The cold of February and the storminess of March had given place to a burst of spring weather. A brilliant April sun was gilding the cliffs of Bournemouth and turning the thin sea mist that hung over Swanage into an opalescent veil. The Isle of Wight and Hengist’s headland were pearls on the horizon. The sea broke in a narrow chain of surf along the shore with a subdued murmur.
Only a few people were to be seen on the pier; it was not the hour for the band to perform; and the season for trippers had not yet arrived.
Two men walked slowly towards the head of the pier. One talked; the other listened. The speaker was pouring out emphatic speech that did not invite much response nor encourage discussion. Although the listener gave polite attention, he was by no means carried away with the eloquence of his companion.
“I tell you what it is—and you can take it from me as one who is in the know, Shelford—India is going to the dogs.”
Thus Brian Fairoake, of the Indian Civil Service, concluded his peroration. It was not the immature opinion of a very young man. He was about thirty-four, older by some years than his friend.
As he paused to take breath and to allow his words to sink in, he turned to Shelford and searched his face for signs of the concern that he felt ought to appear after such a pronouncement. His quick eye caught the ghost of a smile, in spite of the fact that his companion had discreetly turned his head away to look at the cliffs to the north-east.
“You don’t believe me!” cried Fairoake, with a suspicion of annoyance in his voice.
The other did not reply immediately. His eye travelled on to the Isle of Wight.
“Beautiful!” he commented. “I hope this weather is going to last”
“It’s true all the same, whether you choose to believe me or not,” said Fairoake, referring to his opinion about India. Shelford’s ear caught the annoyance in his tone. He was a man who would go miles to avoid giving any sort of annoyance to even a stranger. He hastened to set matters right.
“Oh, yes! I’m with you all right. At least I believe that, in your honest opinion, India will find herself before long landed in that mysterious dumping ground, ‘the dogs,’ whatever it may mean.”
Again the smile appeared, and this time Rupert Shelford did not try to hide it.
“I know it for certain,” said Fairoake dogmatically. “I can see disaster coming. You may laugh——”
“I am not laughing at you, old man.”
“Then what the devil were you smiling at?”
“At a sudden recollection of my grandfather. I can just remember him.”
“What has he got to do with modern India?”
“Nothing; but he had a great deal to do with the India of past days. He was in the service of the East India Company when he first went out. The Company’s rule came to an end when he had been there ten years—just long enough for him to be well in touch with the old order of things. He said exactly the same as you have been saying, and he spoke with a conviction that nothing could shake.”
“What was his opinion?”
“That India was going to the dogs.”
“Did he give his reasons?”
“To tell the truth, no one ever stopped in the room with him to listen. When he got on to the subject everybody left. His audience melted away before the fire of his fierce wrath.”
“Why?”
“His language was too hot. One day something occurred to set him off. The family as usual vanished. I was about to follow when he reached out a long, thin arm and gripped me in his claws.”
“You were frightened to death, I suppose.”
“Not a bit of it! I liked the old man. I stayed willingly enough and had my first lesson in swearing. India was going to the dogs! and to a hotter place than that. It was all due, he said, to misgovernment. Then he opened the vials of his wrath against the Government, loading it with every malediction that his vocabulary contained; and it was not a small or meagre repertory by any means,” concluded Shelford with a reminiscent smile.
“How old were you?”
“Eight and a bit.”
“The old sweep, to corrupt a child like that!”
“It was quite unintentional. He had forgotten my very existence. He had loosened his grip. I could have left if I had chosen, but I did not wish to go. I was extremely interested to hear that India was going to the dogs and pleased to know what my grandfather’s opinion was of the Government.”
“By George! The old man was right! and now it won’t be long before his words come true.”
“That was twenty years ago,” remarked Shelford. “My grandfather put by a good pile and made me his heir. I inherited something more from him than his vocabulary.”
Fairoake glanced at his companion with swift inquiry. For the minute his mind was deflected from his subject.
“You don’t use language; at least, I have never heard you.”
“I could if I liked. Those peppery Company-wallahs were past masters in the art.”
“That sort of thing is out and done with now; although I don’t know that we are any the better for it in India, where one so often wants to let off the steam.”
“I must tell you the sequel of the lesson,” said Shelford before his companion could get back to the vexed subject. He had had enough of India for the present. “I went back to the small-boys’ school where I had been for one term. I was full of importance and puffed up with pride. First of all I was an old boy, and, secondly, I could swear like a man. At the very first opportunity I drew my chum aside; he was a little older than myself, and I confided to him the thrilling secret that I knew how to swear. He begged me to let myself go.”
“Which you did!”
“Rather! I reeled out every item learned from my grandfather. I produced it with a close imitation of his spluttering style, the snapping of his eyes and the diabolical grin of rage that accompanied it. I flatter myself even now that it was quite good as a histrionic display.”
“Weren’t you caught?”
“I’ll tell you. My chum was immensely impressed. He had no intention of letting me hide my light under a bushel. He assembled a select little audience of favoured friends with the announcement of, ‘I say! Shelford can swear! He can swear like a man! Come and listen!’”
Fairoake laughed. Perhaps this raking up of old memories of childhood was the best antidote for the boiling over of his indignation concerning India that Shelford, a man of peace, could have hit upon.
“Little imps of devilry!” was Fairoake’s comment.
“We were that and no mistake!” admitted Shelford. “The boys crowded up in a circle round me. Proudly I stood in the middle and took the floor. In a small childish treble that carried far, I repeated the maledictions with which my ancestor had announced that India was going to the dogs. When I had exhausted the anathemas, I started again, encouraged by the encores of my hearers. So intent were they on the lesson they, in their turn, were receiving, they failed to observe the head master as he crept up to hear what was going on.”
“And you caught it, I bet!”
“Right you are! He was never without his cane—walking-stick, he called it. It was long and made a serviceable swish, far-reaching and with a sting in it that was not easy to forget. Several of the audience felt it before it reached me. I came last. The swishing I received thoroughly purged me of bad language for life.”
“He must have wondered where you picked it up,”
“I fully explained later, hoping to convince him that I was not altogether to blame. He made it the subject of a fifteen-minute pie-jaw in school; told me that my grandfather couldn’t help using such words and expressions, but they must not be repeated. He put it down to the climate, and said finally that India was a wicked place. The sooner it went to the dogs the better. He made it clear that every boy overheard repeating my ancestor’s swear-words would be swished.”
They reached the head of the pier and glanced over the bulwark. On the stage below stood three or four enthusiastic fishermen, who drew in dripping lines, and who baited hooks with slimy tit-bits. Their chilled fingers were red and swollen, and their clothes betrayed smirches where a struggling fish had left its scales as it was taken off the line.
Shelford watched the fishermen with a lazy interest that was characteristic of him. His observant eyes rarely lost anything, but the observation did nothing more than satisfy curiosity. It fired no ambition and roused no desire to take part in what was going on.
“Now that’s a thing I could not do if you paid me!” he remarked to his brooding companion. “I really could not put my whole soul into fishing off a pier from dawn to sunset as those fellows apparently do.”
“My dear old man! Do you ever put your whole soul into anything?”
Shelford withdrew his eyes from the slimy fishermen and looked at his companion.
“I really don’t know. I never thought about it. Perhaps I don’t,” he replied, with the detachment of one who was considering an impersonal question that did not affect him.
Fairoake was still unconsciously ruffled by the want of sympathy shown by his friend over his prophetical talk about India. Instead of heartily endorsing all that had been said, Shelford had put forward a man, long since dead and buried, who had voiced a similar opinion which had been received with ridicule.
“I can tell you at once that you don’t!” burst out the Indian Civilian. “You don’t put enough vitality to keep a house-fly healthy into anything that you do. You belong to a new generation, whose gospel is to live and let live, a generation that calls indifference, toleration; and inaction, giving the other fellows a chance.”
“And why not give the other fellows a chance?” asked Shelford good-naturedly, his attention wandering back to the lower stage of the pier.
“Because they are men who are bringing disaster to England as well as India.”
“Are they? If they are, it is not with any forethought of malice.”
“I dare say not; your enemies call you the ‘born-tireds.’”
“What do you want us to do?”
“Wake up and kick out the slackers. Get in the efficient.”
“The hustler, in short,” replied Shelford. “That sort of man leaves me by choice in the next field, well out of his reach.”
“He’s the kind of man we want in India to straighten things out before we come to grief.”
They turned and slowly paced towards the bandstand, passing round the pavilion on the sunny side where they were sheltered from the breeze which blew from the east.
Shelford, deprived of the sight of the fishermen, transferred his attention to the gulls. They flapped their wings without hurry or haste and described graceful curved flights in leisurely fashion. Now and then they dropped to the surface of the water with a plaintive cry that seemed to echo resignation, and sat facing the wind and gently rocking on the waves. A sudden little fit of compunction overcame him as conscience accused him of being unsympathetic.
“What’s wrong about India? What is it that needs straightening up?” he asked. He did not want to know. He only put the question out of pure good-nature, believing that it would be a kind act on his part to serve as a waste-paper basket for the other’s remarks. It was sufficient to open the flood-gates of indignation once more.
“Everything is wrong—our policy; our treatment of the Indians; our infernal theory that the Indian is as good a man as the Englishman and a little better.”
“Given the same education and University training as the Englishman, why shouldn’t he be? He isn’t an African savage with a cannibalistic tendency. He belongs to a nation highly civilised——”
“Great Caesar’s socks! You’re as bad as the rest! Let’s sit down in one of these shelters where I can keep a cigar alight to soothe my nerves; or I shall be pitching you straight into the sea.”
Fairoake turned aside and seated himself abruptly. Shelford, always complaisant and easygoing, followed.
“Yes, that’s it,” remarked Shelford, as he took the other corner of the little shelter. He spoke more to himself than his companion, although the words were said aloud. “It’s the nerves that are all wrong.”
He watched the quick, impatient movements of Fairoake as he drew out his cigar-case and matches and lighted up.
“My nerves be hanged!” growled Fairoake in between his draughts of smoke.
“How long have you been at home?” asked Shelford.
“I took six months’ leave. I’m due back in June.”
“You should have taken a year at least.”
“Should I?” snorted Fairoake, truculent and contradictory. “No amount of leave will reconcile me to the rotten state of affairs in India. We’re sent there to govern.” He leaned towards Shelford and emphasised his words with a raised hand. “To govern, mind you! not to amuse the people and persuade them into thinking they are something which they are not, and never can be!”
“India has always been—since we have been the paramount power—an orderly country to govern; although I admit we have had one or two nasty turn-ups—like the Mutiny, for instance. That won’t occur again, I’m told. You can’t do better, if you want to make a people happy, than keep them amused. Look at our cinemas and football, our boxing competitions and racing, and see what they have done for England at a ticklish time of unrest and disorganisation.”
“You don’t understand! England is one nation. India is a mix-up of a score or more nations, that have to be restrained by military force from falling upon each other tooth and nail—Kilkenny-cat fashion—and swamping the land in blood.”
“Are you so sure of that? Hasn’t education done something to make things a little better?”
“Not that I can see. It’s a strange policy that sets the conquered races to rule the conquerors. We conquered India. It was a howling wilderness of disorder and oppression when we took it in hand. We’ve straightened it out into prosperity. We’ve established justice and developed its resources; and now the lunatics at the head of affairs want to hand over the wheel to a shipload of monkeys and leave them to steer the course. It’s sheer madness!”
Shelford did not reply. His eyes were fixed on a couple who were sauntering up towards the pavilion.
One was a girl, tall and straight in figure, dressed in the style that marked the most aristocratic part of London—costly but quiet, with just that restraint which avoided extravagance in cut and yet retained its fashionableness.
Her companion was a foreigner. His handsome face betrayed his Eastern nationality, and his confident bearing marked him as of good birth. He was in English dress of the same quiet character as the costume worn by the woman at his side, and on his short-cropped dark hair was a soft Monte Carlo hat.
She was talking with animation; he was listening courteously, interested and amused. They were too much absorbed in their conversation to have eyes for any chance couples who, like themselves, were seeking a breath of the sea. For the time being the world held only themselves; and they had no thought for others, unless it might be the elderly lady who waited for them in the motor-car at the entrance of the pier.
Suddenly Fairoake caught sight of them. For the space of thirty seconds he stared as though he could not believe his eyes. Then, springing to his feet, he turned his back on the advancing pair and strode oft with a stifled malediction.
“Great Caesar! Come along, Shelford. It isn’t safe to ask me to look on at that sort of thing without rousing homicidal mania in my soul. I shall be absolutely dangerous!”
Shelford hastened after Fairoake as soon as he had recovered from his astonishment at his erratic behaviour. He caught him up and gazed at him in wonderment.
“What’s up, old man?” he asked, inclined to believe that the nervous system had at last given way, and that his friend was in the throes of a sudden attack of neurasthenia.
“That’s what is at the root of the evil in India.”
“I don’t understand; do explain,” said Shelford in a mild tone.
“Did you see that girl coming up the pier?”
