Don’t you care just a little?”

“I’m afraid I do. That’s the dreadful part of it.”

“Why, dear, that’s the whole part of it! Nothing else matters. If that big, central fact is sure, everything else is secondary.”

“But my mission work,” wailed Dorothy, “how can I make it compatible with caring for somebody?”

“I thought you admired Ruth Alexander. Like you, she was a missionary. Now, do you think she was wrong to marry? When you see that happy home, a heaven on earth for the people in it and for lots of lonely outsiders as well, or when you talk with manly little Billy, or when you feel Betty’s soft little arms round your neck—can you honestly say that Ruth made a false step when she listened to the voice of human love? Would it have been better for the world if she had said, “Oh, I’m a missionary! I’ve nothing to do with love and marriage!”

“No, indeed,” agreed Dorothy fervently.

“Well, the one big fact is, that you’re afraid you care for me. The obvious thing, then, is to marry me?”

“When? Three years from now, when I’ve finished my engagement?”

“I hope not, dear. I’ll tell you what I would like. I’ve thought it all out. I wish you’d marry me at once and let us have a little time together before I go. Then there will be lots of time for you to tend those sick folk—the poor and the sick we have always with us. And when I come back dear, we’ll begin and fix up that plan about our joint hospital. I’m no earthly good at preaching or speaking about religion, but it’s there deep down all right, and I’ll be glad to show the practical side of it.”

A long pause ensued.

“You don’t think you care enough to marry me now?”

Dorothy shook her head a little uncertainly.

“I see. Well, I suppose I must wait for you, wait till you feel yourself free. But three years is a long time, dear. Life is too short to do all the things one wants to do, to gather up precious memories, to cultivate a garden of love, to settle one’s relation to God and his fellow-men. Especially in these days when human life is so cheap, when men are facing death as though it were the obvious thing to do, one clutches at the big verities—God, and Christ, and the human heart. Dearest, don’t confuse those verities with the barriers and limitations that men have raised with their own hands. Don’t imagine that the yearning heart is wrong, Dorothy. God made it just as truly as He made the sun and moon and stars. Don’t you remember, ‘God saw everything that He had made, and behold, it was very good.’ And that everything included the man and the woman created in His own image.”

“I never thought of it that way,” said Dorothy slowly.

“Look at those ruins, dear. Men built stately palaces and temples for themselves and their gods. They tried to cheat time and oblivion. They tried to wrest immortality from stone and lime. Look at their handiwork now—broken and fallen; glory gone; the very place thereof shall know it no more. But the things of the spirit, Courage and Truth and Faith and Friendship and Love—love human and divine—these are the things that cannot die. In them lies true immortality. Can’t we clutch at them, dear, even for a little while?”

Dorothy trembled. The mystic surroundings, the kindly voice—deep and vibrating and appealing—the awful thought that she might never see this lover again, the still more awful thought that she cared, cared passionately, whether he went out of her life, the certainty that she must choose and choose quickly—these things unnerved her.

“Dorothy, dearest, don’t worry now about when you can marry me. Just tell me, dear, do you care?”

Her heart cried out that she did, but she could not trust herself to speak. Her lover divined the conflict that surged within her, and to give her time to still it, he said, “Let me repeat a poem I love. I don’t know the author. It was written about other ruins, but it applies equally well here:

“I asked of Time for whom those temples rose,
That prostrate by his hand in silence lie.
His lips disdained the mystery to disclose,
And, borne on swifter wing, he hurried by.
‘The broken columns whose?’ I asked of Fame.
(Her kindly breath gives life to works sublime.) With downcast looks of mingled grief and shame
She heaved the uncertain sigh and followed Time.
Wrapt in amazement o’er the mouldering pile,
I saw Oblivion pass with giant stride;
And while his visage wore Pride’s scornful smile,
‘Haply thou know’st, then tell me whose,’ I cried,
Whose the vast domes that e’en in ruin shine?’
‘I reck not whose,’ he said. ‘They now are mine.’”

The calm, measured voice ceased. The woman gazed across the desolate plain. Oh, there came Oblivion with his giant stride! He was heading straight for them. He was bearing down upon them. He was smiling in disdain. Must he claim them now, at once? Oh, could they not have just a little time more to live and to love?

She shuddered. A hand closed reassuringly over hers. She looked up. She met her lover’s eyes. Something seemed to snap in her heart. She bowed her head in mute surrender.

The City of Victory, even in its ruins, had conquered after all.

XXIV

Marching Orders

The situation in Mesopotamia was not at first regarded as a serious factor in the war. All eyes were turned towards France and Flanders, and India immediately sent lavish supplies of men, money and material to help in that conflict overseas that somehow seemed very far off. Her own inadequate equipment was left precariously reduced; but except for a few skirmishes on the frontier—nothing abnormal even in normal times—it looked as if the war would not come near her own borders.

However, a Poona brigade was sent to the Persian Gulf in readiness for the almost inevitable break with Turkey; and by the end of 1914, Basrah, evacuated by the Turks, had been occupied by the British, who then pushed up the river as far as Kurna.

Continued success made an excellent impression in India. Interest was keen in the romantic type of warfare which the exigencies of the Mesopotamia situation developed. Daily newspapers published graphic descriptions of soldiers learning to be sailors, and of their practice with the tantalizing, round, flat-bottomed punts that behave so erratically. Finally, the land army, mounted on miscellaneous craft and swishing through the reeds of a water-logged area, cleared the enemy from the hillocks and sandbanks round Kurna. The penetration advanced, and within a year of the outbreak of hostilities, the British had occupied Kut-el-Amara.

So far, good. Things were going along splendidly. India smiled complacently and settled down to her share in the task. She organized hospitals and convalescent homes and war relief societies. Ruling princes vied with each other in protestations of loyalty and in tangible assistance of troops, material and even personal service. Women’s busy fingers made comforts for the men. Recruits were enlisted and sent to training camps. Indian and European society was drawn together as it had never been before, in a common interest in a common cause.

But India sat up with a start when news came in the end of 1915 of the defeat at Ctesiphon. Unofficial information began to leak out concerning the lamentable provision for the incapacitated, and the consequent loss of life. Unwarranted optimism gave place to reasoned judgment. It was realized that an expedition on the scale of a frontier force, though ample for the preliminary tactics, was wholly inadequate for the serious situation that had arisen. But India’s generous gifts to other spheres of activities had bled her of the wherewithal to meet this, her own immediate need.

In feverish haste contingents were dispatched and hustled over the sea, through the Gulf and up the river. In view of the supposed precarious conditions in Kut, fragments of units were patched together and sent forward, sometimes unaccompanied by the medical equipment from which they had been separated in the exigencies of hasty and faulty transport—and all this in an area of extraordinary difficulty, where dry land had become anything from a marsh to a lake, where floods swept away bridge after bridge across the river, where any extension of operations must constantly recede from the only base of supplies, and where rascally Arabs harassed whichever side offered the greater hope of booty. The news that filtered through to India was disquieting, and the continued want of success lowered British prestige all through the spring of 1916.

Dorothy Maxwell had from the first followed the trend of events with intelligent interest. The knowledge acquired from Indian and Home newspapers was augmented by Major Sutherland’s comments in his letters. Because of inside information, he had long been apprehensive about the “Mespot muddle.” He was aware that the medical and surgical outfits were deplorable, and letters from an I.M.S. friend in the thick of it only corroborated his own surmises. Even his usually imperturbable optimism was shaken, and in spite of the great personal joy that had come into his life, his letters showed the strain that he was suffering.

Until now, Dorothy’s anxiety had been patriotic rather than personal. But The-One-Who-Mattered-Awfully-Now was linked up with the war, appallingly linked up, so that everything that occurred in Mespot touched her to the quick. If this vigorous campaign were successful and ended quickly, then perhaps he would not have to go. But as news came through of the vain attempts to relieve Kut, and as more and more reinforcements were demanded from India, she began to understand the pangs of apprehension that other women had suffered for a year and a half.

And through all this anxiety was the question as to whether it was right for her to marry now. It was all so new, so strange, that she craved time to get accustomed to the thought of it. She was naturally slow to see life from a new angle. She had been slow in accepting a new experience. Now she was slow in solving the new problem involved. Night after night she sat on her secluded verandah, whispering her perplexities and doubts in Spunky’s appreciative ear, but coming no nearer a satisfactory solution.

On April 4, as she was preparing to go to Mahableshwar, a bomb fell in the shape of a telegram:

“Ordered mespot april nine would like marriage at alexanders april six please prepaid reply letter following Sutherland.”

Dorothy had to re-read the mystifying message several times before its meaning was clear to her. Then it was painfully clear. Patrick going immediately to Mesopotamia! Her heart smote her. Who was she that Providence should keep her loved one from the duty that he, like other men, craved? She only now realized how fervent had been her hope that somehow or other The-One-Who-Mattered-Awfully-Now would mercifully be spared to her, and that after a conscientious fulfilment of her five years’ engagement at Anamabad, she could complacently marry him. But Providence had not seen fit to fall in with her laudable plans.

Dorothy Maxwell was one of those complex characters who are very ordinary in ordinary times, but at their best in an emergency. It was too late to send the wire now, so she had all night to think over the proposition. But it was quite unnecessary. She knew instantly what she must decide.

She unlocked one of the drawers in her desk, and took out a little old, sandalwood box. Its fragrance never failed to soothe her, for it was associated with those she had loved best—in fact, with the only persons she had ever really loved until the advent of the one who now overshadowed all else. She drew out a few fragile, faded letters tied with blue ribbon, opened them carefully and spread them on her desk. Then she unfastened the locket from the chain round her neck. She studied her father’s face, as she had done a hundred times before. It was a good face, frank and manly and determined. The jaw reminded her quite a little of Patrick’s. She turned over the locket and kissed the sweet, modest little lady whom her father had loved. Perhaps it was Mehitabel Jefferson’s diffidence that had made it so hard for her daughter to give her heart away.

With the locket clasped in her hand, as she used to clasp it in times of childish heartburnings, Dorothy read over her father’s love-letters, as she had done so often lately. Her expression was that of a young acolyte handling the sacred vessels. The human heart in its deepest depths is holy ground, and even the most reverent intruder is constrained to take the shoes from off his feet. Peter Maxwell had poured out his impetuous young heart to the woman he loved. He had been ready to abandon his calling, if need be, for the love he bore her. Little did he think that his burning words, thirty years after they were penned, would strengthen his own child in similar circumstance.

XXV

Mary Anne Elizabeth Perkins

Inexpressibly comforted, as though the dear presences had in very truth laid unseen hands upon her and blessed her, Dorothy Maxwell by and by locked away her treasures again and went over to see Miss Perkins. She found her writing in her office, so rapped on the door as she entered.

“Well?” asked Miss Perkins, looking over her large spectacles and holding her pen uplifted in her hand as a sign that she was busy.

“I have something rather important to say to you,” began Dorothy. “But I shan’t keep you a moment.”

“Well?” With a sigh and a clatter the pen was thrown down.

“You know, I was planning to leave here for Mahableshwar on the sixth, Wednesday.”

“Well?”

“I find I must leave to-morrow evening instead, but I’ll hurry round in the morning and put everything right.”

“Well?”

“I’m going to Bombay first. I’m going to marry Major Sutherland. I do hope you will come with me, Miss Perkins, and I would like Susanbai too, if possible.”

The little figure straightened itself in the high-backed chair.

“You’re—going—to marry—Major Sutherland! H’m, I thought as much. The first minute I set eyes on you, I knew you weren’t a real missionary.”

The younger woman flushed painfully but controlled herself.

Miss Perkins was purple with indignation. For once she seemed to be unable to speak. She tugged at the India-rubber collar as though it choked her. Dorothy felt it useless to prolong a painful interview, so with a dignified “Good night,” she withdrew.

As she walked smartly over to her own bungalow, her heart was hot within her; and lonely, motherless Dorothy longed, as she had longed since childhood, for a motherly shoulder to lean on, that she might cry away the ache. But now she blinked back the tears and resolutely put away the thought of the unpleasant episode. Miss Perkins’ God was not so hard nor so un-understanding as some of His devoted children. And her thoughts flew to the future, and to the one who did understand. In thirty-six hours she would see him, and in a few more she would take his name.

Dorothy decided to pack what she could at once, as the next day would be full of business. Spunky, as usual, sulked at the appearance of her suitcase, and tried to prevent further operations by sitting down in it every time she turned away. She laughed as she lifted him out and finally, taking him in her arms and giving him an extra hug, she explained how she simply must go, as it was very important business. After this Spunky was a little more reconciled, but he lay under her desk, nose on forepaws, and watched her proceedings with reproachful eye.

There was neither time nor inclination for elaborate satin gowns in war-time. Dorothy smiled as she folded a simple white dimity. How little she had dreamed, when it was made by the little dressmaker in Sayton, Mass., that it would be her wedding dress!

It was after midnight when she finished her preparations. Then a sudden doubt crossed her mind. What was it that weird telegram had said? If they were to be married on the sixth, Patrick could not get any wire that she might send to Belgaum to-morrow. He would be on his way to Bombay. He must mean that she should wire to the Alexanders. She had better verify it. She looked for the pink paper but could find it nowhere. Then she remembered that she had taken it in her hand to Miss Perkins. She must have laid it down on the table, and in her agitation, forgotten to lift it. Now, Miss Perkins shut her office door early in the morning, and did not allow anyone to disturb her until eight o’clock. But the telegraph office was open from seven to eight! She had better slip across and get it now.

Dorothy shut her indignant Spunky into her dressing-room lest his joy over a midnight stroll with his mistress might become vocal. Then she threw a shawl round her shoulders, took a lantern and walked softly over to the other compound. She hoped that the watchman would not take her for a burglar and give the alarm. She need have had no fear. Loud snores from the verandah indicated his whereabouts. He half sat, half reclined against the wall. His lantern, with lowered wick, cast a fitful gleam over his red turban, over the grey blanket wrapped about him, over his unconscious features and open mouth. His staff was propped against the wall, and the whole compound, with its female treasures, lay unprotected. Dorothy smiled as she passed within a foot of him, and tiptoed along the verandah and in through the open door of Miss Perkins’ office.

As she lifted her lantern to scan the table for the missing telegram, Dorothy became aware of another voice. It had been effectually drowned by the stentorian snores from outside, but was now distinctly traceable to Miss Perkins’ bedroom which adjoined the office. It was her voice. Was she reading? The voice sounded thick and laboured. Perhaps she was ill and trying to call for help. Laying down her lantern, Dorothy slipped over to the curtained door and listened. The tone was muffled, but the intruder’s straining ears caught the gist of it.

“Aye, I mind Jock Wilson. A bonnie lad was Jock. Aye, an’ he thocht me a bonnie lassie. He used to say I had the brightest black eyes in a’ the parish.”

Was she dreaming? Was she talking in her sleep? Dorothy drew aside the curtain and peeped in. Miss Perkins, still dressed in her black alpaca, was kneeling by a chair. She was dimly silhouetted by the light from a lantern in the corner, which threw a gigantic shadow on the wall and ceiling. She was rocking to and fro, and the fantastic shadow rocked to and fro in unison.

The monotone went on: “I knew fine Jock was just near askin’ me, when along comes a feckless hussy, wi’ yellow hair a’ crimped an’ frizzed an’ tossled oot, an’ a big silly laugh. An’ she stole ma man. Aye, an’ Jock Wilson lived to rue the day he first set eyes on Maisie Mackintosh. But naebody kent I was hurt. I joked an’ flirted wi’ a’ the lads. But I grat when naebody saw it. And now, in my self-righteousness, I condemn this poor child for marrying the man she loves, as though it were a mortal sin—an’ I near committed it mysel’. Forgive me, O Lord, and help me to rule my tongue, and purge Thou me. . . .”

The listener let the curtain drop as though a scorpion had stung her. With noiseless step she slipped out, snatching the pink paper from the desk as she passed. She had been an unwitting intruder. She had heard Miss Perkins praying, humbled in sackcloth and ashes. Yes, indeed there was a heart somewhere under that alpaca bodice, and she had seen it bleed. When she reached her room, she flung herself down on her knees and thanked God for the balm He had poured into the raw wound.

Next morning, as Dorothy was taking her nurses’ class, she heard Miss Perkins’ swish-swish, and involuntarily straightened herself. The round face and enormous topi peeped round the door, and the brisk voice called, “I just looked in to ask whether it was the mail or the passenger that we take to-night.”

“I was planning for the mail, Miss Perkins,” replied Dorothy, controlling an almost irresistible impulse to rush and embrace the heroic little figure.

“Will there be room for Susanbai and me in the motor, with all our luggage, or had I better order the dumny?”

“There’s plenty of room for us all. We’ll leave at seven-thirty sharp.”

“Right-o!” The umbrella was brandished in adieu, and the steps died out in the distance.

Miss Perkins had turned out trumps after all.

XXVI

The Wheels of Time

The wedding was a simple affair in the Alexanders’ bungalow, with just a few intimate friends present. Mrs. Talbot pinched Dorothy’s cheek and remarked slyly, “It’s I who have acquired a big brother!” Mrs. Sandeman beamed with satisfaction at the consummation of what she had begun to hope for on the boat. Miss Perkins quite surpassed herself. She had unearthed from some unsuspected treasure-trove an ancient black silk dress. For once she had discarded the India-rubber collar, and wore a real lace jabot. On her hands were black silk mittens. On her scanty grey locks, a bow of lavender ribbon was perched at a positively rakish angle.

Miss Perkins looked so cordial when she offered her congratulations to the bridegroom, that he seized the quaint figure and bestowed a hearty kiss on the ruddy cheek. The bride trembled for the consequences, but Miss Perkins said briskly, “Thank you kindly, young man, but you’d better reserve these demonstrations for your young wife.”

“Plenty more left,” he replied, and Miss Perkins chuckled at his wit.

Then followed two days in a friend’s bungalow away out at Mahim by the sea—two days to be succeeded by how many months, how many years perhaps of separation?

On the second day Dorothy sat alone, counting the few hours that remained. Her soul was filled with remorse and self-reproach. Why should she have been so slow to understand, so slow to respond, so slow to accept? To think that she had given a lonely man only two days of companionship when it might have been three months—three months of halcyon memories that would have been as refreshing as the shadow of a great rock and wells of water in the dry and thirsty land of separation that lay before them. But it was too late. The wheels of time cannot turn back because we poor mortals repent our decisions and would fain claim the privilege of altering them.

And as Dorothy prayed for forgiveness for being so stupid, so stiff-necked, so self-righteous, the answer came.

A quick step beside her, an embrace, an excited whisper in her ear, “Dear, what do you think? My marching orders are cancelled!” And in the sudden relief she broke down and cried as though her heart would break with joy.