“Talking to the Indian? Yes, I did.”
“Well? What do you honestly think of her?”
“She’s the best-looking, best-dressed woman I’ve seen down here,” he replied confidently and simply, as though there was no question about it.
“All the more reason why she should be ashamed of herself.”
Shelford was stirred out of his placidity.
“She has nothing to be ashamed of that I can see,” he replied quickly, as though challenging the assertion.
“What business has she to be talking to that fellow?”
“As much business as she would have to be talking to you or to me.”
The approaching couple turned to the right to pass on the western side of the bandstand. Fairoake made a dash for the eastern side. He intentionally kept the pavilion between himself and them, as though he wished to shut out the sight. He did not speak again till he had left the obnoxious pair far behind and had passed through the turnstile at the exit.
At the entrance stood the motor-car that had brought the couple whose appearance had so disturbed him. An elderly woman, wrapped to the nose in expensive furs in spite of the warm spring day, leaned back on the cushions. She had the air of having barely recovered from a serious illness.
The chauffeur glanced at her as if in doubt and asked if he should drive her back to the hotel; he could return to take up the young mistress when she had finished her stroll.
“I will wait till they come; they will not be long,” she replied.
Fairoake and Shelford walked away, passing behind the car. They were not seen by the invalid. They strolled across the broad open space in front of the pier entrance and entered the gardens.
“Now perhaps you will tell me what was wrong with the girl?” said Shelford in a tone that indicated an inclination to defend her conduct and combat condemnation.
“Couldn’t you see for yourself? She was talking to an Indian. I take him to be a Mohammedan.”
“And why shouldn’t she talk to an Indian and a Mohammedan?” demanded Shelford.
Fairoake did not answer his question. He continued his railing accusation impetuously, without giving himself time to consider if it was just.
“She was talking to him as if he were an old friend. You could see with half an eye that she regarded him as an Englishman and not as a stranger and a foreigner. She might have known him for years. She was laying herself out to amuse and attract him.”
“It was probably nothing but her natural manner, due to an unconscious gift of graciousness, and a desire to be pleasant, and to give pleasure.”
Fairoake was not to be turned aside; he was too intent on airing his pet grievance with all its ramifications. He went on with the same impetuous warmth.
“These fools of Englishwomen are encouraging the Indians who come to England to think themselves as good as, if not better than, the Britisher. It is helping to ruin India. A Mohammedan doesn’t see things from the English point of view. He holds all women inferior to himself. To treat him like that is to throw pearls——”
“Steady on, old man! I think you have got a regular hive of bees in your bonnet,” cried Shelford, interrupting him with an unusual display of warmth.
“Nothing of the sort! I could see for myself what she was about and the effect it was having on her companion,” replied his friend curtly, and with greater warmth.
“Then you couldn’t fail to notice that the girl was dignified in her behaviour, and that the man was equally courteous in his manner.”
“Oh! the Indians can be courteous enough when they choose.”
“Then why suspect him of being otherwise?”
“I’ve lived among them in their own country and I happen to know exactly how they regard women.”
“It isn’t quite fair with respect to an Indian who has lived in England and assimilated English opinions and manners, to judge him by a standard formed from an experience of Indians in their own country—men who have never had the advantage of a British training.”
They reached the town end of the gardens and crossed the square, where trams and motor-cars abounded. Conversation was checked. Instead of turning up Richmond Hill towards their hotel, they entered the upper gardens, where they at once found quiet and peace. The little river Bourne ran like a well-ordered child through smooth lawns on its way to the sea.
Under the influence of the beauty of the gardens, the green sward, the aromatic fir trees, the shrubberies of blossoming bushes and beds of spring flowers, Fairoake’s annoyance subsided and he became less irate. The scenery had a calming effect on nerves that showed signs of being strained.
The companionship of his friend contributed its share in allaying the irritation that had produced his violent speech; for violent it had been and unnecessary, since he had only caught a fleeting glance of the Mohammedan and the English girl.
Shelford had quickly recovered his customary placidity; though he had spoken with a warmth that he did not often exhibit, he had shown no loss of temper. All the same, he had been conscious of irritation. He hated being annoyed. Already he had discovered that loss of temper was a source of exhaustion and mental fatigue; and he hated anger as he abominated cold and wet.
The fact that he had been annoyed by his friend’s remarks was carefully hidden, and Fairoake had no suspicion that he was treading on delicate ground when he called the English girl a fool. It was a relief to find that apparently the matter was ended. Shelford was careful not to open the subject again. He began on another that had a strong personal interest for himself.
“Can you tell me anything about a place called Arukahd, in South India?” he asked.
“Rather! It happens to be my district. What do you want to know about it?”
“Among the properties left to me by my grandfather was an estate in that district.”
Shelford explained the position of the estate as well as a man could who did not know the country. Hitherto the land had not been profitable. It was too far from any river to be of use for agricultural purposes. A great deal of it was rocky and covered with scrub. There were workings of ancient gold-mining which had been abandoned for centuries. They testified, however, to the presence of the precious metal. It was with some hope of exploiting these old workings that his grandfather had managed against all existing rules to acquire the property.
“My agents in Madras have seen to it that my right to the land has been preserved. They now want to know if I am ready to make mining concessions to a company that is being started. Is there any gold there?”
“Undoubtedly; but, as far as we know, not in any paying quantity.”
“How’s that?”
“It is too deep; and the quartz veins run eccentrically through the gneiss, so that it can’t be easily or cheaply worked. It lies in lodes and veins and is not in an alluvial deposit.”
“A lot of money has been made out of the Indian goldmines, I have been told,” remarked Shelford.
“And more lost. You would be wise to keep off the grass.”
“What about corundum?”
“It’s there as well as the gold.”
“That’s what this company is after.”
They talked of mining, and Shelford learned much of the difficulties as well as of the speculative nature of exploiting metals in the East.
“You should go and see for yourself,” concluded Fairoake.
“I’ve often thought of doing so.”
“More of the thinking than doing, eh! old man?” said Fairoake good-naturedly.
The other smiled and did not deny the accusation.
“Perhaps, if the necessity arose——” began Shelford.
“It takes an earthquake to stir the born-tireds.”
“And the bone-lazy,” acquiesced Shelford complacently.
“Look here, you old slacker! If you’ll pull yourself together, buck up and face the voyage out, I’ll put you up at Arukahd, my head-quarters, give you some mixed jungle shooting, and we’ll go and look at your estate together and see if it is good for anything.”
“Right-o! when shall I come?”
“Leave England next November and I’ll meet you in Madras at Christmas. I shall be there on a few days’ leave for the festivities.”
“Which is the most comfortable line to take?”
“You had better hire an aeroplane all to yourself, and fit it up with cushions to your own mind.”
“P. and O. will be best, I suppose. It would be rather interesting to see India—before it goes to the dogs—if you think it will hold on as long as that,” said Shelford with a twinkle of the eye.
By this time they had retraced their steps. The hour for lunch was approaching. As they came out of the gardens and once more found themselves in the square, the car they had seen at the pier passed. In it were seated the invalid lady, the girl who was walking on the pier and the Mohammedan. He was opposite the girl, with his back to the driver, although the seat revolved and he might have faced the other way had he chosen. This, however, would have made it less easy to carry on any conversation.
The couple seemed to all appearance to be as interested in each other as ever. The girl leaned forward, her large eyes fixed upon his, a gloved hand raised to give force to her words.
The elder woman, enveloped in her furs, was not even listening. Her eyes wandered round and caught sight of Shelford. She smiled and her face lighted up as she bowed. He lifted his hat in response. Neither the girl nor the Mohammedan looked his way, so absorbed were they in their conversation.
“There are those fools of women again. They make me sick!” said Fairoake, all his rancour returning. Then, seeing Shelford lift his hat, he added with some surprise, “You don’t mean to say that you know them?”
“I do; would you like to be introduced?”
“I would not.”
He spoke contemptuously, and a passer-by glanced at him, wondering if it was the beginning of a quarrel between the two men. Shelford relapsed into silence. A smile hovered about his lips.
“I could easily introduce you to them if you cared to know them. They are staying for a couple of days at the Bath Hotel. I am going to tea with them this afternoon. If they ask me I shall stop and dine.”
“No, thanks. I should get out of hand and find myself telling the girl exactly what I thought of her for cottoning to a fellow like that.”
“She’s very good-natured; she wouldn’t mind.”
“Perhaps I should be asked to congratulate her on her engagement.”
“You might be.”
Fairoake turned and looked at Shelford in indignation as they entered the carriage drive leading to the hotel where they were staying.
“Is she engaged to that—that—sweep?”
He suppressed an adjective that the old Anglo-Indian might have used.
“No; she’s engaged to me.”
“To you! Why the devil didn’t you say so before—before I let myself go?”
“You were very interesting on the subject and I assumed that you spoke from conviction.”
“But I called her a fool more than once. I apologise!”
“You’re forgiven. You born hustlers have your little weaknesses as well as the born-tireds. You shoot at sight instead of waiting to find out how the land lies.”
“I’m awfully sorry! What’s her name?”
“Victoria Wargrave.”
“Wargrave? I know the name well. There’s a man in my service of that name. He’s senior to me and judge in Arukahd.”
“That’s her father.”
“Her father! You don’t mean to say that the girl is Wargrave’s daughter?”
Fairoake was finding it hard to believe his friend’s statements.
“I can assure you she is. She lives with an aunt, a rich woman who has no children of her own. Mrs. Barford brought up Victoria, and refused point-blank to let her join her parents when her education was finished.”
“Wise woman! Have you met the Judge?”
“Never; it is a pleasure to come,” replied Shelford in his smooth, easy tones.
“You’ve seen Mrs. Wargrave? She’s the Judge’s second wife.”
“No; I haven’t.”
“That, too, is a pleasure to come, I suppose,” said Fairoake with a short laugh.
“Do you know her?”
“Rather!”
“What’s she like? asked Shelford, whose curiosity was roused more than a little. Curiosity was a quality of which nature had given him his full share.
Fairoake did not answer; he only laughed. Question as he might, Shelford could get nothing more out of his friend.
“To go back to what we were saying in the gardens,” said he, putting off his quest for further information to a more favourable opportunity. “I am very grateful to you for your kind invitation. I’ll make that journey to India and stay with you since you are so good as to ask me.”
“Bring your wife with you; I promise to deal tenderly with her little weakness for natives.”
“Miss Wargrave wishes to remain with her aunt as long as possible. She has imposed a twelve months’ engagement on me. I shall be back in England by the time the year is up.”
“And you will have seen her stepmother.”
“I hope to find favour in the eyes of both her parents,” replied Shelford in his precise manner, the more precise since it was not quite natural. To tell the truth he was slightly puzzled—intrigued, as the present fashion of speech puts it.
“Great Caesar’s socks!” responded Fairoake as he ran upstairs to his room.
There seemed to be a desire on the part of Fairoake to avoid the subject that had absorbed the conversation during their walk to the exclusion of any other.
It had bordered on tragedy when he called the future wife of his friend a fool in no measured terms, and charged her with helping to ruin India by bestowing the favour of her friendship on an Indian.
He cursed himself for being a blundering ass. He found no consolation in the knowledge that Shelford was not in the least likely to take it as a personal affront. He knew him to be too indolent to quarrel, too placid in temperament to take offence. His own violence would only bring a smile of amusement to the lips of the other. But these facts did not in the least help to excuse the mistake he had made, nor mitigate his intense mortification as he recalled all that he had said.
It was not that he had altered his opinion in the least. He still believed that Miss Wargrave committed a grave error in encouraging the Indian. The thing that troubled him was the discourtesy of which he had been guilty; unintentional, but none the less inexcusable for that. He had let himself go at sight of Miss Wargrave and her companion like an ill-mannered schoolboy, and he hated his thoughtlessness.
It was impossible to apologise to Shelford further than he had already done on the spur of the moment, when he had learned the truth. To do so again would only plunge him into deeper mire. The best and simplest way of getting out of it was to let the subject alone for the future, and avoid criticising the policy of the Government and the behaviour of the English towards Indians generally.
Then there was the chance that Shelford might mention the criticism he had been guilty of to Miss Wargrave. If this were done, Fairoake would prefer to tell his own tale and give reasons for his conduct—a matter he could not trust to his friend. Shelford only half listened and had very little sympathy with his views.
Shelford had offered to introduce her. In the first blush of his vexation Fairoake had refused the offer curtly, not knowing at the time that she was anything more than a casual acquaintance with whom he would not again be brought in contact.
Now that he was aware of her relationship to Shelford the case was altered; it seemed a duty to her as well as to himself to cultivate her acquaintance. It was possible that his arguments might have a beneficial effect and prove to her that her conduct was not wise. A man of Fairoake’s character had his share of vanity and self-confidence; otherwise he would not have possessed his strong individuality.