For her, the wheels of time had surely turned back.

XXVII

The Parting of the Ways

India is a land of contradictions, of discrepancies, of anachronisms: a land of flat hot plains and of snow-capped mountains, of rich soil and of poor crops, of appalling ignorance and of keen intellect, of abject poverty and of fabulous wealth: a parched dry land which yet experiences excessive rainfall. Nowhere can one find in such small compass so many disconcerting differences of climate, peoples, tongues, social conditions and religious ideals.

India has learned from long and bitter experience to dread a lack of rain, with the consequent failure of crops and the assurance of famine prices. If the Rains tarry beyond the middle of June, the farmers in the Deccan begin to wonder what can have displeased their gods. Sacrifices of goats and sheep may bring the tardy blessing, otherwise the precious moisture may be withheld until it is too late to sow the first crops.

But sometimes the gods like to play a little joke by being over-kind. They pour down with lavish hand enough water to make two good seasons, if properly distributed, but enough to flood and ruin the land when it thus comes all at once.

In 1916 the gods were in a mischievous mood. Their water bags seemed inexhaustible. Instead of looking with anxious eyes each morning to see a cloud even as big as a man’s hand upon the horizon, the farmers gazed in trepidation at the heavy sky. They besought and coaxed and exhorted their gods, that their over-generous hand might be withdrawn. But no, the gods were enjoying their little joke thoroughly.

The rains came and the floods descended without abatement. Seed was washed out of the ground. Young plants that had struggled bravely above the surface were beaten down and lay prone and defeated on the sodden ground. The wells were overflowing. No creaking pulley indicated where the bullocks were pulling up the heavy leather bags, and distributing the water into the quaint little earthen runnels that form the primitive mode of irrigation in normal times. The channels were swamped and the fields were sodden marshes. It was dis-irrigation that was the hopeless problem facing the farmers.

But it was not only the floods and the agricultural outlook in certain areas that depressed India during the latter half of 1916. News from the Mesopotamian front was extremely disquieting. Kut had fallen, and with it British prestige. Efforts to regain it were all proving abortive. The season had been a trying one for the troops. Sunstroke, cholera, dysentery and typhoid had taken a heavy toll. Transport and supply and medical and surgical measures, though improving, were still far from satisfactory. India was held responsible for the expedition and was doing her best to make good the deficiencies, but she had not the wherewithal and could not obtain it from the Home Government.

Dorothy Sutherland sat in a swing couch on a verandah in Poona. A heavy rain had fallen through the day, but a wind had risen as the sun went down, had cleared away the clouds, and had settled itself into a cool, pleasant breeze, wafting the fragrance of the Indian night. The katydids buzzed and the brain-fever bird raised his incessant crescendo in the trees of the compound, while from the room near by came ominous sounds—the tramping of boots, the pitter-patter of bare feet, the banging of trunks, the dragging of heavy articles over the floor, the swishing of leather straps—those signals of impending separation which, like two-edged and exquisitely sharpened knives, pierce and lacerate the shrinking heart of women.

Yet a tremulous smile played over Dorothy’s face as she lay back in the corner of the couch, with Spunky curled up on her lap and his cold nose poked under her arm for shelter from the wind. She was thinking back over those last four months which, in the broader and more patriotic outlook, had been full of disaster, but which yet had brought to her personally a richer happiness than she had ever even dimly imagined, and in which she had learned the depths of the human love she had nearly spurned, a human love that had taught her much of the divine.

It was the prosaic matter of a diphtheric throat that had caused the reprieve, for a kind Providence can work miracles and bring to pass spiritual blessings by the most mundane means. So there was no Mahableshwar, no chupper at Geranium Lodge, as Dorothy had planned, but a four-months’ honeymoon that had made even Poona in the hot season an earthly paradise.

And in her gratitude for her own amazing good luck, Dorothy had cast about to help some one less fortunate than herself. Finding a tired little missionary nurse on the verge of a breakdown, she had packed her off to her own quarters in Mahableshwar and had taken charge of her hospital. She was glad of this occupation for her mind, otherwise, as she told Patrick, she might be in danger of developing into the silly, sentimental type of female who has no interest in life but to fuss round an adored husband! And this good deed of Dorothy’s redounded, as good deeds occasionally do, to her own advantage and in a most unforeseen manner.

When April and May passed and there was no date fixed for the Major’s departure Dorothy was thrown into perplexity as to whether her duty lay in Poona with her husband, or in Anamabad with Miss Perkins. But Miss Perkins, who had actually been persuaded to spend a long week-end with Dorothy, hit upon the brilliant solution of asking the nurse to go to Anamabad for a few weeks and let Dorothy carry on as before in the Poona hospital. And this plan met with everybody’s approval.

But time had slipped away all to quickly. The pleasant sojourn in Poona was over. The packing was proceeding apace. There was no hope of a second reprieve. Dorothy was to catch a midnight train to Anamabad. The Major was to leave for Bombay in the early morning en route for Mespot. Yet the woman’s eyes were dry and her uppermost feeling was one of profound gratitude for the memories that would enrich all the future.

“A penny for your thoughts, Honey,” said a quiet voice over her shoulder.

“I’ll tell them for nothing though they’re worth a fortune to me. Are you finished?” and Dorothy, dislodging an indignant Spunky from his seat, made room for her husband in the corner of the couch.

“All finished. Everything is ready. Your heavy baggage is on its way to the station now, and the boy will get your ticket for you. The small stuff is on the verandah. At eleven precisely the car will be at the door. It is just ten now, so we’ve exactly an hour. I want to share some of your thoughts, dear.”

Dorothy curled herself up in a ball, leaned against the comforting khaki shoulder, and played with Spunky’s ears as he sprawled on his beloved master’s knee. “I hardly know where to begin Patrick. If I told them all, I should talk for weeks. But I’ll tell you one thing. And I do hope you won’t be offended.”

“I think not. What is it?”

“Just this—I’m awfully, dreadfully, fearfully, beautifully, horribly, terribly, unspeakably, excruciatingly, exquisitely happy!”

“You are? I’m so glad, dearie. What makes you so horribly, terribly, et cetera, happy?”

“Well, I’m not happy because you’re going, of course. If by lifting my little finger I could get you to stay with me for ever, see!” and she lifted her finger and poked it, unintentionally, in the eye immediately above her head. “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry, dear. I both see and feel. It’s only my eye! Never mind, there will be lots of days ahead when I’ll wish you were at hand to poke your finger in my eye—even if it does smart,” and he wiped away the moisture. “Proceed.”

“Well, you see, this gruelling parting is only temporary. The great big eternal fact that nothing can alter is, that we’ve had four months together—four blessed, blessed months.”

“Have they really been blessed, Dorothy?”

“I thought so,” she replied demurely. “Of course, I don’t know how you feel about it.”

“No, of course you don’t, you little imp,” said her husband, shaking her. “I see I haven’t been able to teach you proper respect for your husband, and true wifely self-abasement. By the way, did you see Mrs. Talbot to-day, as you expected?”

“I did. And do you know what she was telling me? A Maratha who used to know Mr. Talbot came to her the other day and said, ‘Mudum-sahib, can’t you do anything to help us about this rain? We’ve prayed to our gods and we’ve given sacrifices, but they won’t listen. They must be offended about something, but the priests can’t find out what it is. Couldn’t your God help us? I’ll give you a rupee for Him if you’ll ask Him. But you won’t tell anybody, will you?’”

The Major smiled. “It’s awfully pathetic,” he said, “this reaching out for any chance help. I can’t help feeling sympathetic towards that sort of thing. I remember when I was a little chap, I dare say about ten, my father took me into a Roman Catholic cathedral to see the carvings on the chancel. I spied an altar to St. Anthony with a lot of candles burning before it, and a notice saying that whoever lit a candle would get two years off purgatory. It seemed a good bargain to me and well worth a penny, just in case there happened to be such a place. My dad was a blueblood Scotch Presbyterian, with a horror for popery, so I waited till he went round a corner. Then I made a dash for a candle, popped one of my few precious pennies into the box, and prepared to get my two years off purgatory. But just then dad peered round a pillar, saw what I was at, made a dive for my coat collar, and ran me out of the church, candle and all, and made me throw it in the gutter. I tell you, that was my first and last acquaintance with St. Anthony as long as my father lived.”

Dorothy laughed. “I think a good many people find purgatory right here on earth,” she said. “I suffered all the pangs of purgatory that night, the eighth of April, when I thought you were leaving. No pains of any real purgatory could be as bad as the stings of remorse.”

“And then?”

“Oh, you came with your reprieve, and I popped right into heaven again.”

“It’s dear of you to say so, Dorothy. It’s been heaven for me to have a home.”

“By the way, Patrick, I’ve found a new definition for the word ‘home.’ It’s not a house or any other structure made with hands. It’s the presence of some person to whom your coming in and your going out are absolutely vital. That’s why a mother usually makes a home.”

“I think you’re right, dearie. And that’s how you have made this old place a home—it was only a bungalow before.”

“But oh, Patrick, this is my home,” and she laid her head against his breast and listened to the heart beat. “I never had a home before. I never had anyone who cared dreadfully about my coming in and my going out the way you do.”

And there fell a silence between them, broken only by the night birds in the compound, the dull hum of the traffic in the city beyond, and the creak of the chain as the couch swung gently backwards and forwards.

“Dorothy, little girl,” came the kind voice at length, “I don’t want to spoil your happiness. Forgive me if I do. But I’d like, just for a moment, to discuss another contingency. May I?”

“Do,” said Dorothy bravely, but she shuddered.

“Just suppose, dear, that things don’t turn out the way we’ve planned. Suppose we don’t get to run our joint hospital. Suppose I don’t come back. What then?”

Dorothy did not answer immediately. She mastered a something in her throat and then said, “Patrick, I’ve tried a hundred times to thrash it all out, but I simply can’t analyse my feelings. I determined not to let any fears for the future spoil the perfectness of the present.”

“I’m glad of that, awfully glad. But I’d like you to promise one thing. Don’t let anyone put it into your head—Miss Perkins might, you know—that my death is a punishment. The God we love, the God Christ taught us to love, is not a monster who would give a good gift to His child and then snatch it away again in wanton wilfulness. That is what the Hindus believe, that their gods give too much rain or withhold it altogether all for a childish whim.”

“Nobody can make me believe that, Patrick. I want, want dreadfully to keep my gift, but—but if I should lose it I shall try to believe that there must be some good reason.”

“Do, dear. It would probably mean that God had some plan for you in India where I wouldn’t fit in. People wouldn’t feel so bitter in time of sorrow if they could see the whole plan of their life laid out like a map. But they can see only one tiny, unhappy section of it, and they don’t have faith to believe that it is an integral part of a well-planned whole.”

“But people often find out long afterwards that something just had to happen.”

“Exactly. And that’s where faith comes in, trusting when we can’t understand.”

“And you, Patrick?” asked Dorothy softly.

“I? Oh, I have a wealth of memories to carry with me. I can’t ever begin to thank you for what you have put into my life. But I want to come back, darling, I do want to.”

“Oh, please, please, please come back, Patrick. You must,” whispered Dorothy passionately, clinging to him.

They talked fitfully, and there were long, understanding silences.

And then the shriek of a motor-horn rang out near them. Dorothy sprang up, startled. Horrible! There it was again. There it was again. “No more—no more,” its staccato notes seemed to say. “No more—never more.”

“Oh, Patrick, what is that?” she cried.

“That’s the signal for us, darling. We must go.”

One long, straining embrace, and then out into the cool, fragrant night. During the short ride Dorothy sat silent, clutching that strong hand as a drowning man clutches at a straw. But all too soon even that straw of comfort was gone, for they reached the prosaic atmosphere of the railway station.

As Dorothy’s train pulled out, she leaned from the window and waved her hand cheerfully. She strained her eyes to absorb every detail, to print that last picture indelibly on her memory. There stood her husband under one of the glaring arc lamps. He was smiling and saluting. How big and strong he looked, how impregnable! When and how would she see him again? Oh, God! Then she flung herself down on the cushioned seat and let the flood of tears come. No need to stem it back now. She had played her part well.

XXVIII

Miss Perkins Gives a Bit of Her Mind

India was established not only as the base of supplies for Mesopotamia, Egypt, and East Africa, but as the dry dock to which disabled men and material were sent for repair. Doctors were indispensable for the hospitals and convalescent homes that had sprung up on all sides; but the still more imperative need for them on the battle fronts had naturally first claim.

Now, there was in India a large number of both Indian and European women doctors, working in Government or mission hospitals, or in private practices. Somebody suggested that this unused source of service be mobilized. The Association of Medical Women in India approached Government on the subject and offered its members for duty.

Women doctors in charge of a military hospital? “Impossible!” cried They-Who-Sit-In-The-Seats-Of-The-Mighty, and they shook their grey heads in well-bred disapproval. Mrs. Grundy lifted up her voice and shrieked. Fussy little Red-Tape darted hither and thither in consternation, tying himself into as many inextricable knots as possible. But with patience and perseverance the startling innovation was carried through. The Women’s Medical Unit attached to the Royal Army Medical Corps became an honourable and well-established fact, and the hospitals which it was graciously allowed to run made splendid records.

Dorothy Sutherland, being a member of the Association, was invited to submit her name. She longed to do so. Yet it seemed almost criminal to abandon the work at Anamabad when it was progressing beyond her most sanguine hopes and in a way that made glad the heart of Miss Perkins. Invitations came from villages many miles away, because a villager had been helped in the dispensary, and had spread abroad the news of the wonderful white woman’s magic “cures.” More and more crowds came daily to the dispensary, and more and more caste people were willing to be treated as in-patients if only there were proper accommodation for them. It was remarkable how many of the increasing number of converts and inquirers could be traced directly or indirectly to the medical side of the work and its ramifications. The father of a fine male heir, the mother of a restored baby, the woman who had been saved from the dreaded fate of widowhood because her husband had been cured, the semi-blind man granted sight—these all carried afar the fame of the white doctor, and interest was aroused in the religion that could make her leave her own country and friends to spend her life in a strange land and for the sake of strange people.

When she received the invitation to join the Women’s Medical Unit, Dorothy was thrown into perplexity. She had to face the problem which so many other men and women had to face, namely, whether it were really more patriotic to rush to the glory of action, as impulse urged, or to stick to the everyday, humdrum routine which had only an indirect bearing on the great issue of the war.

The letter lay in her desk, giving her occasional pangs, but she decided to delay until she had time to thrash the whole thing out in the Hills.

April and May of 1917 found her once more at Geranium Lodge. To her chagrin she had found that she could never by any chance hope to be a second Miss Perkins. She had proved by bitter and humiliating lessons that a disregard for the laws of fatigue and recuperation exacts a double penalty in the Indian climate, and that for the vast majority of people it is true efficiency, true economy, to keep the human machine going at only a moderate pace.

But in spite of the relaxation of vacation time, this particular problem refused to be solved. Perhaps Dorothy’s mind was too much occupied by the splendid news that began to come in from Mesopotamia. Improved transport and organization were beginning to bear fruit. The reoccupation of Kut and the capture of Bagdad thrilled India and gave her back her self-respect. Dorothy could hardly wait for the inner history of these triumphs which she knew would soon come from her husband. Of course, it meant more casualties and therefore more work to be done in the military hospitals. Perhaps it was her duty as well as her privilege to volunteer. After much vain thought and many discussions with Mrs. Talbot at Geranium Lodge and with the Alexanders through letters, she was still hopelessly undecided, and for once concluded to make Miss Perkins the referee.

When Dorothy got back to Anamabad in June of 1917, she took, or rather made an opportune moment to broach the momentous subject. Miss Perkins loathed invitations as being calculated to upset her daily routine, and for months she had uncompromisingly refused to dine at Dorothy’s new bungalow. But an accidental discovery that Dorothy’s cook made delicious curry had entirely changed her view-point, and she had accepted with alacrity a timely and diplomatic suggestion that she dine each Friday at the other bungalow, in order to talk over mission problems with her colleague. For the first Friday after her return, therefore, Dorothy arranged a specially tempting repast with due regard to her guest’s weaknesses for Indian curry and sweetmeats; and when, on the morning of the crucial day, one of the Indian preachers managed with his ancient musket to bring down a fine buck, she felt that Providence was surely working for her.

“I suppose you’ve heard about the Women’s Medical Unit, Miss Perkins,” remarked the crafty one after her visitor’s inner needs had been well satisfied.

“You mean the women bossing in military hospitals?”

“Yes. I really was wondering whether it wasn’t my duty to volunteer.”

Dead silence. It was at least better than the expected “stuff and nonsense.”

“You see,” continued Dorothy a trifle apologetically, “I’m dreadfully torn both ways. The work here is going so well that it almost seems like tempting Providence to leave it. On the other hand, it would be a great satisfaction in after years to feel I had had the privilege of doing my bit actually in it.”

The bright black eyes never left the speaker’s face.

“I tried to puzzle it all out at Mahableshwar. I’ve thought of what Christ said: ‘The poor ye have always with you.’ He seemed to think that a special occasion demanded a special outlay. The poor, diseased, needy Indians we will always have with us, I expect, but not our wounded boys. How does it strike you, Miss Perkins?”

“Do you really want to know?”

“Please.”

“How long is it since you were asked to join?”

“I forget exactly when the notice came—some months ago.”

“Well,” and the little figure sat bolt upright and spoke with emphatic staccato, “I think—you—ought—to be—black ashamed of yourself for not going long ago. There!”

“Miss Perkins, what do you mean?”

“I mean that it just makes my blood boil the way you young, able-bodied men and women sit still and complacent and smug in your easy jobs instead of flying, yes, just flying to the Front.”

“But don’t you think some missionaries are needed to keep things going?”

“Of course—some missionaries. But old fogies like me could do that. We did it before you young rascals condescended to come out and help us. But here we are, urging our Indian Christians to join, and they say, ‘But why should we go and be killed when the missionaries don’t go?’ And they mention Jones-sahib and Wilson-sahib and all these other poor delicate creatures that ought to be wrapped in cotton-wool. It just makes me sick.”

“Then you wouldn’t mind my going?”

“Mind it? It’ll do far more good than your staying.”

“Oh, how so?” asked Dorothy, distinctly disconcerted.

“Well, we’ll get along as well as we can, with Susanbai. And I’ll spread it far and wide that the doctor lady has gone to serve His Majesty the King at risk of her own life. I’ll make some of these idle, whining Indian Christian scamps sit up—see if I don’t,” and Miss Perkins’ energetic fist came down on the table with a bang that made the glasses tinkle.

“I wish you could go yourself, Miss Perkins.”