Lunch was rather a silent meal. The two men spoke of the changes that were being made by the Bournemouth Council in the construction of new roads; but the thoughts of both wandered from the subject. Fairoake could not forget Victoria Wargrave, whom he had insulted although she was not aware of it; and Shelford’s mind dwelt on his friend’s odd behaviour at the mention of the Judge’s wife. As Victoria’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. Wargrave roused his deepest interest; and as the lady had been the subject of an incomprehensible exclamation, his curiosity was deeper still. He wanted to hear more, much more, about them. Victoria had said very little. To be sure, he had only lately become engaged to her, and he had not questioned her; he must do so.
He recalled the fact that she had not seen her father since she was fifteen, when he was at home on leave just before the war. He also had been told that it was on the way out to India that Mr. Wargrave met the young widow who became his second wife on their landing in Bombay.
The stepmother always wrote the kindest of letters to her unknown daughter, and frequently expressed a wish to come to England and make her acquaintance. Various causes prevented the fulfilment of her plans during the war; and when the war was over, Mrs. Wargrave still found excuses to remain in India. The hills proved more attractive than London, which had not recovered its normal gaiety, and in addition had more than doubled its prices for luxuries as well as necessaries.
Shelford was not of an ardent nature. He never abandoned himself to any excess of emotion. His anger, which was seldom roused, was kept well in hand. His pleasures were taken in moderation, and his even temperament protected him from the wearing and exhausting effect of any kind of passion. Possibly it was this contrast between the two men that helped to forge the links of the friendship that bound them together.
Once or twice during lunch, at the risk of opening the flood-gates of Fairoake’s wrath against the rulers of India, he alluded to the subject. He was quite prepared to listen to a further instalment of denunciation, provided it gave him an opportunity of putting certain questions to his friend of a more personal nature. But the hot, forceful Indian civilian was still smarting under the memory of his own stupidity and he refused to be drawn. Shelford’s curiosity was too strong to let it pass. He presently plunged into the subject nearest his heart and asked a direct question.
“Do tell me, if you don’t mind, about the Wargraves. I’m immensely interested in anybody belonging to Victoria.”
Fairoake smiled with a slight expression of embarrassment. He hesitated, half inclined to refuse. On second thoughts he feared that if he maintained an unnecessary silence, he would probably convey the impression that there was something to hide. This was not so. At the same time, to repeat little details about the Judge and his wife must be of the nature of gossip. Fairoake abominated gossip or any small talk of that nature. He spoke of Mr. Wargrave, feeling that there was safety in describing one man to another.
“The Judge is a first-rate old sport in his way,” he said with as much warmth as he could throw into the commonplace statement. “He is quiet and reserved, perhaps; quite content to be left in peace, to live his own life.”
“Not sociably inclined?”
“I shouldn’t say that. When you get to know him he is excellent company; but you have to make the effort and get through his reserve.”
“Rather like his daughter,” said Shelford.
Fairoake did not reply. He had had his lesson, and was not to be tempted to make more personal remarks on that foolish young person, as he mentally termed her.
“What’s the second wife like?”
This time Fairoake betrayed no feeling by comment or exclamation. He maintained an impassive silence.
“Is she a society woman? Miss Wargrave led me to suppose that from all accounts she is.”
“Certainly Mrs. Wargrave is that.”
“And popular?”
“Very popular wherever she goes.”
“That’s all right.” Somehow Shelford felt relieved at the admission. “I shall have to look them up when I pay you my promised visit.”
“They’ll be glad to see you, I’m sure.”
“You think they won’t mind having a self-invited visitor?”
“Not in the least; but you will hardly be that in view of your—your approaching relationship. Mrs. Wargrave is a most hospitable woman. I don’t know anyone in the Presidency who entertains more than she does.”
There was a short silence. Shelford had not succeeded in learning much. The facts imparted had already been gathered from Victoria. He was no nearer solving the mystery of Fairoake’s surprise when he first learned that she was Mrs. Wargrave’s stepdaughter. He wondered if his unknown prospective mother-in-law had anything peculiar about her appearance. Was she abnormally stout? or thin? Fairoake was not a man to laugh at personal appearance and peculiarities that could not be helped. No; it must be something about her character, some trait that made her different from other women. Shelford did not care to inquire into such a delicate subject. Moreover he was positive that if there was any scandal attached to her name, Fairoake would not be persuaded to reveal it.
“I think you said that Mr. Wargrave was stationed at Arukahd,” remarked Shelford presently.
“He is my near neighbour.”
“A good Government officer?”
“One of the best. They think very highly of him at head-quarters. No flies on him, as the boys say! He understands the native of India inside and out—Semitic, Aryan, Dravidian. I wonder what——”
He stopped short. His tongue was beginning to run away with him again. He was on the point of wondering aloud what Mr. Wargrave, who knew the native to his finger-tips, would say to his daughter’s friendship with the Mohammedan.
Shelford asked no more questions. He noted the diffidence of the other, and his disinclination to speak of a family of which Shelford himself would be a member in the course of a year. He decided that he could better satisfy his curiosity by questioning Victoria herself.
Nevertheless he was still more than a little puzzled. Nothing he had learned could account for Fairoake’s unpremeditated exclamation at the first mention of Mrs. Wargrave’s name. He had laughed as though some huge joke was linked with it.
“You won’t mind if I desert you this evening?” said Shelford as they rose from the lunch-table and moved towards the smoking-room. “Miss Wargrave and her aunt leave Bournemouth to-morrow, and I should like to spend the afternoon and evening with them.”
“Of course; I understand. I am going to drive my little two-seater over to Lymington to look up an old friend. I shall probably stay to dinner. Don’t forget that you are coming with me to-morrow to see the Edens at Dorchester.”
“Right-o!”
“We’ll start at eleven.”
“I shall be ready.” Shelford was about to move away when he stopped as though a thought had suddenly come into his mind. “I wish I could have introduced you to Victoria Wargrave. I think you might have been interested.”
“Thanks; it’s very good of you. Perhaps some other time it may be managed. Where does she live?”
“In London. We must arrange a meeting.”
“I shall be in town until I leave England,” replied Fairoake. This time he did not refuse to be introduced; all the same, he was conscious of misgivings.
“I am quite sure Victoria would be immensely interested in what you have to say on the subject of India. She likes people who know their minds and will speak out. Only the other day she told me that I was a person without any angles.”
“How was that?”
“I agreed with her.”
Fairoake laughed. “If you’re going to marry her, it’s about the best thing you could have done. Married people shouldn’t have any angles if they wish to be happy.”
“She said it denoted flabbiness on my part. Really and truly I had no opinion one way or the other,” said Shelford mildly. He was not in the least hurt at having been called flabby.
“‘A woman, a dog, a walnut tree——’”
“Don’t! my dear fellow, don’t breathe that obsolete barbarism.”
“Substitute ‘contradict’ for the objectionable word with regard to the woman; the old term can stand for the dog and the walnut tree.”
“I don’t intend to contradict Victoria; she is usually right,” observed Shelford with his habitual complacency.
“Begging your pardon for being so—so angular, I know she is occasionally mistaken—in her actions, if not in her words.”
Fairoake could not help speaking out; but he put it as mildly as he could.
“I am sure that you and she would be immensely interested in each other,” said Shelford once more; “and in time the best of friends.”
“Or enemies. If you tell her what I thought of her encouragement of that fellow it will make a good beginning.”
“It would be more exciting if you told her yourself.”
“It will be a cat and dog fight if she is at all self-opinionated.”
“She’s all that; but never mind, I’ll look on and see fair play.”
“On the whole you had better keep us apart.”
Shelford did not reply; but he determined within himself to effect the introduction and bring the two people he liked best in the world together at the first opportunity.
At half-past three Shelford presented himself at the hotel on the cliff above the pier. Victoria was sitting in the veranda. The sun had warmed the atmosphere to a summer-like temperature. The spot was screened from the east wind, which made itself felt in spite of the spring sun. Palms and ferns were grouped in the glazed corridor, partially hiding the loungers from view and giving a pleasant sense of privacy without isolation. At the foot of the cliff the sea fell in a narrow line of surf. It was too early in the year for bathers and the sands were clear of tents and bathing machines.
Sitting with Victoria was the Indian Shelford had seen in the morning. They were by themselves, talking on some subject that appeared to occupy their full attention. Victoria spoke with animation; the Mohammedan listened, smiling occasionally.
At sight of Shelford in the entrance to the veranda, Victoria rose and came towards him, her hand extended. He took it with a warm clasp of the fingers, and for the moment his slow pulse was stirred with the sudden realisation of the fact that this perfect woman was to belong to him some day. He gave no indication of what he felt, but merely expressed his gratification that she and her aunt had reached Bournemouth safely.
“I was afraid Mrs. Barford might find the journey too much for her. You have been very anxious about her health, you told me in your last letter,” he said as they moved towards the spot where she had been sitting.
When Victoria left her seat, the Mohammedan rose and remained standing, waiting to be introduced when the right moment arrived. Shelford’s eye swept over his figure with swift observation. Nothing wrong with the man so far; not a thing to which Fairoake could take exception, he thought, with a curious little sense of satisfaction.
“Yes; I was very anxious about Mrs. Barford. However, she was determined to have a breath of the sea, so we have come. She is lying down now, but will be with us for tea.” They had reached the chairs and Victoria made the introduction at once. “Rupert, this is my old friend, Anwar-u-din.”
Shelford shook hands with the Indian.
“I saw you with Miss Wargrave on the pier this morning,” he said. “I couldn’t join you. I was with a friend who was in a hurry to—er—keep an appointment.”
“You were on the pier!” exclaimed Victoria in surprise. “I didn’t see you.”
“You were sitting in one of the shelters near the bandstand,” observed the Mohammedan.
“Yes,” assented Shelford, wondering at the excellent English the man spoke. It was almost without an accent, and it had the intonation of one who had associated with the best.
“I am sorry I missed you,” said Victoria regretfully.
It was nice of her to say so; but Shelford was glad that she had not encountered Fairoake while she was with Anwar-u-din.
They seated themselves in three of the comfortable cane lounges with which the veranda was plentifully provided, Victoria taking the chair between the two men. A few guests at the hotel came in and out as they sat there. Eyes were turned towards the handsome Mohammedan with some curiosity. He was not only exceptionally good looking, but he had an air of distinction about him very different from that which marked the ordinary Indian student to be seen in London. He brought to their minds the princes of the East of whom they had read. The only disappointment was that he did not wear the jewelled turban and long flowing velvet coat. After a little chat about their recent doings Victoria said:
“I should like to tell you, Rupert, how I made the acquaintance of Deen, as I have always called him. It dates back to almost my babyhood; so we are very old friends.”
Shelford turned from the Mohammedan, upon whom his eyes had been resting, to give her all his attention. He was not particularly interested to hear how she first made the acquaintance of the Indian; he was more curious to find out who and what he was, and on what footing their friendship stood. He was not of a jealous nature, and the fact that Victoria had a friend like Anwar-u-din did not trouble him. At the same time, the thought certainly occurred to him that under the present conditions her friends ought to be his. He trusted her entirely and was immensely gratified that he had won from her a promise that she would be his wife. Of all the girls of his acquaintance none were so fitted to bear his name as Victoria Wargrave. He pictured her at the head of his table, entertaining their mutual friends and charming even the captious Fairoake.
Anwar remained silent. He, too, had had his curiosity roused. He had been told that Victoria was to marry, and he was interested to see the man of her choice. Marriages in England were arranged so differently from marriages among his own race. He could not accept the fact that Victoria was acting for herself and without the assistance of her relative. Somehow it seemed inconceivable that Mrs. Barford should have nothing to do with the arrangement. As he sat there he was watching the couple, as far as he was able, without committing a breach of good manners by staring too obviously. What astonished him most was the absence of devotion on Shelford’s part, and the absence of self-consciousness on the part of Victoria.
“We met years and years ago in Kensington Gardens,” continued Victoria. “I was six years old and Deen was thirteen or fourteen. A rude little boy snatched away a much-prized boat that I was holding with none too firm a grasp. I howled. Deen was walking near and saw the incident. He pursued the boy and pounded him well till he howled in chorus. Aunt Ann came up with the child’s governess. He turned out to be a viscount. Perhaps it was the only hammering his little lordship ever had. Anyway, it was one which he was not likely to forget. My boat was restored to me and I was very grateful. It was the beginning of our friendship; and when Deen a few years later, having passed his examination for the Indian Civil Service, returned to India, I was overwhelmed with grief.”
“Poor little sister!” said Anwar softly as his eyes rested on her.
“I remember hanging round his neck when he came to say good-bye and begging him to take me to India with him. How I missed him!”
“And I missed you too, little sister,” remarked the Mohammedan. Again Shelford was struck with the tone of the voice.
“Are you on leave?” asked Victoria’s lover.
“Yes; I have come home”—Shelford forbore to smile at the use of the term home—“on short leave. I shall have just six weeks in England. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it is to be here, what a holiday it is to me.”
It was quite true. It would have been difficult to explain how deep was the pleasure of being among men and women who had been educated like himself, and brought up in the atmosphere in which he had spent so many years of his youth.
“We found Deen staying here when we arrived yesterday; and we are carrying him on with us to-morrow for the rest of the trip. Aunt Ann wants to be in town by Saturday.”
“I thought her looking very poorly when I saw her in the car this morning,” remarked Shelford.
“She is not at all well. Influenza has left her with a weakened heart. Ah! here she is! Now I will call for tea.”
Anwar was on his feet again at once. He went to meet Mrs. Barford as she came out on the veranda, found a chair for her and settled the cushions to her liking. She accepted his assistance as though she had often received similar attentions from him. Shelford noticed that Victoria also took it all as though it were a matter of course. Mrs. Barford greeted Shelford warmly.
“My future—it ought to be son-in-law. I must be content to call you nephew, Rupert,” she said with a smile that seemed to take him to her heart. For a short time the colour returned to her cheek; then it faded, leaving her paler than before. The conversation was general and there was no disposition on the part of Shelford to draw Victoria away from the other two. On the contrary, he seemed more than a little interested in the Mohammedan and inclined to study the man and form his own judgment as to his character and fitness to be Victoria’s friend.
Victoria and Shelford were both modern and up-to-date in their attitude as lovers. It would have puzzled a stranger seeing the three together—Shelford, Anwar-u-din and Victoria—to define their exact relationship to each other. Not one of the three betrayed any emotion other than might have been attributed to intimate and long acquaintance. Mrs. Barford divided her attention and her smiles equally between the two men.
Shelford would not have had it otherwise. He lacked the imagination that fosters jealousy; and he had none of Fairoake’s prejudices. The more he saw of Anwar the more he liked him; nor did he discover anything to object to in his manner towards his “little sister” as he called her. It was evident that the Indian retained a grateful affection for the child who had been good to him in his exile.
As the evening wore on, Shelford wondered still more at the anger displayed by Fairoake in the morning at the sight of Anwar walking with Victoria. It was incomprehensible. A man with Fairoake’s experience should possess enough discernment to know how to distinguish between the aggressive agitator and the descendant of a noble house, the head of which was a ruling prince a century and a half ago. His nerves must be all wrong.
“By the by, do you happen to know a man in your service named Fairoake?” asked Shelford as later they sat down to dinner.
“I have seen him in Madras, but I have not been introduced to him; the opportunity did not occur. He was with you this morning, was he not?”
Shelford explained that they were staying together at an hotel near the square.
“He will be interested to hear that you are here.”
The other let the remark pass without comment and Shelford wondered if his friend’s prejudices were known.
“I hope Mr. Fairoake is better,” said Anwar presently. “He needed a change badly after the trouble he had with the sugar-cane growers in his district. Did he tell you about it?”
“No; fact is, I don’t encourage him to talk about India. It upsets him and brings on unnecessary worry and anxiety.”
“Quite right; the less he thinks about India at the present moment the better. All that he and others can do individually is being done.”
“What happened in his district?” asked Victoria.
“A good deal of sugar-cane is grown there,” said Anwar. “The price of sugar went up during the war, and the growers became very prosperous. Some years ago iron sugar-mills were introduced with great benefit to the cultivators. They replaced the clumsy wooden mills and did twice the work with half the labour. One of these modern agitators appeared and began lecturing to the agriculturists, inflaming them against British rule. The foolish people were persuaded to break up the iron machines solely because they were made in England. The consequence was disastrous. The wooden mills which they reintroduced couldn’t do the work. The cane rotted before it could be crushed, and the agriculturists suffered heavy loss.”
“What did Fairoake do under the circumstances?” asked Shelford.
“He took severe measures against the man who was the cause of the trouble; he had him arrested and imprisoned.”
“Quite right, too!” said Victoria.
“Unfortunately the action at once made a martyr of him. The agitator had been far too cunning to commit any breach of the law.”
“What about sedition and disloyalty?”
“A lot of unrest can be produced without actual sedition being preached. It is difficult to convict these lecturers of actionable conduct on the platform. The sedition and disloyalty is introduced outside the lecture room, where the agents of the agitator are busy among the people. The Government did not support Mr. Fairoake’s measure and the agitator was ordered to be released.”
“Do you think that the authorities were right to release a dangerous person like that?” asked Victoria.
Anwar smiled, and showed a disinclination to give an opinion; but she pressed him, and he found it difficult to evade her direct question.
“It is not for me to sit in judgment on the powers that be. It may have been thought advisable not to make a martyr of him; or the evidence may have been insufficient to obtain a conviction. It would have been disastrous if a prosecution had failed.”
“Disloyalty should be punished; it is very infectious in these days, in this country as well as in India,” said Mrs. Barford.
“You can’t punish a naughty boy until you can convict him of an act of naughtiness. He may be very rebellious and yet be careful not to break a law,” remarked Anwar.
“What would you have done yourself?” asked Shelford, interested to discover if there was any difference in method between the Indian civilian and the Englishman.
“It is not easy to say,” replied Anwar, with the dislike of the Oriental to speak of himself and his own conduct.
“Would you have arrested him?” asked Victoria.
“I should have managed to have had him removed if I found that his propaganda was bad for the morals of my people.”
“But how could you have done that without having him arrested?”
“We have our methods.”
“And your explanation to the authorities? What of that?”
“It is not asked for if there is no arrest, no violence, no martyrdom. The man passes on; he and his teaching are forgotten, and the district resumes its peaceful life of work and play, cultivating the crops and keeping the religious festivals.”
“A little rough on your neighbours! Rather like throwing the slugs out of your own garden into the next,” remarked Shelford with a laugh in which the others joined.
It was still early in the evening when he rose to depart. Mrs. Barford was showing signs of fatigue, yet she seemed unwilling to leave her guest. Had it not been for his thought of her, Shelford might have stayed on another hour. Anwar-u-din interested him more than a little. As he listened to the opinions the Mohammedan was so diffident of expressing, it seemed to Shelford that he actually touched India, a fraction of the real India. With Fairoake he had a sense of being in touch only with a link with India, which was not quite the same thing.
After the farewells had been spoken Victoria slipped a hand in Shelford’s arm.
“I am going to walk to the end of the drive with you, Rupert,” she said.
The murmur of the waves falling on the shore came up in the darkness of the night. The lights on the pier twinkled in reflection on the sea. The wind had died down, but the air was cold.
“Good night, dear,” said Victoria softly.
He kissed her, and both were satisfied with the single caress—short, but perhaps quite as sufficient to those two as the longer and more passionate kiss of more demonstrative lovers. Shelford asked for nothing else. Victoria was content; and in her inexperience of all matters pertaining to love, she looked for nothing else.
Shelford did not linger. He pursued his way to his hotel without haste, thinking with some gratification that this early move would give him time to glance at the evening paper, and smoke a pipe without having to sit up beyond his usual hour of retiring to rest. He was not a particularly early riser, but he liked to be called in good time so that he need not hurry over dressing. For the same reason he sought his room at night before eleven. These well-ordered habits were part of his nature. Whether they would commend themselves to his wife he did not stop to consider. His placid temperament was quite capable of allowing her to go her own way without any fuss; but it was not capable of admitting any alteration in his own habits, nor even of enabling him to adapt himself to a new regime of existence.
Perhaps Victoria would not demand any sacrifice of the kind from him. Certainly he had no suspicion that anything of the sort would happen.
It was as Victoria had said. She had made the acquaintance of the Mohammedan when she was a child. Mrs. Barford had seen nothing to object to in allowing the acquaintance to ripen into friendship. Anwar’s guardian was the vicar of the parish in which she lived. The companionship of the little girl was considered advantageous for the rather lonely boy, who did not take readily to English boys of his own age. On more than one occasion Mrs. Barford invited Anwar to join her for summer holidays when she went with Victoria to the the sea. The invitation was gratefully accepted, as the vicar did not find it easy to get away from his work for so long a period.
It was natural that when Anwar found leave due to him he should be drawn towards the country where his boyhood had been spent. As Britons are said “to hear the East a-calling,” so Anwar heard the call of the West and obeyed it.
When he passed into the Indian Civil Service, he chose the Madras Presidency. It had been the home of his family ever since the conquest of South India in the seventeenth century by the Great Mogul. It had always been the dream of his life to help to govern where his ancestors had ruled. His ambition was on its way to be fulfilled; for on his return he was to become the Assistant Collector of the district of Arukahd.
He spoke the two languages which were used by the Mohammedans and Hindus. He had not been obliged to learn either on his arrival. They were the languages of his father’s household. In addition he understood the people as well as he understood their speech, another asset in his favour.
Unknown to himself, the authorities were watching his career. Was he to be in the future a jewel in the throne, or only a flaw?
Experiments were being made which were the subject of much criticism. A number of Hindus had presented themselves as candidates for appointments under Government in both the covenanted and the uncovenanted services; but there were very few Mohammedans. Of those few, only two or three were of noble birth.
If Anwar-n-din turned out a success, he might go far and win honours and credit for himself. Up to the present he had done well; and now he had taken six months’ leave and sought his holiday-ground in the West instead of in the East.
It was only natural that he should renew his friendship with Victoria. At first there was a little stiffness between them. It was impossible to pick up the threads exactly where they were dropped. The years of absence had brought about a change in both. Victoria soon recognised the boy she had known in her childhood; but he had not quite discovered the girl. She was elusive, and she often puzzled him. The reason perhaps was to be found in the fact that the womanhood of the English girl is different in every way from that of the Mohammedan girl.
Her engagement to Rupert Shelford was no hindrance to the meetings she arranged with Anwar. As the engagement was to last several months, Shelford himself preferred not to allow the tie to interfere with the customary round of his daily life, which was full of occupations. None of them were vital; but they were absorbing, all the same, and he would have missed them until others pertaining to married life took their place.
By and by they must, of course, be a good deal together. There would be so much to settle in the matter of furnishing and setting up house which could only be done in consultation. At present the tie sat lightly on both; and though Victoria never neglected to invite him to join her whenever it was possible, he often excused himself.
Soon after their return to town from Bournemouth, Victoria planned a motor-car run to Maidenhead. The trees were just beginning to show a mantle of green. The birds in the woods were in full song; and the first notes of the cuckoo were echoing across the green meadows, through which old Father Thames meandered with his brown limpid depths not yet greened by the water-weeds of the summer.
The party was to have consisted of four—Mrs. Barford, Shelford, Anwar and Victoria. When the time came, Shelford pleaded an engagement with Fairoake and asked that he might bring his friend to dine instead. The introduction he was anxious to effect had not yet been accomplished. Mrs. Barford begged off on the score of health. Victoria and Anwar found themselves the only two prepared to carry out the arrangement.
It was a brilliant sunny morning. The journey over the smooth, level roads between hedges that had already assumed their early summer tints was restful, and conducive to the friendly, intimate conversation that was once so dear to the foreign boy; he had missed it when he was parted from his little English companion.
Lunch was taken at a river-side hotel; and the journey back was begun in good time, Victoria pleading that she could not leave her aunt for long.
“It has been a glorious day—for me,” remarked Anwar-u-din.
“Yes; and for me as well,” responded Victoria warmly. “A perfect spring day has come to reward us after the nipping cold of the winter. It makes me think of the primroses and bluebells.”
“Does it?” he replied as he settled himself luxuriously on the cushions of the Daimler. “Are you susceptible to your surroundings? Do beautiful things make you glad? And do miserable sights bring you unhappiness? I am sure they do. It used to be so in the old days.”
“Possibly I may be influenced to a certain extent. I rejoice in the beautiful; but I am not dominated by my senses,” she answered.
“Yet you are sympathetic. I know it because I have felt it.”
“In a balanced kind of way. I was never thrown into the depths of despair, for instance, through the misfortunes of another,” said Victoria.
“Not in the war when things looked so black?”
“No; honestly; I never could bring myself to believe that all was lost.”
“You met others who despaired?” he asked.
“Heaps of them, men and women; but they had lost their dear ones, sons, husbands, fathers. Of course their sorrow made me sad.”
“But it never overwhelmed you? You were never wildly angry, distrustful, doubtful of what the future held. Did you realise your fate if the enemy had entered England as conquerors?”
“It seemed impossible; too impossible to contemplate seriously,” she replied. “I never lost heart.”
“H’m; some of the English people have a very strong power of restraint. It serves as a protective shell.”
“A good thing.”
“I’m not sure of that,” he disputed.
“What’s wrong about it?”
“Your shell is composed of level-headed caution; it deprives you of a certain abandonment to emotion that must lessen joy and enthusiasm sometimes.”
“It gives us the character as a nation of being cold and reserved, I know.” Then she laughed. He had grown too serious to please her. “But we English are not without our depths of emotion, although we don’t show it as perhaps the men of the East would. It would be very bad for us to abandon ourselves to every passion that swept over us. A peaceful, quiet life is far less wearing than one that is full of mental stress and storm.”
“I am sure it is. I have felt it to-day while I have been with you on the river. I wonder what it would be like to live always in such an atmosphere of peace.”
“It might be tedious and dull beyond endurance,” she replied.