“I’d go in a minute if I were twenty years younger. But look at me. Imagine me in a military hospital. Wouldn’t I be a scream?” and the tight bodice heaved up and down as its owner chuckled. “I dare say I could be useful, all the same. I’d spank the Tommies when they needed it. I’d hold their noses and pour the physic down. Couldn’t I now?”

“You certainly could,” agreed Dorothy, and she lay back in her chair and laughed aloud as she pictured the diminutive warrior in front of her spanking a row of six-foot Tommies, or dosing them as she dosed the struggling, yelling, spluttering Indian babies!

Everything thus being amicably settled, Dorothy sent in her name to the Committee; and in August, just a year after her husband had left, she was appointed to the Freeman Thomas Hospital in Bombay.

Near the southern and narrow end of the Island of Bombay, not far from the sea on either side, stands an imposing building originally designed as a Science Institute. Before it was completed the exigencies of war demanded it for a more momentous objective, and it was hastily made habitable and equipped as an excellent base hospital.

The long, airy, well-lit rooms planned for laboratory work formed ideal wards, one surgical and seven medical. The eye was refreshed by the colour scheme of white and brown and green—olive green being the favourite colour of His Excellency the Governor’s eldest son, in whose gallant memory the Freeman Thomas Hospital was named. The whole atmosphere was cheerful and aesthetic, and extremely restful after field ambulance, camp hospital and hospital ship. The patients were usually a little startled by the novelty of being cared for by women doctors. Some were amused; some scoffed (in private); some were merely tolerant, in a superior sort of way; but few failed to become appreciative.

From the first Dr. Dorothy Sutherland loved her new sphere of work. She was in charge of one of the medical wards and had a splendid assistant, Dr. Finlay, an Anglo-Indian who did much to correct her impressions of the race gained from Mrs. Duff on the voyage out. Chiefly the patients were from Mesopotamia, and Dorothy’s heart warmed to the men. Had they not been a few hundred miles nearer the One-Who-Mattered-Awfully-Now than she herself? She even had the extraordinary luck to get into her ward her husband’s orderly, a kindly and imaginative Irishman who gallantly invented a great many highly coloured details of his Chief’s doings, for her special edification.

Out of hospital hours, too, life was pleasant. When not on night duty Dorothy made her home with the Alexanders, and enjoyed lectures, concerts, conferences, dinner-parties and other amenities of civilization unavailable in Anamabad. But there was always that under-current of anxiety, that consciousness of divided interests. Those that give hostages to Fate can never, under any circumstances, be quite free. Yes, life was richer, infinitely richer because of encumbrances; but they had to be paid for at stupendous prices—at war prices, and in the coin of weariness, and loneliness and heartache.

XXIX

A New Batch of Patients

Towards the end of the year letters from Mesopotamia were scarce. For six weeks Dorothy subsisted on the tantalizing regulation postcards with their laconic printed remarks about being well, receiving or not receiving letters and parcels and so on.

But one morning, in the beginning of 1918, came the long newsy letter she had been hungering for. It had been written in October and therefor earlier than some of the recent postcards. But she was inured to the erratic time-tables of correspondence from the Front, and was content with the assurance that all was well. There had been some sickness in camp, but nothing serious. The Major was in fine form, pleased with the amelioration in the conditions of the troops and elated over their success in the rather tedious campaigning to clear the country north of Bagdad. The turn of the phrases, the humour, the enthusiasm, the optimism and yet the earnestness—it all made Patrick so near; and as Dorothy drove down to the Fort her mind was full of a presence the letter had brought unspeakably close.

Arrived at the Freeman Thomas Hospital Dorothy found motor-ambulances standing at the door, and stretchers being carried within. The transport which had been expected yesterday had evidently docked early this morning. Preparations were all complete, she knew. She was to have twenty new patients. With professional interest she wondered about their symptoms, and with human interest whether they could give her news of her husband.

“What about the new patients, Sister?” she inquired as she made a preliminary tour of her large ward. “Have you found any specially serious cases?”

“Not so far as I have observed, Doctor. They are mostly dysentery, not acute, but chronic. I hear there has been an epidemic in one of the camps. There are a few typhoids too.”

Just then Dr. Finlay came briskly up. “Excuse me, Doctor,” she said, “but would you mind looking at a patient they have just brought in? He is very far through, so we’ve put him in a private room. I thought you ought to see him at once.”

“Certainly,” replied Dorothy. “Pardon me, Sister. I shall be back directly,” and she followed her assistant.

“Is it hopeless?” she asked.

“Quite. He can’t last many hours—typhoid with complications. Coma has set in.”

“Poor fellow, how sad just to reach land! Have you seen his record yet?”

“No, Doctor, but I have sent a nurse down for it. She will be here immediately.”

They entered a small room. On the bed lay a patient with his head turned away from the door. Dorothy stepped softly round the foot of the bed and bent down over the limp figure. Then she staggered back, fell against her assistant and gripped her arm. “Oh no,” she moaned. “Oh no. Oh God, no!” She was deathly white. The room swayed about her, especially that languid form on the bed. It tilted up and down like the pendulum of a clock.

“Are you ill, Doctor?” whispered her companion.

Dorothy shook her head and gripped the supporting arm more fiercely. She could not speak. Her eyes were riveted on that wan face on the pillow, the broad brow, the curly black hair, the closed eyes, the straight-cut nose, the hollow, unshaven cheeks. She felt petrified.

Then the spasm passed. Her brain cleared. She steadied herself.

“Please, Miss Finlay, leave me, and shut the door,” she gasped.

As the assistant unwillingly and with questioning eyes obeyed, Dorothy heard hurried steps outside and an excited whisper: “There’s been an awful blunder. Where’s Dr. Sutherland? Her husb—. . .! Sh-sh.” The door closed hastily and the steps died down in the corridor.

Left alone, the agonized woman flung herself on her knees by the bed. She felt for the pulse. She turned back the sheet, laid her head on the breast that was its home, and listened with straining ears for the heart-beat. She pried open a closed eye. All the while her soul was crying out its unbelief, demanding that this awful thing simply could not, must not be; that this good man could not be spared from a world that needed him sorely; that her one precious jewel should not be snatched from her grasp.

But the cold, clammy, incontrovertible fact gripped her consciousness that he had to die, that he was fast dying, that no power on earth could stay the heavy hand of death already laid upon him. She must watch his flame of life flicker out before her helpless gaze.

When Dorothy had accepted that fact, her whole being lifted itself in one long, impassioned appeal to Heaven, that if he could not live, then he be allowed to speak—to give her one last message from the threshold of the spirit world. Oh, he could not, he must not leave her like this, without a word, without a sign.

She chafed the frail hand, the hand whose strength had so often astonished her. It fell back limp on the sheet. She wiped the moisture from the brow. She kissed the heavy lids. They flickered perhaps? Her whole soul waited and prayed in an agony. Then she forced them open. But there was no flash of recognition in the once merry, twinkling blue eyes. They were dull, vacant, unseeing. She whispered in his ear all the dear pet names she had learned to call him. She pleaded with him to come back and speak a moment—just a moment.

Too late! Too late!

A good man died at noon, and a stricken woman knelt beside him.

XXX

In the Green Woods Again

One of the prettiest gorges in Mahableshwar faces directly west. Its stream is tiny and nameless. In its course through the woods it expands into a placid pool which tradition calls the resort of wild animals. But civilization is fast encroaching on their precincts, and the tigers and panthers and bears that used to roam on these hills hardly venture near what the white man has appropriated as his playground.

From the pool, a path proceeds to left and right along the face of the cliff on either side of the valley. The woods are a-twitter with the songs of birds; and a flash of green or blue or scarlet or brown will suddenly light up the grey expanse of the valley stretched below, as a bird swoops from one cliffside to the other.

To-day the birds are avoiding a particular spot to the south of the pool. An inquisitive little bulbul had alighted near a huge boulder, peeped around it, and then, with much hustle and bustle had flown off uttering his cry of warning. For behind the boulder he had discovered a foreign object, something that did not fit into his usual scheme of Nature, one of that dreaded human species that sometimes shot down his castefolks or caught them and put them in cages to be gladdened by their captive song. But the little fellow need not have been afraid, for his potential enemy sat motionless and unheeding, as innocuous as the stone against which she leaned.

Now and again there would be a rustle in the bushes, and a small white dog, panting and hilarious, would rush down to his mistress, nestle close to her, and look about him, tongue hanging far out, with his ridiculous air of self-importance. She would smile at him, stroke him, and beg him to stay and comfort her; but though he loved her with all the devotion of his doggy heart, he simply could not understand how any sensible, self-respecting person could choose to sit still in a place like that, when there were so many entrancing trails to smell out just round the comer. So whenever he got breathed he would trot off, with his consequential swagger, on another exploratory trip.

Then Dorothy Sutherland, with hard, dry eyes, would stare again in front of her, hardly noting the valley stretched below, the winding little stream that traversed it, the clump of green trees that marked a sacred grove, nor the waves of undulating, bluish-grey hills that merged into the sky. She who had so loved this spot, who had so often found refreshment and inspiration in the vista it offered, was dead to its beauty.

No sooner had she looked at the entrancing scene than a dim curtain seemed to fall before her and from it gradually emerged the wasted features of a dying man, with eyes that could not see her and lips that could give her no message. She watched the shadows cast on the hillside by the passing clouds, and she remembered some lines Patrick had taught her:

“Light cloudlets hardly known as such
Crept softly o’er the summer land
In mute caresses, like the touch
Of some familiar hand.”