“I think not,” he said slowly.
“Don’t you find rest and quiet in your own domestic life in India?” she asked.
It was as if she had struck a jarring note in a dreamy, somnolent melody. It broke his train of thought and reminded him that Victoria was no longer part of his life, but an incident in a short holiday.
He did not answer. She was aware of his sensitiveness on the subject of his home life; and she quickly turned the conversation by drawing attention to the increasing throng of people in the road. She leaned forward and questioned the chauffeur.
“What is going on, Bennet?”
A mounted policeman trotted by; the car slowed down to a walking pace and progress was difficult.
“The Princess and her husband are expected,” he replied. “They are motoring down to Windsor. People have been waiting since the morning.”
Victoria slipped back into her corner.
“There! Deen! You can’t say that we, as a nation, are without our emotional moments. It is nearly four o’clock; and those enthusiasts have been waiting all that time—for what? Just to have a passing glimpse of a royal personage who happens to be popular.”
“It’s misdirected enthusiasm; I’m not sure that it isn’t silly. The Princess, judging from her photographs, is a pretty woman and everyone says she has a pleasing personality; but she leaves me cold. I have no desire to see her.”
“I don’t think it will be optional on your part. We are bound to meet her.”
“Can’t we turn off somewhere?”
“Oh! but wouldn’t you like to have a glimpse of her? I should,” she answered with some warmth.
“Then we must submit to our fate,” he said, with a pretence of showing the reluctance he did not feel. “Why, little sister! I believe you are actually stirring under the faint throes of enthusiasm at last! What is there about your Princess to rouse a desire to see her?”
“She is your Princess as well as mine, since her father is your King as well as mine,” retorted Victoria.
“I had not thought of her as a possession, a joint possession; yet she is not exactly a personal belonging.”
“No; she is a national possession—one that we are all proud of. She is unique. There is not another Princess in the whole world like her. She stands for the ideal throughout the British Empire.”
He made no reply, and his silence disturbed her.
“Come now, Deen, be honest; admit that you admire her.”
“I’ve never seen her.”
“What a disgraceful confession!”
“I have never had the opportunity.”
“You should have made it.”
“I’m not good at that sort of thing.”
“Oh! aren’t you!” she replied with a sudden sparkle of the eye. “You make opportunities of seeing me.”
“I like you,” he replied simply and coolly, but with a certain detachment that indicated nothing more than he said.
“As you ought to like the Princess,” said Victoria. “I am very glad that you will have the opportunity of seeing her to-day.”
“Just as you please, little sister. If you are pleased, so am I.”
“You will take off your hat to her as she passes.”
“Why should I?”
“Because you honour her.”
“Do I?” he said, with a challenging smile.
“And because you are not one to neglect to show the courtesy due to those of noble birth.”
She spoke with some warmth, showing that she was not quite sure of him after all these years. He might be more difficult to lead than the boy of old. He smiled in reassurance.
“Have no fear, little sister. I won’t disgrace you. I shall lift my hat as if she were your friend. You don’t want me to bow or prostrate myself, do you? She is not the Nizam—may the Prophet keep him,” he added under his breath.
She glanced at him, satisfied that he would do the correct thing when the time came, and that there would be no discourtesy on his part.
The car had been moving slowly forward as opportunity allowed: They had arrived at a spot where the road narrowed. A policeman rode up, and signed to the chauffeur to draw up close to the side. He gave a quick, short order that he was to remain there until the royal car had passed.
“We shall not be able to get any farther, miss,” said Bennet, turning round in his seat.
“All right; we are in no hurry. How soon will the Princess be here?”
“In a few minutes.”
Anwar-u-din was idly studying the crowd as he leaned back on the cushions. It was so different from the Indian crowd with its brilliant colourings and brown complexions. The people round him wore sombre tints, and their faces were serious with expectancy. He was thinking that such soberly-clad men and women, standing so quietly and silently, could surely never behave otherwise than in a restrained and stolid manner.
Yet he had seen the ’Varsity boat-race, and heard the excited shouts of the spectators as they watched the contest. He had also listened to the yells of the crowd of men attending popular football matches. He had mingled with that undemonstrative company on the grand stand at Ascot, where fortunes were lost and won with never a movement of muscle or alteration of voice to betray emotion.
On the whole he did not regret the chance that had unexpectedly occurred of seeing the Princess pass. He was always interested in new sights and scenes, even though they might not be thrilling.
Suddenly in the far distance a strange sound was borne towards them by the wind. Anwar recognised it. The human voice raised in an inarticulate chorus is the same all the world over; and the roar of the Western crowd was in his ears the same as that in the East.
“She is coming!” cried Victoria, leaning forward to obtain the best possible view. Her eyes shone, and her lips parted as she caught her breath in her excitement.
Anwar remained unmoved, and he watched Victoria with amusement. His attitude was that of a looker-on, not a participator in the scene.
The approach of the royal car was slow. It was evident that although the police were doing their best to keep the road open, their task was not easy, and progress was impeded.
The people thronging the way near where Anwar and Victoria sat, awoke out of their expectant stillness. The groups swayed and moved, pressing together and standing with outstretched necks, rising on their toes. Faces were turned towards the direction from which the Princess would appear. Then a murmur arose which increased.
“She’s coming! she’s coming!” cried one.
“There! that’s the sound of the royal horn! I know it because I’ve heard it before!” said another.
“Stand back! stand back! The police will be down on us to clear the road!” warned a third, pressing forward with the rest.
“She’s coming! she’s close to us! She’s coming!” shouted a fourth.
Anwar made an involuntary movement. He slipped forward in his seat as Victoria had done; and the hand that rested idly on his knee, gripped the top of the door. He, too, lifted his head and stretched his neck as he gazed over the shoulder of the chauffeur.
“Here comes the advance guard of mounted police!” cried a tall man as he caught sight of the heads of the riders.
“We shan’t have to wait long, now,” said Victoria; “and when once they pass this point they will be able to push on more easily in the wider road.”
“I can’t see them yet,” remarked Anwar-u-din.
“Their car doesn’t lift them above the heads of the people. You’ll have a clear view of them as they pass.”
Suddenly Anwar sprang to his feet.
“There they are! Here she comes!” he cried as the police approached nearer. A prolonged murmur ran through the crowd. A mother planted her small child, an excited little boy, on the folded hood of Victoria’s car. Bennet looked round quickly; but smiled and nodded. It was not a moment to resent liberties that were harmless. Two young girls, with a propitiatory grin at Victoria, climbed on to the step, and were countenanced with a nod from the mistress.
Anwar saw nothing of the by-play. His gaze was fixed on the royal lady, the ideal of the Englishwoman and the idol of every man. A strange light shone in his eyes. As the men round him lifted their hats and shouted, Anwar snatched his own from his head and flung it recklessly on to the seat in front of him.
The Princess was almost alongside of Victoria’s car when a slight check occurred. The pressure forced an elderly woman into the road, and she was in danger of being knocked down. A few seconds sufficed to place her in safety; but in that short time the husband of the Princess observed the tall, striking figure of the Mohammedan. The afternoon sun shone on Anwar’s bare head and lighted up the olive complexion that was distinct and unique among that sea of white faces.
He spoke to the girl by his side; she turned quickly and smiled at the Indian, giving him a bow that was obviously intended for himself alone.
The action, slight as it was, fired the courtier within him. Anwar-u-din lifted both his hands to his forehead, and gave her the Oriental salaam with the inimitable grace of the East, which no Westerner can properly imitate.
Quick as thought, the Princess raised her little white-gloved hands and returned the salute, imitating the action as closely as was in her power. The car passed on before she could lower her hands.
Anwar’s delight and enthusiasm knew no bounds. He was raised to a pinnacle of ecstasy. He forgot everything but the dainty figure in the car. He lifted his hands above his black curly hair, cropped short like an Englishman’s, and shouted words in his own tongue.
The moment the motor-car had gone by, the crowd swarmed once more across the road, blotting out the sight. He sprang on the seat, from which he caught sight of the happy pair in the distance. Again he shouted, and he was rewarded by a swift glance backward of the smiling, amused Princess, to whom the appearance of one of her father’s Eastern subjects had been an unexpected and pleasant incident. This second act of recognition seemed to turn the Mohammedan’s brain.
“Let us follow them! Quick! Turn round and follow!” he cried to the chauffeur, whose eye sought his mistress’s to catch her order.
Victoria shook her head slightly. It was sufficient to convey a negative.
“We mustn’t follow the Princess,” she said quietly.
“Why not, why not, little sister? Do you know what she did, that royal lady? She looked back at me—at me; not at anyone else. I ought to be in her train.”
His eyes shone with the light that had been so suddenly kindled. Through the European veneer of Western training and education the flame of Oriental enthusiasm burst. Restraint was thrown aside, and emotion mastered him.
“Sit down, Deen,” said Victoria. There was a faint echo of command in her tone. “Sit down, and I will tell you why we can’t follow the Princess. It would be neither courteous nor polite.”
“But why? Tell me why,” he demanded impetuously, still standing up, although he had descended from the seat.
She clasped his fingers firmly with her gloved hand and repeated her command. There was no force on her part. She merely held his hand in her grasp as she bade him sit down. She felt it tremble as she had done years ago when he was a boy, and she recognised the boy in the man. In past days, as a small girl, she had more than once exercised restraint and controlled him when a suddenly roused passion of feeling had threatened to end in violence. He was peculiarly sensitive to human influence. With Victoria that influence was stronger than with anyone else. He seemed to know what was passing in her mind, just as the hypnotised becomes subject to the influence of the hypnotiser.
Neither Victoria nor her companion was aware of the transference of thought, of the interlacing of the two minds with the domination of one over the other. Yet he had always from a boy been conscious that she had a hold over him in some undefined way; the knowledge came to him now, as she held his hand, and without physical force compelled him to control his impulses.
The women of his race, primitive and uneducated as they were, only stirred the lower instincts of his nature. Victoria was like a rare poem, the recitation of which awoke the spiritual part of his mentality, and left untouched those lower attributes that may be classed with hunger and thirst and are only materialistic.
She was influencing him now, controlling his actions, subduing a burst of emotion that threatened to lead him into extravagant action.
The contact with her hand, gentle as it was, conveyed to him through the magic influence of psychometry her unspoken demand, and he obeyed. He dropped into the seat by her side, replaced his hat, and with a short sigh, as of one who had awakened from a strange dream, he settled into his corner.
The chauffeur, at a sign from his mistress, moved the car forward, and though the traffic did not allow of any great pace, they passed through the streets of the suburbs without further hindrance.
“Well?” said Victoria, looking at him with a twinkle of amusement in her eyes. “Isn’t she delightful?”
“Charming, and so beautiful!” he replied with enthusiasm.
“I was half afraid, from what you said before she appeared, that you intended to let my Princess pass as if—as if you were a rabid Socialist.”
“Your Princess!” he cried, catching her up half indignantly. “She is my Princess as well as yours, since she is the daughter of our King. You said so yourself. You can’t exclude me.”
“I am sure that you did not intend to be so demonstrative.”
“I don’t know what I intended; I have forgotten. It doesn’t matter.” He disliked searching for motives and being called to account for the actions of the moment.
“Was it the beauty of the Princess that brought the sudden enthusiasm into your greetings?”
“Not exactly.”
“Was it anything that I said?”
“No, little sister. To be honest, you had nothing to do with it.”
“Then what made you salaam so impressively when you intended to be coldly polite only?”
“I think I caught the infection from the crowd.”
“In what way?”
“The people cheered. It was an inspiring sound. It came along like the roar of a cyclone. It seemed to lift me like an irresistible wave and carry me upwards. I felt I must join in; I must show my devotion with the rest.”
“You showed it in a most effective manner. It attracted the attention of the Princess and drew her eyes to you.”
Anwar knew that such had been the case. It was gratifying to hear it expressed.
“A special bow for myself! An honour I shall always remember!”
“You owe the crowd something for giving you a lead. You would not have behaved in that way had it not been for the people round us.”
“Possibly not,” he admitted.
“Strange!” said Victoria, as much to herself as to her companion. “I have often heard of the psychology of a crowd. Now I have seen it.”
You don’t think any the worse of me for being so easily influenced?” he asked in sudden anxiety, lest he had forfeited her good opinion by being led to do something he had not intended.
“Of course not. You were influenced for good.”
“I suppose I am rather more susceptible to environment than an ordinary Englishman.”
“Possibly it may be so.”
“It is a characteristic of the East to be quickly moved.”
“I am not sure that it belongs exclusively to the East.”
“Is it a good thing to be so susceptible?” he asked.
“In this case you did the right thing; so we may conclude that it was a good thing.”
They were near the end of their journey. There would be no opportunity of repeating the incident, for Anwar-u-din would soon be setting his face Eastward.
“What are you thinking of, little sister?” he asked.
She smiled as she replied: “I was wondering how far you would have been affected by the mentality of the crowd if it had been bent on evil instead of good—disloyalty instead of loyalty.”
There is no accounting for the force of attraction one entity may have for another in the animated world. Fortunately for the sake of law and order, the attraction is as varied as it is eccentric. If it were not so, the world would be racked with jealousy.
When Fairoake was introduced to Victoria on the evening of her excursion to Maidenhead, he unconsciously came under the influence of an attraction he had never before experienced. He was taken by surprise. He knew that she was his friend’s fiancée; that she could never be anything more to him than an acquaintance; and he did not desire that she should enter his life otherwise than as the wife of a friend. Fairoake had never felt the want of a friend of either sex. He was self-sufficient, able to form an opinion, take action and follow a line of his own without seeking the advice of man or woman. In the case of Shelford, it was the latter who had singled him out and cultivated his society; and Fairoake had tolerated it for the sake of companionship.
Now suddenly someone entered his life and took possession of his thoughts in spite of himself. He found himself drawn towards Victoria unaccountably. It was distinctly disturbing.
Victoria was no flirt. This fact he realised a few minutes after he had shaken hands with her. As he looked inquiringly into her eyes to measure her character and sum her up, he met a steadfast gaze that did not flutter beneath his regard, nor flinch when a shadow of criticism lingered in his own brief survey. Her eyes said: “I am interested in you. I am going to listen to all you say, because, from all accounts, you are a man worth listening to. But you must not expect too much. I may or may not be in sympathy with your expressed opinions.”
There was a possibility of disagreement to which neither was blind; yet, in spite of this, he fell instantly under the spell of her personality. She was different from the women he had met in India. He was in the habit of classing them into types; he could not “place” Victoria with any of them. His inability to sum her up in the first ten minutes of their acquaintance may have contributed to create just a shade of mystery that helped to rivet his attention. She could not turn nor move nor speak but he caught every action, every word. It annoyed him.
Wisely or unwisely, she had begged Anwar to remain for dinner that evening on their return from the drive. It was as well that he refused. Instinct told him that it would be a mistake to accept her invitation as soon as he learned that she was expecting Shelford and his friend.
Anwar also was attracted towards Victoria, but in a very different way from Fairoake. The attraction was in every respect mental. The fact that she was a young woman and he was a man was forgotten by both.
Had Victoria been veiled and hidden, shy and confused in her bearing, incoherent in speech or stricken dumb like all Mohammedan women in the presence of a man, her womanhood might have intruded itself into their companionship.
As an Englishwoman she stood on another platform altogether. The liberty she enjoyed, which would have placed a well-born lady of his own family on a level with the poorest and lowest pauper in the street, did not seem in connection with Victoria either degrading or disgraceful. She never lost her dignity in driving alone with him; nor had he felt any temptation to take advantage of the situation. It was nothing more than the natural result of their boy and girl friendship, a friendship quite apart from sex, and founded on the mutual attraction of two minds that were in accord. There was no strain of jealousy in his refusal of her invitation.
Anwar knew that if he remained on while Shelford was there he could not hope to monopolise the undivided attention that had been his during the day. He would have to give way to one who had a better and a stronger claim than that of an old friend.
More than ever did Anwar feel the fitness of the name he had long ago bestowed upon her, “Little sister.” As a brother he was content to give way without jealousy, although there might be regret. Nor had he any fear that he would lose her friendship.
“I shall see you again before I sail,” he said as he turned to re-enter the car which was to drive him to his hotel.
“When do you go?”
“By the mail the week after next.”
“Plenty of time for us to meet more than once between this and then,” she remarked.
An evening for dinner, with a theatre to follow, was fixed on the spot, and she let him go. A couple of hours would elapse before Shelford appeared. She devoted them to Mrs. Barford. An old friend had been to lunch and a happy afternoon had been passed. Victoria was satisfied in the thought that she had not been missed while she was away.
Shelford and Fairoake arrived together. As soon as the introduction had been made, Rupert turned to Mrs. Barford and gave her all his attention. Victoria signed to Fairoake to take the opposite corner of the chesterfield, on which she had been sitting when he entered. It was during this little adjustment that they took each other’s measure.
“I am so glad to know you,” she said. “Naturally I am interested in all Rupert’s friends, and hope to make them mine as well.”
“I trust you will be interested in me for another reason. I want to be liked at first-hand for my own sake.”
“We shall arrive at a mutual liking before we part, without doubt,” she said, with an aloofness that was modified by a smile.
He was embarrassed ever so slightly by her reception of his speech. It must have appeared boyish in her eyes, he thought, or it would not have called up that smile. She noted the quick momentary contraction of the eyebrows, and did her best to put the conversation on an easier footing.
“We won’t begin with personalities; they may come later,” she said. “I hear that you went with Rupert to see ‘Samson.’ Do tell me what you thought of it.”
They discussed the new-old play, and Fairoake was lured into an attempt to analyse the character of the hero. In doing so he criticised the actor exponent, a man well known to be in the forefront of the stage world.
“Then you were not quite satisfied, I gather,” remarked Victoria when she had heard his criticism.
“I was and I was not. It was creditable for an Englishman who has probably never been in the East.”
“I thought the actor had a very good conception of Samson’s character,” remarked Victoria.
“That was exactly where I considered that he failed.”
“In what way?” she asked. She was a great admirer of the actor in question.
“Samson was an Oriental in temperament to his finger-tips. He threw caution to the winds and allowed himself to be the sport of a woman, whose character he must have fathomed in the incident of the bonds.”
“An Englishman might have been as reckless,” she said.
“If he had had an Eastern strain in his blood,” qualified Fairoake. He went on: “Throughout the play I saw the Englishman, and I could never find the true Samson. I don’t believe that any pure-bred Englishman can get behind the Eastern temperament and understand it. The two, the East and the West, are so diametrically opposed. It is an impossibility for the man of the West to give a faithful representation of the inner workings of the mind of a man of the East.”
Victoria was not inclined to give way. She stuck to her point, and again gave it as her opinion that the actor had made the part a success.
“I won’t shoot; he was doing his best,” he said tolerantly.
“That isn’t quite fair,” protested Victoria, who detected the tolerance. It irritated her more than definite condemnation would have done. The spirit of the champion was roused in her; she was ready to do battle for the laurels of her favourite. Her colour rose slightly. Her lips parted as she drew in her breath a little quicker than usual.
Brian Fairoake noted the effect of his words. Far from wishing to conciliate and smooth matters over, he was inclined to follow up the ruffle of the surface he had created. He was conscious of an unusual and not altogether comprehensible pleasure in watching its effect on her.
“Let us leave the individual actor out of the question since you obviously suspect me of being unfair,” said Brian. “Don’t you think that we ought to make an effort when a piece is put on the stage to find a man of the nationality of the chief character, and give him the part?”
The air was less charged with battle as soon as they branched off into the abstract. It did not last long. Fairoake could not help once more asserting his belief that it was impossible for a man of one nation to interpret the mind of an individual of another nation, whether East or West, North or South.
“It can’t be done,” he pronounced with a finality that was too dictatorial for her approval.
He apparently expected some sort of a protest, for he looked at her in anticipation of contradiction. It did not come. She was silent, and refused to be drawn into further contention. Judging from her expression, however, he came to the conclusion that her silence was not a silence of consent. He had not carried her with him.
Fairoake had been a little bit spoiled by the easy way in which he had seemed to bring his friends in India into his way of thinking, never suspecting that they often agreed because they were tired of the subject and found in apparent acquiescence the line of least resistance.
Victoria was not of that frivolous, inconsequent turn of mind. If she was in sympathy with any expressed opinion, she said so in simple fashion. If she was not in sympathy, she did not attempt to hide the fact. She was naturally slow of speech where it involved committing herself to an opinion. He was not deceived by the absence of response. The gleam in her eye told him that she was ready to maintain all that she had said.
Dinner was announced and they moved into the dining-room. They sat at a round table, just the quartet. Shelford begged that no one else should be invited. He hoped that Brian and Victoria would have a better chance of becoming acquainted if she had no other guests to divert her attention.
In Shelford’s precise, cut-and-dried way of thinking, he believed that Brian and Victoria had only to see enough of each other to rouse the same desire to be friends as he had felt himself towards Fairoake. It did not enter his head that the absence of other guests might make it easier for Brian to state his opinions on India than if strangers were present. There was nothing, however, to prevent him from repeating much of what he had said at Bournemouth and pronouncing a general condemnation of the attitude assumed by English women towards the educated Hindu and Mohammedan. Such expressions could not do otherwise than “let slip the dogs of war” on both sides.
Victoria, in her way, could be just as dogmatic and self-opinionated as Brian himself; but this fact Shelford had yet to discover for himself. He had never seen her goaded into fierceness—aflame with indignation at the wrong-doing and injustice of the world, at its misrule, its stupidity.
Shelford had been born and brought up in rigid grooves and he believed that it had been the same with Victoria.
By his training he had been placed in the atmosphere of conventionality. He thought that Victoria had been landed in the same atmosphere. Nothing had occurred to show that she was. If she was bound by any conventional laws, she was bound by those of her birth and education.
During the first part of the dinner Mrs. Barford claimed the attention of the stranger. Rupert and Victoria had an opportunity of exchanging a few words. Anyone—servants, friends or relatives—might have overheard what was said. All the same, their voices dropped with the delightful intimacy of lovers who speak to each other only.
Fairoake’s eyes were never long absent from Victoria, although his ears were attentive to what Mrs. Barford was saying. He had had very little experience with lovers. As a rule, if by chance they crossed his path, he gave them a wide berth and kept out of their way. What he expected of an engaged couple he could not have said. He had a vague notion that their attitude towards each other would be different from that of ordinary friends.
It struck him that there was nothing distinctive in the behaviour of Shelford and Victoria to proclaim the fact that before long they would be man and wife. Rupert’s attitude was not that of a devoted lover; yet he looked happy and contented, as pleased as usual with himself and his surroundings. In fact Brian had never seen his friend more contented in his placid way.
But it was not Shelford as a lover who interested Brian. It was Victoria. She showed none of the affianced girl’s self-consciousness or pride in her position. She listened unmoved and unfluttered when Rupert spoke, and she responded as she might have done to any casual acquaintance.
Was she in love? Was Shelford in love? Or were they only pretending? Was it the “suitable alliance” of two people who looked upon marriage as a necessity for men and women in their position? Suddenly he was aware that his name was mentioned and that Shelford was speaking of him to Victoria in a voice intentionally raised to catch his ear.
“Fairoake knows your father in India, Victoria.”
She turned with the slow movement that was peculiar to her and faced Brian. Her shoulders as well as her head swung round and her back was partially presented to Shelford. He meanwhile took up the threads of conversation with Mrs. Barford and explained to her that Fairoake and Mr. Wargrave were friends and neighbours.
“Is that so? When did you last see my father?” asked Victoria, with a quick concentration of interest in him, as though he alone existed for her and Rupert was forgotten.
“Just before I left India.”
“Where?”
“At Arukahd; but we also met at Madras last Christmas for the recess—the holidays, as we are old-fashioned enough to call the ten days snatched from our work. Your father and—and his wife were staying at the same hotel with me.”
Fairoake made a pause, slight, but noticeable to the listener’s ear, just before the mention of Mrs. Wargrave, as though it had been on the tip of his tongue to say “your father and mother”; he had substituted “his wife” instead.
“How was my father looking?”
“Wonderfully well, I’m glad to say. Arukahd agrees with him better than his last station, which was on the west coast.”
“I hope he gets plenty of golf. It helps to keep him in good health, he says.”
“As much as he wants. Mrs. Wargrave has taken violently to motoring; drives herself.”
“You have had trouble and unrest at Arukahd,” observed Victoria. He noted that she let the mention of Mrs Wargrave’s name pass without question or comment.
“We have. Your father or Mrs. Wargrave told you, I suppose.”
“They didn’t mention it. I heard of it from Anwar-u-din.”
“Was he the man I saw walking with you on the pier at Bournemouth?” asked Fairoake abruptly. Unconsciously he spoke with a slight change of tone.
“Yes; he was there.”
Shelford’s ears were alert for what was passing between Victoria and his friend. An amused smile came over his face, and before Brian could say more he asked a question.
“By the by, Victoria, you never told me how you got home from Bournemouth. Did you make the journey comfortably and without bad weather?”
“Quite; we had beautiful weather and one of the best roads in England,” interposed Mrs. Barford, without knowing that she was assisting Rupert to switch off the conversation from a dangerous subject.
They talked of the road and of the traffic. Fairoake knew the ground and was interested. He passed over it a week later himself.
“You don’t mind the traffic, then, Mrs. Barford. There is a good deal on that road in these days,” he said.
“We moved slowly,” she answered. “My chauffeur understands my little weaknesses. Anwar was in no hurry to get back, nor was Victoria.”
“Was he with you?”
“We brought him up to town. He enjoyed the drive immensely.”
“How did you come to make his acquaintance?” asked Fairoake.
Mrs. Barford left her niece to reply. Victoria told the story of her friendship with Anwar from the very beginning. Brian’s eyes were on her all the time she was speaking. Now and then there was an inflection in her voice that betrayed more than was expressed in words. She had a great affection for the friend of her childhood evidently. He wondered how deep it was.