She felt her hand clasped in another that was warm and comforting and familiar, but as she thrilled to the touch, it gradually turned cold and clammy with the dew of death upon it. An expression of horror would creep into her face, she would shake her hand and desperately rub it on the ground, and gaze determinedly at the tangible things before her, but the landscape soon became blurred again with that vision that was stamped as by fire on her memory. The nightmare was ever present.

The stricken woman had believed that the quiet of the hills she loved would bring the healing that her soul craved. But a week had passed, and she felt no respite. She tried to be honest with herself and honest towards God. She had tortured her weary mind with an analysis of her grief. She did not rebel against the fact of her husband’s death. Before he left India, she had schooled herself to realize the grim possibility. Thousands of wives had had to do so, and for thousands of them the possibility had materialized. She was only a unit in a great host of the bereaved and the desolate. She could not kick against the pricks that had been meted out to so many.

Yet she did ask why her one treasure—the only one she had possessed all her life, must be taken from her? Other women seemed to have so much, and she so little. Other women had had happy homes with father and mother, sister and brother, and then new homes of their own, with husband and child. But she had always been so lonely, so isolated. God had been a father to her, the fatherless; and when He had set her, the solitary, in families, had she not been grateful? But now her gift was taken away from her. The good things of life had been given her for a brief moment and then snatched away.

But the cruellest part of the bereavement was the manner of it. Surely no other woman had had the same awful experience of watching the beloved life go out without so much as a flicker of recognition. Could not a really loving God have spared her that seemingly useless anguish? If Patrick had died in Mesopotamia, then she could have retained unimpaired that last impression of him in Poona Station. She used to feel that if the war must claim him, she could always remember him as he looked then, so big and strong and capable. The memory had refreshed her in all the empty days of separation. Or again, if she had had the privilege of really comforting his dying hours and of knowing that her presence made the passing easier for him, then she would have thanked God even in her agony.

But it all seemed so futile, so unreasonable. The blessed impression had given place to one of horror. Try as she might, she could not visualize her husband as he was in normal days. She would strain and torture her memory to give her back a picture of him as she knew him best, but the features were always blurred, and if she insisted on limning them they would change, like superimposed films, and assume the wasted outlines of that face on the pillow, that haunted her waking and her sleeping hours.

Mrs. Talbot was a perfect companion for one bereaved like Dorothy. She, too, had experienced the anguish of seeing her house of life burn down. She knew that it was useless to rake among the ashes at once. She knew that only Time could give back blessed memories of what had been taken away. And she knew, too, that deep grief is only disquieted by pious platitudes, that even the most sympathetic friend is an intruder within the sacred precincts. Her calm, beautiful face and her quiet presence were unspeakably soothing to Dorothy’s jangled nerves. The two friends would take long tramps over the hills, they would read or study or sew, they would talk on anything and everything that Dorothy suggested. But the relief was only temporary.

On this particular morning, Dorothy had meditated, in her lonely vigil, longer than usual. When the sun appeared over her boulder and compelled her to change her position, she looked at her watch and discovered with a shock how late it was. She whistled for Spunky, and the two of them scrambled up the path in record time.

On emerging from the woods, Dorothy caught sight of a tonga just turning away from the bungalow, and was amazed to see Ruth Alexander standing on the verandah waving to her.

Dorothy ran forward. “Oh, you darling,” she cried as she hugged her friend and shook her. “And to think I didn’t know, and didn’t meet you!”

“All the fault of the post office, as usual, my dear. I wired yesterday afternoon, but Mrs. Talbot says the wire only came this morning after you had gone out. However, here I am, and here I mean to remain till to-morrow, if you can stand it.”

“I think we can stand it,” said Dorothy, with a flash of her old spirit. “But I never dreamed you could get away now, in January, with the kiddies on vacation. How ever could you leave them?”

Mrs. Alexander was embarrassed. “I hardly expected to get away just now,” she said, “but circumstances arose. . . . I’ll tell you all about it afterwards. You see, I’m taking it for granted that you’re going to let me have breakfast.”

During the meal, Dorothy talked incessantly. The two women who loved her recognized the excitement, the feverishness, the abnormal flippancy in her conversation, as being so much camouflage to hide an aching heart. As soon as possible, Mrs. Talbot tactfully withdrew and left the two friends alone.

“My dear,” said Ruth Alexander, drawing Dorothy down beside her on a wicker couch, and gently stroking the flushed cheek, “how is it with you?”

Dorothy was silent for a moment, debating whether she could discuss, even with this best and most understanding of friends, the tortuous paths of her own suffering. Then she laid her head on the motherly shoulder.

“I’ve thought, and thought, and thought it all out,” she said slowly, “but I can’t see any possible reason for the way things came about. I don’t think I rebel at the fact of his death, gruelling as it is. The last letter I had from him was so full of life and hope. And to read that, and be buoyed up and happy—and then to go straight to hospital and find. . . . No, it was cruel. I do and I shall rebel,” and she shuddered.

“Then you mean, my dear, that if he had said good-bye to you, even in a letter, it would have been easier?”

“Of course it would. Or even if I had had some word of his illness. But to watch his lips for hours, and pray and agonize for a message, and then to have him go without recognition—oh, Ruth, it is a constant nightmare. I can’t throw it off. I think I’m going crazy.”

“My dear, have no fear of that. It is only ten days since it happened, and you know that nobody can get his bearings in so short a time. The mind takes months to adjust itself to new conditions. I want to tell you something that has comforted me. I don’t know whether you ever heard that we lost our oldest child—a beautiful boy. There were rather tragic circumstances, which I can tell you about some other time. But anyway, when he died, an Indian friend wrote to me and said, ‘Don’t forget that it’s the precious material that needs the most severe handling. Coarse clay needs only coarse modelling before it is fit for coarse use. Wood only needs whittling and polishing. Silver needs beating. But gold needs to go through the fiery furnace before it can make a vessel worthy of a king.’”

“It’s a beautiful thought,” said Dorothy slowly, “but if I had to choose this minute, I’d choose to be wood or clay.”

Ruth smiled sympathetically. “It would certainly be more comfortable most of the time. But there’s quite enough wood and clay in this old world. What is needed is more gold. You’ll come to see that later on.”

“I suppose so. I’m trying hard to be patient, but I can’t see light yet.”

“My dear,” said Ruth slowly, “I’ve brought you a little light. That’s why I came to-day. Will you listen first of all while I explain?”

Dorothy’s hands gripped her friend’s. She fixed her with a hungry, haunted look. She could not speak. She only nodded.

“Yesterday morning,” began Ruth, “I got an urgent ’phone message from St. George’s Hospital—-to go immediately and ask for Sister Heloise. I thought there must be some mistake, as I don’t happen to know anyone ill in hospital just at present. However, I went at once and interviewed the Sister. To cut a long story short, I was taken to see a patient—he was Captain of the last transport from Mesopotamia. He developed acute appendicitis just before he landed, and had to be hurried to hospital and operated on immediately. In his delirium he was always talking about a letter and about somebody called ‘Alexander.’ When he came to himself he asked for me and gave my address. He is in a very precarious condition, but he was worrying so much that they decided to send for me. He fixed me with an earnest gaze and asked whether I could prove that I was Ruth Alexander, a friend of . . . of . . . of your of Major Sutherland. I assured him that I was, and gave him several proofs. Then he took a letter from his pocketbook and handed it to me. He said he had made a solemn promise to deliver it into my hands first thing after docking. And, dear, it was in a familiar handwriting.”

“Oh, Ruth, Ruth, what did it say? Tell me quick. When did Patrick write it?”

“When he was very ill, dear, when he knew he couldn’t get better. You see, he thought you were still in Anamabad. He hadn’t heard of your appointment to the Freeman Thomas. So he asked me to send for you if he got to Bombay alive. But the important thing is, that he enclosed a letter for you.”

“A letter for me?” repeated Dorothy. She seized Ruth’s shoulders in a grip that hurt. Her eyes were wide open and strained. Ruth’s kind heart was overwhelmed and her eyes filled with tears.

“Here it is, my dear,” she said, drawing an unstamped letter from her handbag. “May God bless you and give you a ray of light. I shall be in the next room, if you should want me,” and she slipped out and left the bewildered woman to find her ray of light.

Dorothy sat gazing hungrily yet almost unbelievingly at the packet in her hand. She had seen her husband die. She had seen him buried. She had heard the dull, sickening thud of the clods as the grave closed over him. Yet now, in front of her, was a message from him—a voice as if from the Great Beyond.

With trembling hands she opened the envelope, drew out a folded paper and scanned it. Drawings! Plans! Oh, plans for the hypothetical hospital, the hospital they could never build now. A pang of disappointment shot through her. Was that all? Was there no personal message? Was this another trick of Fate? Ah no, there in the middle of the package she found a sheaf of closely written sheets, mostly in pencil, and a new snapshot.

At sight of the laboured writing, at sight of the dear face in its health and strength, a salutary stream of gratitude poured through her soul, burst the floodgates, and washed away the bitter, stagnant waters of resentment that had infested it. Letter in hand, she flung herself on her knees in an ecstasy of thankfulness, while her anguished heart at last found relief in tears.

And the faithful friend, listening as the sobs subsided, thanked God too, for she knew that now all would be well.

XXXI

The Message

Mespot.
Nov. 5, 1917.

Dorothy, my dearest:

You will not read this unless I have gone West, so you will understand the reason of the shaky writing and the disjointed style.