A disturbing strain of annoyance passed through him as he listened. His prejudices burned more fiercely than ever now that they could fasten upon an individual case. The knowledge that the Mohammedan had been Victoria’s companion during part of a tour, and that he had enjoyed the daily intimacy an expedition of the kind would involve, irritated him.
He was not exactly envious. A similar invitation, if given to himself at the time, would have met with a courteous but decided refusal. To have been their constant companion for several days would have wearied him. It should not have mattered whether another man occupied the position or not, since he did not want it for himself. If the friend had been an Englishman he would not have thought twice about it. But a Mohammedan! It roused his ire. There was such a thing as throwing pearls before—people who could not appreciate them.
When Victoria had finished her story, she and Mrs. Barford rose from the table and retired to the drawing-room. A little later their guests joined them there. Mrs. Barford looked up and called Rupert to her side.
“I want to show you the photograph we had taken of the car at Bournemouth. It has come out well and gives us a nice picture of Anwar. He hates being photographed and this is the best we have of him.”
Fairoake turned to Victoria, who had resumed her seat on the chesterfield which they had occupied before dinner. They were not out of hearing where they sat; but the old Georgian drawing-room was large and lofty enough for them to be able to carry on a conversation without being heard by others. Fairoake went at once to the subject that was nearest his heart. It was burning into his brain and heating his blood.
“I suppose you know that Anwar-u-din is to be my Assistant Collector in the district of Arukahd?”
“He will be under you, do you mean?”
“Not exactly; he is called Assistant, but he has his own sphere of work apart from me. His head-quarters will be at Kondagiri, one of the big towns of the Arukahd district.”
“He has not mentioned it. He probably was under the impression that the details of his work in India would not interest me. He is naturally reserved—more so than he used to be as a boy. What will his work be?”
“Magistrate’s work and the administration of the civil government of the district,” he replied. “Mine is much the same. I have more to do with the assessment of the taxes.”
“The move to Arukahd is promotion, I understand.”
“Yes; it is an appointment which he coveted. He will rule where his ancestors once held sway as native princes.”
“The authorities must think highly of him.”
“They do, and thus far he has proved himself a successful innovation.”
“Innovation?” she repeated, looking at him for an explanation.
“Of late years Government has been admitting Indians into the higher services. It has been by way of experiment. In Anwar’s case we are inclined to believe, as I said, that it will be a success.”
There was something patronising in his manner of speech that roused her suspicion that he was not as genially disposed towards the Mohammedan as his previous words of praise implied.
“I am sure it will be a success,” responded Victoria, with some warmth.
“Possibly,” admitted Fairoake, without any enthusiasm. “He would have a better chance of making it a success, if he gave up his visits to England and settled down in the country to which he belongs.”
“I don’t agree with you. Why shouldn’t he come back occasionally and look up his old friends—people like myself and others who were kind to him when he was a lonely boy in a foreign land?”
He did not reply to her question.
“I hope he is duly grateful,” he remarked.
“For what?” she demanded.
“For the privilege of having you for a friend.”
The colour mounted to her cheek and her eye took on a light that might mean battle with a little more provocation. It had glimmered there once before earlier in the evening, when she was preparing to defend the acting of the Englishman in the part of Samson.
“Perhaps it is the other way about,” she replied, with a slight tilt of the firm chin, in which were lines denoting strength of character.
How handsome she was, he thought. The white neck glowed under the transparencies of her evening draperies with the same warm vitality that the painter Titian captured for his women. He wondered if Shelford was alive to it.
“It would scarcely be the thing for the Englishwoman in such circumstances to be grateful,” he said.
“And why not?”
“It is she who confers the favour when she admits the Indian to her friendship.”
She turned upon him with swift denouncement.
“Mr. Fairoake! In spite of your praise of Anwar-u-din, you don’t approve of him!”
He smiled, and the smile added fuel to the fire.
“As a Government officer I fully appreciate all his good qualities; and he has many. As a personal friend of one of my countrywomen——”
He paused, unwilling to goad her further, yet burning to speak the words of warning which he honestly believed to be his duty. It was presumption, in his opinion, on the part of any Indian to seek the intimate friendship of a girl who knew nothing of India. The thought of it roused his indignation in a manner which he did not understand. If jealousy, in a vague, shapeless form, was not actually on the war-path, it was lurking close at hand.
Victoria recognised in the restraint of the pause a desire to speak out more plainly than their short acquaintance warranted. She had no inclination to grant him privileges simply because he was a friend of the man she was to marry. She did not feel herself obliged to submit to criticism. It was necessary once and for all to put him in his place, and force him to understand that she had given him no right to dictate, nor even to comment on her conduct.
“Mr. Fairoake, forgive me if I remind you that Anwar-u-din, as a personal friend of one of your countrywomen—myself—hardly concerns you.”
The colour flooded his forehead. His eyes also glittered with a light of combat as he realised the reproof. He answered quickly, striving to master his tone and reduce it to the dead level of commonplace drawing-room conversation.
“I beg your pardon; it concerns me closely. Your friendship is a gift, the value of which no Indian can appreciate.”
“And why not?” she demanded.
“Because there is nothing of the kind in his own country to teach him how to value it.”
She gazed at him in a silence that challenged the truth of his statement with more eloquence than if she had spoken. She disbelieved him! It was intolerable!
“Englishwomen are wrong to make friends with the Hindus and Mohammedans who come to this country,” he continued, hoping to appease her by speaking generally and not personally; but she was not to be placated so easily.
“I cannot see any reason for your statement. It sounds prejudiced and narrow-minded.”
“The reason is obvious. Privileges of this kind fill the Indians with pride and make them bumptious—there is no other word for it. They help to foster unrest and disaffection, which is ruining India before our very eyes.”
His tone was bitter and its intensity betrayed the fact that he spoke from conviction. But he did not succeed in carrying her with him. Dissent was expressed in her eyes, and a suspicion of scorn, for what she considered his sheer animosity towards Anwar, appeared on her lips. There was no need for her to speak. He could read what was in her mind.
It maddened him. He was fast losing his self-control. If only she would have listened with ordinary patience and without misjudging him, he could have borne it. He would not have asked for blind acquiescence. What he did not expect was the contempt she showed for his opinions—his opinions were grounded on a first-hand knowledge of the country and the people among whom he had lived several years. He altered his tone suddenly and made an appeal to her good sense.
“Miss Wargrave, believe me, I am not inventing. I have studied the Indians in their own country and know them. I am not prejudiced——”
A little tolerant laugh checked him abruptly. It was like a dash of cold water thrown full in his face.
“Are you quite sure of that?” she asked, with an uplifting of the eyebrows that indicated incredulity.
It was too much for his self-possession. He sprang from his seat and strode across the room towards Mrs. Barford.
“Will you excuse me?” he asked. “It is early, I know, but I have letters to finish for to-night’s post and I am afraid I must say good night.”
Victoria had risen also. The smile lingered about her lips. Was it only tolerant or had it grown triumphant? Fairoake glanced at her in some trepidation lest she should take offence at his sudden desertion of them. She was looking distractingly fascinating—not in the least like a girl convicted of folly in the choice of her friends. She was hateful! What a fool he had been to come to the house! He would never see her or speak to her again if he had his way! In the midst of his incoherent thoughts the pleasant ring of her voice fell on his ear.
“I’m so sorry you must go,” she was saying. “You must come again and I will introduce you to your new Assistant.”
Was she chaffing him in his defeat? for he was certainly being driven off the field, defeat or no defeat. He took no notice of her offer, but held out his hand to Mrs. Barford. Shelford glanced at him in mild surprise. It was still early in the evening, and another half-hour might have been spent in that pleasant, quiet drawing-room and yet there would have been time to write letters for the night’s post.
“Don’t let me take you away, Shelford. I am going straight to my club to get on with my correspondence.”
He turned to Victoria, hesitating for a second. She held out her hand and he was obliged to take it. The firm yet soft fingers closed on his. Even her handshake was different from that of other people. It had some peculiar quality in it that made him return the short, swift grasp in spite of his unwillingness to yield to the attraction.
“Rupert hoped that we should be friends,” she said, with a twinkle of amusement in her eye. All rancour, if it ever existed, was gone; nothing but good humour remained. “We have not made much of a beginning, have we?”
“On the subject of Indians I am afraid we are at enmity. I’m sorry,” said Fairoake, with belated regret. How could he have been so foolish as to allow himself to lose his temper as he undoubtedly had done!
“That’s all right, Victoria,” put in Shelford. “There’s nothing wrong about that. If you love your enemies, as you are told to do, it may not be so bad for Fairoake after all!”
Brian caught a quick and startled glance from Victoria’s shining eyes. He laughed; and there was more ease about the laugh than might have been expected. With his quick temper he possessed the gift of speedy recovery. His anger might flame and flare, but it burned out swiftly.
“Shelford is right. Love your enemies, Miss Wargrave, as well as your friends; but let them be English and not Indian.”
He went to his club and consumed many cigarettes as he sat in the quiet smoking-room. He did no writing. The letters had to stand over till the next morning.
Certainly there is no accounting for the force of attraction one human entity may have for another.
Victoria stepped out of a first-class carriage of an Inner Circle train at St. James’s Park station. From the very next compartment Fairoake issued. Their eyes met in recognition. She smiled and bowed. It was a conventional smile and had no invitation in it.
He took off his hat. They swung round on their heels by mutual consent and moved in opposite directions along the platform. Victoria went towards the western exit that led to the Army and Navy Stores, whither she was bound.
Fairoake strode off towards the stairs that landed him at the eastern exit. He, too, was going to the Stores; but for the encounter, he would have taken the same route as Victoria.
No sooner had he turned his back on her than he regretted it. She had never been absent from his thoughts for long; and the sight of her sent the blood racing through his veins in a way he did not understand.
They had not met since he and Shelford had dined with Mrs. Barford. He was old-fashioned enough to call a few days later and to leave his card; but he had not asked for either Mrs. Barford or Miss Wargrave. He had determined that he would not see her again if he could help it.
Yet at the bottom of his heart, although he would not allow it, he would have been glad to have met Victoria again. He felt that it was only fair that he should have an opportunity of justifying himself.
What an idiot he was not to have made friends with her first, and have won her regard! Afterwards his word might possibly have carried weight. As it was, he had rushed at her with condemnation for a line of conduct which in her eyes was blameless. What did his approval or disapproval matter to a woman like Victoria?
The consumption of many cigarettes that night at the club helped him to come to the decision that he must avoid her. More than that—for his own peace of mind he must “keep off the grass.” But the decision had no stability. It melted away before the desire to see her again which seized him periodically.
That fatuous idiot, Shelford, had suggested that, not being friends, they should love each other as enemies. He did not know what he was talking about. He, Fairoake, would do well to avoid meeting her; better still, by forgetting her altogether.
The first resolution was easy to carry out. He was very busy. His leave was short, and in a few weeks he would be starting for India.
The second resolution, to forget her existence and turn her out of his thoughts, was not so easy. He did his best; but he had yet to learn that even the most masterful man was not altogether master of his thoughts, though he might be of his actions.
The image of Victoria recurred to his mental vision again and again under the different phases in which she had presented herself during the evening. He saw her smiling as she had greeted him when they first met. She was attentive as he spoke; ready to do battle for those she liked and admired; to agree or disagree with his sentiments, not capriciously or with any design of winning his favour, but honestly—in short, to be a friend or an enemy according to what she found him.
Often he was tempted to call and see her again, if only to establish himself on a more satisfactory footing, then the instinct of self-preservation warned him that it would be better for his peace of mind if they did not meet. The memory of her was already too obtrusive; what would it be if he cultivated her acquaintance? The old saying of the cure to be found in the “hair of the dog that bit” came into his mind, and he smiled a little grimly.
Victoria pursued her way, congratulating herself that their paths led them in opposite directions. She, too, smiled to herself as she followed the train of her thoughts.
“Somehow I get on his nerves; I could see it that evening, although I couldn’t tell how it was. I should like to be friendly for Rupert’s sake. I suppose Mr. Fairoake has not been accustomed to meet girls who think for themselves and dare to differ from him when he expresses one of his pet opinions. Yet the women of the day are independent enough, in all conscience.”
She passed through the paved passage and emerged into Victoria Street, where she turned to the right. Crossing a side street, she stopped opposite to the great block of buildings on the other side of the road. Her eyes were upon the traffic approaching on the right. Two or three omnibuses were bearing down upon the narrow part of the road between the kerb and the island. She was delayed in crossing over and stood at the edge of the pavement waiting to seize the opportunity of a clear passage as soon as it occurred.
Suddenly she heard a shout to the left in the City direction. Before she could turn to look, a hand seized her by the arm and she was violently drawn back from the road towards the houses.
Out from nowhere, apparently, came a taxicab, an old, worn-out vehicle, plunging towards her like some infuriated monster. It invaded the pavement, lurching round as though it would knock her down and crush her beneath its clumsy wheels.