I am lying in a small tent, expecting to be sent shortly to the transport. Oh, if only I might reach Bombay and see you before I die! It’s a forlorn hope, I’m afraid, but it buoys me up in my bad half-hours. Perhaps it is selfish of me to want to die in your arms. Perhaps it would be easier for you just to hear that I had gone, not to see me going.

Dysentery had been raging in the camp, and I was kept so busy that I could not give up until typhoid had a severe grip of me. There are complications, too, that add to the unlikelihood of my getting better. Of course, one can’t tell absolutely. Medical men can seldom diagnose their own cases. But I feel, dear, that all the chances are against us. We are not to have that life of service and comradeship in India that we had planned. Our joint hospital will never materialize. I am to go on—to other service, I hope, while you are to be left lonely here.

But it won’t be quite the same, dearest, as if we had never met? And you’re not going to wish that I had never come into your life? You’re not going to feel that the anguish of parting blots out all the blessed happiness that came before it? Above all, you’re not going to confuse the mysterious ways of God with the arbitrary distinctions that narrow-minded men have set up for themselves, and especially for others? That talk we had on the verandah in Poona just before we separated, has been a perennial source of comfort to me. I do hope, dearest, that you can always feel just that way.

As I have lain here in a good deal of pain, and shut out from the active side of life, I have seemed to get a clear vision of many things. Perhaps God has to lay us on our backs before we can find time to listen to all the wonderful things He is waiting to teach us. Modern life is so rushed and crowded with things to do, that meditation is getting left out of the programme. It is staggering to watch a crowd from a vantage corner. Men and women with hard, strained faces, scurrying to catch such-and-such a train, or gobbling a hasty lunch, or scanning the biggest headlines of their newspapers and trying to digest this tabloid form of world-knowledge—how far they are from the tranquillity of the men of old!

I can never forget the noise of New York—the swish of the trolley cars, the rattling of the overhead trains, the roaring of the subways, the clanging of engine bells, the shriek of sirens, the pounding of motor-trucks! How can men and women rest their souls in quiet and calm, how can they hear the still, small voice, in a world of jangle? How can they meditate, as the saints did of old when they led their flocks out to pasture and found God in the voices of Nature? Who has time to ponder nowadays on that God who could frame the heavens and put therein the sun and moon and stars? But here, in the wild waste of the desert, I have proved with delight how near the Great Presence can come to those who tune their hearts to listen and learn.

Later:

How foolish of me, dear, to waste time and strength in declaiming against city life, when there is so much I want to say to you. I shall try to be more practical.

Now first, as to this letter. I think the best way will be to give it to the Captain of the transport (I am on board now and very comfortable). I will enclose it in one to Mrs. Alexander, and he will deliver it in person whenever we dock. I shall ask Ruth to send for you if I reach Bombay alive. She will be a good friend to you.

As to financial matters, these were all fixed up before I left India. I have left my estate to you unconditionally, except a few small legacies—to my old nurse, and Meredith, my lawyer, will put everything right for you.

Now, Dorothy, I know that life will be lonely for you. If, in the years ahead, a new love should come into your life, you will accept it, my dear, knowing that I would be the one to rejoice most in your happiness. Never for a moment believe that it would be a slur on my memory for you to make another man happy. I only wish, darling, that I could be your second husband. Dear me, how silly I am!

In the meantime, however, I believe that salvation for you will lie in work—I should spell it in capitals, the way Miss Perkins says it, bless her! I want to make a suggestion. You may or may not care to carry it out. Why not start now and build a hospital in Anamabad? You could not find a needier district, and you have already won the confidence of the people. But I want you, Dorothy, whenever or wherever you decide to build, to associate yourself with some Mission Board, so that when you are gone your independent venture will not fall to pieces, but will remain a part of the whole body of continuous mission work that is helping India. I think it would be a good plan to sell out my oil shares and take that money for the hospital. Consult Meredith about it.

I wish you could run Home for a few months, but it doesn’t look as if this restriction on women and children travelling will be cancelled for a long time. Whenever it is, be sure to take a few months off. The voyage itself will do you lots of good, and you will come back full of enthusiasm for the new hospital. It will take all your time and energy and thought, and leave you less leisure for grieving. And, dear, build into that hospital all the love and ambition that we were going to expend together. Your life has taken a turn which we would not have chosen, but which we cannot alter. It may—it must in the end be better for you and for India that it is so.

And now, little girl, we come to the great big vital question. What is going to be your attitude to me when I am gone? I don’t want to think of my dearest as fretting and mourning and feeling life of no account. I want her to be glad of the past. I want her to feel that life is a bigger and more interesting affair because of the memory of our days together. And I want her to realize the unlimited possibilities of Memory.

If you ever go to Kashmir, I know you will love the pleasure gardens that the Emperor Jehangir planted for the Light of his Harem. Please take particular note of the little one at Achabal, at the foot of the Lidder Valley. There are groves of shady plane trees, and cool stone rest-houses, and pots of shrubs and flowers, and pools of clear water. From a hidden spring in the hillside, innumerable tiny cascades come tinkling and tumbling down. The whole atmosphere, even in the heat of noonday, breathes peace and quiet and rest and cool comfort. I have often pictured the Emperor throwing off the cares of state and the weariness of city life and speeding to the healing touch of Nurmahal’s love and beauty in this exquisite garden.

Dearest, I wish that you could turn Memory into a pleasaunce, a place of quiet and rest, to which you can resort from the heat and stress of daily life. As I have lain prostrate and in pain, I have realized as never before the unspeakable gift of Memory. To think that, without moving hand or foot, one can live over again any pleasure he chooses, that he can transport himself as on a magic carpet to the uttermost ends of the earth! I have forgotten the heat and the dust and almost the pain, as I have roved in imagination in my favourite haunts. I have lain on the heather hills as I used to do in boyhood days, and watched the changing colours in the clouds and the mountainside and in the loch below. I have strolled through the picture galleries and enjoyed the Great Masters. I have roamed amidst the ruins of bygone empires and touched and handled the relics of forgotten dynasties. Best of all, Dorothy, I have lived over and over again the blessed days of companionship with you, and thrilled in the comfort of your presence. Memory has indeed made this desert to blossom as a rose.

And this wonderful experience has made me marvel why people have not learned better to make a garden of their memories, a pleasaunce of flowering bushes and fragrant flowers, where no noxious weed is allowed to intrude and poison the air. It is so sad that people should make of their Memory a sepulchre, a place of desolation and mourning where selfish grief shuts itself off from the duties of life and thinks that in doing so it is honouring its dead. And why do people wrestle to get trivial messages from their beloved ones in the spirit world, when they can constantly walk and talk with them in the beautiful garden of Memory? So few people have learned the art of collecting happy memories. They collect old china and prints and books—all good and pleasant, but fragile and perishable. But happy memories are indestructible possessions, which nothing can take from us but disease or death.

Later:

Dearest, the strength is going and the light is failing. It must be good-bye now. Will you please plant a little Memory Pleasaunce, and put in it every memory that is pure and sweet and pleasant? Anything that hurt or annoyed you is to be thrown at once on your Forgettery.

I remember, dearest, while we had that blessed hot season in Poona, how you talked about the gold mohr. I have often thought of it since then, and I think it is going to be a symbol for you. Right in the middle of your Memory garden I know there will be a patch of dry, barren ground, the ground of grief and bereavement. But, my dear, plant in it a great, spreading, glowing gold- mohr tree, and make its blazing red blossoms stand for love and service—for these often thrive best in the apparently parched soil of pain and disappointment.

And you will find, darling, that your garden will be a source of rest and refreshment. To stroll in it will strengthen you for the daily round. Make it a little sanctuary to which you can retire from the heat, where you can lay down your burdens and relax. Throw away all the pain and anguish and disappointment, and come with a happy heart into our Memory Garden, and you and I shall walk and talk together as we used to do.

Dorothy, my little girl, good-bye.

Patrick.

XXXII

The Peaceful Garden

One day near the end of December, 1921, Anamabad was a-flutter with excitement. For the first time in its history, the morning train had set down no less than a dozen sahib folk. A few others had come by road, including the Collector of the District and his wife. Not only so, but the Rajah of Kaisangoo was expected any moment.

On the road leading from Anamabad past the railway station was a long stream of Indian pedestrians, mostly of the poorer classes. Now and again a bullock-cart would rumble along, with its load of happy, gesticulating men, women and children out on holiday. Everybody seemed to be heading for the old cantonment bungalows, a mile from the city.

Arrived there, the travellers found two large marquees erected in one of the compounds. Flags and banners and bunches of palm leaves were waving from every vantage-point, and long strings of bunting were stretched between the trees and the buildings. In one corner of the compound a platform had been raised, and on it stood a table covered with red cloth and decorated with flowers. In front of it were ranged rows and rows of small Indian children dressed in pink cotton pinafores, and near by stood a group of white men and women talking with each other. Crowds of Indians either squatted on the ground or strolled round, gazing up in admiration at the bright-coloured streamers. There was an air of suppressed excitement and expectancy.

“Hi, there, young woman, can you tell me what all this is about? Who are these white folk and what are they going to do?” and a ragged old woman sitting on her haunches caught hold of the sari of a young woman who was hurrying past, carrying a large shallow basket filled with little nosegays.

“Why, old grandmother, don’t you know? What brought you here if you don’t know anything about it?”

“Oh, I’m a stranger passing through Anamabad on my way to my eldest son’s house. Somebody told me there was to be a feast here to the outcastes, so I came. Don’t tell me it isn’t so, for I haven’t had anything to eat since yesterday noon,” and the wretched old creature began to wail and pat her empty stomach with her withered hand.

“Don’t worry, old grandmother. You’ll get a feast whenever the ceremony is over.”

“What ceremony?”

“Laying the foundation-stone of the mission hospital. We’re all ready to begin. We’re half an hour late already, but the Rajah of Kaisangoo hasn’t come yet, and we can’t begin without him.”

“Why, what has he got to do with it?”

“Oh, he’s very interested and very friendly. You see, his favourite wife took ill one night and nearly died, but Doctor-mudumsahib went and operated and saved her life.”

“And how much money did the Rajah give the Doctor-mudumsahib?”

“He offered her a lot of money for herself, but she wouldn’t take a penny. So he gave ten thousand rupees for private wards, and he’s going to pay I forget how many rupees a month so that people from his state can come to the hospital.”

“Dear me, ten thousand rupees! And the Doctor-mudumsahib refused all that money for herself? What a fool she must be! Or perhaps she is too rich already. Is she a ranee, a rajah’s wife?”

“Oh no, she is no ranee, and she is not rich. Her husband was a doctor, but he died in the war and left money for the hospital. And a rich merchant in Anamabad gave us that fine piece of ground just across the road from our compound, for a site. You see, Doctor-mudumsahib attended his wife six years ago when she had twin boys. Oh, there they are, over there, talking with Doctor-mudumsahib, that tall, fair lady,” and she pointed to where a well-dressed Indian gentleman holding a little boy by each hand, was talking to Dr. Sutherland. “Look, you see how mudumsahib smiles and bends down and talks with the little fellows and pinches their cheeks. Ah, she adores children,” and the faithful Susanbai wiped away a surreptitious tear with the corner of her sari.

Just then a prolonged blast of trumpets heralded the approach of the tardy guests. “Oh, there comes the Rajah. I must run. Salaam, old grandmother, I’ll see that you get plenty to eat at the feast,” and Susanbai hurried towards the platform as a gorgeous azure blue car picked out with gold stripes, dashed into the compound.

The Rajah of Kaisangoo alighted—a resplendent figure in his lilac satin coat covered with heavy gold brocade, and his high purple turban with its aigrette and jewels. With him were two modest, shrinking female figures clad in shimmering silk saris, one of them green, the other scarlet, and scintillating with bangles, anklets, necklaces, earrings and nose-rings. Dr. Sutherland and the Collector moved forward to greet them, and to introduce to them the principal guests. Then they took their seats on the platform, and the ceremony began.

The children started off with a hymn. The Collector made a speech. Everybody moved over to where a low stone wall indicated the start of a building. The Collector’s wife, silver trowel in hand, laid the foundation stone. Mr. Alexander, in a beautiful prayer, dedicated the hospital-to-be in the name of Christ, to the cause of suffering Indian humanity and to the memory of a good man and a good soldier who gave his life for his country.

The chief personages were garlanded with long wreaths of fragrant, damp flowers, and presented with tightly-packed bouquets. The humbler folk received each a nosegay and a little packet of crushed betel nut wrapped in pungent leaves. The platform party then went into one of the marquees for refreshments, while the rank and file squatted on the ground to receive the generous feast which a grateful Rajah had offered.

By and by the marquee guests emerged. Most of them said farewell and drove off. Of the favoured few who remained, a middle-aged woman linked her arm in that of the Doctor-mudumsahib and walked with her towards her bungalow.

“Dorothy, my dear,” she said, “I’m so happy for you. I feel sure that we had a crowd of unseen witnesses with us to-day.”

“Of course we had—I both felt and saw them. And do you know, Ruth, during Mr. Alexander’s prayer, I had a beautiful vision. I saw the hospital completed and crowded with patients, high-caste and low-caste too. And I saw myself moving about in the wards; and Ruth, Patrick was walking with me, and helping me. It is going to be team-work, with an unseen but ever-present partner. And I saw a new Christian church, and new schools with better equipment, and a big, flourishing Christian community. And I also saw Miss Perkins and myself and the two new missionaries working together splendidly.”

“It’s all wonderful, Dorothy. And one of the most wonderful things is the way Miss Perkins has come round. What on earth worked the miracle?”

“A number of things—principally, I think, a bad attack of rheumatic fever when I was at Home. It was the first time in her life that she had been laid up. Everything went topsy-turvy, for nobody knew anything about anything, but herself. I suppose, too, that she had time to think things over. She realized that she’d have to give up the reins some day into other hands, and that it would be better for the work’s sake to do it gradually. Anyway, whenever she was able to sit up, she wrote and asked me to approach some respectable Mission Board on the subject of amalgamation, and make all the necessary adjustments with Lady Brixton. She also asked me to bring out a new missionary to help take over the management. I smiled at her instructions—I was to find a young woman who was modest and sensible, not good-looking but God-fearing and amenable, and with not too many newfangled notions. I think these were the qualifications.”

Ruth Alexander laughed. “The one you chose fills the bill pretty well, I should say. But why is she to stay with you instead of with Miss Perkins?”

“Oh, I suggested that,” replied Dorothy. “I knew Miss Perkins would be far happier alone. Besides, the nurse has to stay with me, and I thought the young folk would be company for each other. I’ll just love to have them. I feel a perfect grandmother compared to them.”

“You’re a great brick, Dorothy—an awful brick.”

“Doctor, Doctor, hi, Doctor!” shouted a familiar voice behind them. They turned round and found Miss Perkins running after them, red-faced and panting. Her topi was askew and she was brandishing her umbrella. “Wait a moment, Doctor. I’ve something to say to you.”

Ruth Alexander walked on.

For once in her life, Miss Perkins did not look straight at and through her listener. Her beady black eyes were sparkling with tears which she blinked resolutely back and simply would not allow to run over. She gazed fixedly at some undetermined point on the horizon, and punctuated her remarks with an occasional sniff and an energetic tap of her umbrella on Dorothy’s arm.

“I’ll not keep you a moment, Doctor,” she said, “for I know you must want to rest. But I’ve something on my conscience that I must get off. I did a thing to-day that I never did all my life before. I opened my eyes in a prayer and peeked. Yes, I did. When Mr. Alexander was dedicating the hospital, I was sniftering and blubbering like a silly bairn, and I couldn’t help peeking through my hanky to see how you were taking it. And your face was as the face of an angel, serene and consecrated and beautiful. And I just said to myself, says I, ‘Mary Anne Elizabeth Perkins, you once thought that woman wasn’t a real missionary, and you said so, too—more shame to you. And look at her now. Compared to her, you’re a worthless, battered, bashed-in, good-for-nothing threepenny piece.’”

“My dear, dear Miss Perkins,” cried Dorothy, “you mustn’t blame yourself. You were wonderfully patient with the greenhorn I was seven years ago.”

“Stuff and nonsense,—stuff and nonsense.”

“Indeed you were. But never mind now. We’re going to work splendidly together, you and I and our two new colleagues. They are fine girls. We’ll be good to them, you and I, and make life just as pleasant for them as we can, won’t we?”

“Right-o! Now I must run. God bless you, Doctor,” and with a final sniff and a parting pat with her umbrella, the devoted little heroine wheeled briskly off towards the other bungalow.

Dorothy smiled as she walked on. Yes, her face was calm and her eyes dry and her head erect. But no one could ever have taken her now for an unsophisticated schoolgirl. No one versed in character but could read the ineradicable stamp of anguish. But there was no bitterness, no rebellion in her heart now. She had come, through long hours of agonized wrestling, to realize that some characters can grow and thrive on the flowery plains of happiness, while some, like her own, can reach their full stature only on the lonely, barren mountain paths of sorrow.

She had often smiled as she pictured the sensitive, limited, self-sufficient, undeveloped person named Dorothy Maxwell who had come to India eight years previously. That type was not what could do most for India. It was true that the Lord chastened those whom He loved. Was it not also true that He chastened those whom He needed? And if by reason of the chastening her life was to be more fruitful, could she grudge it? She felt now as if all her past life, and especially her first years in India with their extremes of joy and sorrow, had been just so much preparation, so much moulding of the substance of her soul as would make her a vessel meet for the Master’s service.

And one of the compensations of the chastening was an indestructible possession. She had tried to follow the bidding of the Best Beloved. She had, often with tears, planted a garden of pleasant thoughts, and, in the middle of it, a great blazing bunch of the red blossoms of love and service. Over and over again the rank weeds of selfish sorrow would grow up like gourds overnight, and bid fair to choke off the fragrant flowers that had begun to bloom. With anguish had she weeded them out and thrown them into her Forgettery. The garden must be kept rigidly pure. Nothing that offended must be left for a moment. And by and by, the reward of her insistence had come and her capacity for judgment grew.

And so Dorothy had acquired a little sanctuary of the mind. In the heat of the day she could drop her burdens and retire into her garden of pleasant thoughts, remembering always to pull off her shoes and shake the dust from her garments, lest any noxious weed picked up on the highway should drop on the fertile ground and take root. And there, in her garden, she could rest in the shade of the trees, and listen to the twittering of the birds and the tinkling of the tiny cascades, for the garden is watered by the spring from the hidden source of Memory.

So now, when the strain of the day was over, Dorothy Sutherland slipped away to her room to relax. She took up a photograph and kissed it. “Thank you, dearest, thank you,” she whispered.

Then she lay back in her lounge chair, closed her eyes, and entered her garden of pleasant thoughts. How cool, how refreshing, how fragrant! A smile played over her face, as though she were in a delightful dream, as though she walked in goodly company—as indeed she did.

The End