Up to the door of the house she was forcibly dragged by some unrecognised companion. It seemed as though the cab would have crushed her against the house. The door was thrown open and she was swiftly pushed inside and along the passage with a forceful haste that stood on no ceremony.
There was no doubt about it, she was being rough-handled more than she found compatible with her dignity. She turned to see who was taking liberties and saving her from injury at the same time.
“Great Caesar’s socks!” cried the voice of Fairoake behind her. He still held her arm above the elbow with a firm grip which was slowly relaxing. “That was a near shave!”
Before she could reply, the petrol exploded and the cab was enveloped in flames. The driver, anticipating something of the sort, had left his seat and was standing at a little distance, his hands outstretched in warning to pedestrians to give the derelict a wide berth.
Victoria and her companion were saved from being badly burned by the fraction of a minute through the timely action of the office boy. He had been at his customary post of observation, the window. He heard the shout and caught sight of the unmanageable cab; and he rushed to the door to get a better view of the accident.
“That was a close call, miss!” said young hopeful as he closed the door on the smoke and fumes of the petrol, and led the way into the lobby of the office. It was his own particular den where he waited till one of the great ones in the office sent him off on an errand.
“You opened the door just in time,” said Victoria gratefully.
“If the gentleman hadn’t grabbed you for all he was worth, that keb would have done you in to a frazzle.”
“Was the driver the worse for liquor?” asked Fairoake as he moved the boy’s chair towards Victoria and signed to her to take it.
“No, sir!” replied the boy, with superior knowledge. “It was the keb that did it all off its own bat. Half these old taxies want scrapping. They ain’t safe to be let loose on the streets, and the drivers know it. That chap out there is terrified.”
“Where did the cab come from?” asked Victoria.
The boy was delighted to be questioned, and answered with an illustrative waving of his grubby hands.
“That swung round the corner out of the side street. I saw it come. Instead of taking the curve on the other side of the island, the steering gear jammed and brought her round sharp on this side, just where you were standing, miss. The police will have something to say to this. They’re there already. I guess the driver feels all rumty-iddly-um by this time; but it reelly wasn’t his fault, poor chap!”
Victoria rose and looked towards the door of the lobby. She was anxious to get out into the open air.
“Don’t go yet, miss, unless you want to be called as a witness.”
“I would rather not; surely it won’t be necessary,” she said as she sat down again. She would be of no use as a witness, for she did not see the cab until it was almost on the top of her.
“If they want a witness, it’s me that will be of use,” said the boy, who was longing to get out into the street and hear what was going on. “I’ll just go and tell ’em that I saw the whole of the movie from the very beginning. I was at the window watching for the postman. Postmen don’t like to be kep’ waiting.”
He disappeared, closing the glass door behind him by way of keeping his visitors safe out of sight. He was far too cute to give them a chance of being called as witnesses instead of himself. His attendance at a police-court would mean half a day off at least. It would not be his fault if he did not make it a whole day.
Victoria’s eyes met Fairoake’s and they both smiled. Fate had intervened to bring them together and prevent them from parting too hastily. The boy had seen to it that they should have a little leisure in which to consider the situation. As for Fairoake, he believed himself to be the victim of destiny, and it would be folly to struggle against it.
“Are you sure the cab didn’t touch you?” he asked, coming close up to the chair on which she had seated herself again. It was the only one there and he had no choice but to stand.
“To tell you the truth, it caught my heel as you dragged me away. It was only a touch; nothing more than a slight bruise. You were in the nick of time. I am very grateful.”
“It gave me a nasty jar to see the cab get out of hand and bear down upon you. Sure you haven’t a sprained ankle or a bad bruise?”
She stood up to convince him that she was not injured. A dark stain on her silk stocking just above the shoe showed where the wheel had touched her.
“It’s all right! “she declared, resuming her seat. “It is nothing but the oily mud from the watered street. Is the crowd moving off? If so, I will go on to the Stores.”
Her foot was bruised, although she would not admit it. He was not deceived by her words. She was so ready to sit down again.
“Will you let me see if you are bleeding?” he asked. Without waiting for permission, he knelt and took the foot in his hand, turning it to the light. His touch was gentle but firm. She felt that he would have carried out his examination whether she had given him consent or refused it.
“You are right.” he said. “It is only oil and mud. It is not blood. That’s all right! You will find the skin bruised possibly, but not broken.”
He removed the hand that held the instep; lowered her foot to the ground with the other that supported her heel. The boy entered as he regained his feet.
“That’s done it!” he announced with an elation he could not hide. “I’ve given my name and address to the police. If they want a witness I’m all there. You can get away now, lady. I shall show you out and say you are one of our clients if they ask any questions.”
Fairoake did not inquire if she would accept him as an escort across the street. He took possession of her, slipping a hand into her arm. As they reached the entrance of the Stores he released her.
“Miss Wargrave, will you do me a favour?”
“Can I refuse after what you have just done for me?” she replied, in a more friendly manner than he had known her to use before.
“I’ll take your acceptance as my reward. Will you have tea with me here when you have finished your shopping?”
“If you think it safe to be in my company for so long a time.”
“A truce! an armistice for the duration of the tea anyway! India and the Indians shall not be named between us!” he replied.
“No need to speak of the subject. My friend, Anwar-u-din, left England by the mail last week and he is not likely to return to this country for some years to come, and I am not in the least likely to be going to his.”
“Then we may forget him.”
“You may do so if you like,” said Victoria with a touch of the old spirit. “But you must not expect me to do so.”
“I shall find him at Kondagiri in the Arukahd district,” he remarked. “He will be my neighbour.”
“I hope you will be a good friend as well as a neighbour. Or if you decide to become enemies, then, as Rupert says, you must love each other.”
“As you and I are to do.”
Victoria turned to the lift with a laugh.
“I am off chasing summer curtains. We’ll meet in the tea-room at half-past four.”
The lift door clanged and Victoria was carried away out of sight, leaving him to collect his wits and remember the reason that brought him there. He was curiously elated at the little incident that had brought them together.
It was gratifying to think that he had been of service to her. His prompt action had probably saved her life, or at least averted an accident by which she might have been crippled. She had not said much in gratitude, but he felt convinced that she was fully aware of what he had done. He did not want effusive thanks and he appreciated her reticence. The modern girl would have been overwhelming in her protestations of how much she owed him. Victoria’s attitude suggested that she had conferred the benefit by permitting him to help her, instead of being herself put under an obligation.
Punctual to the minute they met at the door of the tea-room. The place was crowded, and as far as they could discover not a table was available. As Victoria’s eyes swept round over the company, she caught sight of a hand raised which waved recognition and signalled her to come.
“Hallo! Ria! We’ve finished; we’re just going to side-step; you and your chum can take our places.”
Two girls rose and offered their chairs, which were accepted with gratitude. Then, as Victoria did not immediately introduce them to her companion, they introduced themselves.
“We’re Susie and Beattie Graham,” said Susie, the elder, addressing Brian.
“We never wait for introductions; it wastes precious time,” remarked Beattie.
“We’re just back from a motor trip to Cornwall; no end of a stunt!” said Susie.
“We took two boys with us,” said Beattie.
“Dear lambs they were!”
“Both in the Army.”
“And we sent the mum by train.”
“The mum” was their long-suffering mother. Brian was bewildered with the see-saw. So far, neither he nor Victoria had been able to get a word in edgeways. Victoria had seated herself, and the waitress, having cleared away the used cups and plates, was standing near to take the orders.
“Try the strawberries and cream. Ria,” said Susie.
“And the ices; tophole!” cried Beattie.
“Waitress! bring this lady and gentleman two ices and two strawberries and cream.”
“Now we must be going; good-bye, old sport!”
“Ta-ta, old things!” and Susie laid a hand on Fairoake’s shoulder while Beattie pressed Victoria’s.
They moved away before any reply could be given, causing most of the company assembled near their path to turn and gaze with various degrees of amusement and perhaps surprise. No one resented the modern up-to-date girl, because no one was foolish enough to take her seriously. She was the result of the upheaval caused by the Great War. Yet Victoria could not help a passing regret that she should have encountered that particular couple while she was in Fairoake’s company.
“I feel as if I ought to apologise for their impertinence in calling you ‘old thing,’” she said with a deprecatory smile.
“Don’t do that; it’s the fashion of the day, and it has no offence in it because none is intended.”
“You’re used to it, perhaps. Has it invaded society with you as it has with us?”
His eyes dropped from hers and he laughed a little awkwardly.
“Yes; and the fashion has come to stay. All the girls seem built on that pattern. It goes with the dress and the independence of the period.”
“You don’t like it,” she said quickly. He did not answer, and she added immediately: “You need not mind admitting it. I hate it. It gets on my nerves to be called ‘old sport’ and to hear a man spoken of as ‘a dear lamb’ and ‘rather a darling.’”
“No, thanks, I won’t have an ice,” said Fairoake, speaking to the waitress, who wanted to know if she was to bring what the young ladies had ordered.
“I don’t wish to be severe on my generation,” continued Victoria, who was suddenly conscious that she might appear priggish. “It’s just a chance that I have not dropped into the same way of talking myself. My aunt saw to it that I did not. I had no brothers to set me a bad example.”
“I don’t dislike schoolboy and schoolgirl expressions,” remarked Fairoake. “They can be very amusing.”
“I agree with you; but I should like the flappers to be left in possession of their pet phrases. When a middle-aged married woman calls me ‘old bean!’ I don’t quite know how to reply.”
Again Brian wore a disturbed look, as of a man treading on thin ice. She wondered if after all he preferred the girl who had adopted the up-to-date style; and whether he would be more at ease if she presently addressed him as “old thing!” She had no intention of indulging him if it was so.
“I suppose you did not allow Anwar-u-din to talk slang,” he remarked, after an interval during which she poured out tea and he handed her the bread and butter.
“I thought that subject was forbidden for the sake of peace,” she said with a smile in which mischief lurked.
“But it is not to be peace between us; we are enemies!” he exclaimed. “And as such we are to carry out Shelford’s injunction.”
“With Anwar gone we shall have nothing to quarrel about. It may interest you to know that I have no other Indian friends.”
The tea seemed to Fairoake to be over remarkably quickly. He called for strawberries and cream in sheer desperation and by way of adding another fifteen minutes to the time. When there was no further excuse for remaining longer at the table, he reluctantly allowed Victoria to rise. He felt strangely happy and buoyant. Added to it was a recklessness that was not usual with him.
“May I come and call on Mrs. Barford?” he said, as they parted at the exit of the Stores.
“Do! she will be so pleased to see you. Come to lunch to-morrow. We shall be by ourselves.”
He needed no pressing. It was the first of a series of meetings that lasted till Brian Fairoake departed for India.
It was early in July. The roses were still in their beauty and the summer was in no way worn or frayed at the edges. Mrs. Barford was in the habit of flitting from town as soon as June ended, to seek cooler and more bracing air somewhere northwards; not necessarily Scotland. Yorkshire, Buxton or the Lake District provided all she required.
This year when Victoria spoke of writing to secure rooms or a furnished house, her aunt begged off her usual trip far afield and pleaded for some restful spot nearer home. It was not difficult to find what she needed. A furnished house in Richmond was secured. It was within easy reach of London, a drive of only half an hour. She took her servants with her and the change was made with a minimum of fatigue and discomfort.
The house stood in its own grounds, which were enclosed in a high wall. Unkind and forbidding the wall appeared to the pedestrian in the road; yet it was necessary in a suburb near to town, if privacy and quiet were to be ensured.
The gardens, with lawns and flower borders, shrubberies and spreading trees, would have been shorn of their attraction if the trespassing stone-throwing boy and the whining professional beggar could have forced an entrance through hedge or broken paling.
Mrs. Barford found a deep pleasure in the trees and flowers, and did not complain because the air was not as bracing as the breeze of the Yorkshire moor; nor did she miss the blue hills and gleaming lakes that she had loved when she was younger and more active. Perhaps Victoria sometimes longed for a less enervating climate, but she did not say so. She was more than content to see her aunt happy and at ease in surroundings that she liked.
A large plane tree stood at the edge of the lawn on the garden side of the house. Here Victoria provided some cane lounges and established Mrs. Barford after breakfast with book and knitting to “eat the air.” If it grew chilly as the sun descended, there was always the veranda into which the long French windows of the drawing-room opened.
Out of reach of the demand of social duties, the charity bazaar, the friendly lunch and tea, and an occasional visit to the theatre for Victoria’s sake, Mrs. Barford rested and gained strength. Victoria’s hopes were raised and she confidently believed that the invalid was shaking off at last the enervating effects of the influenza that had attacked her so cruelly in the winter.
It was a warm, sunny afternoon. Victoria was seated under the plane tree. With her was Rupert Shelford. He had driven himself down from town in the little two-seater car that he had bought of Fairoake on his departure for India.
At his appearance Mrs. Barford retired to the drawing-room, not sorry to have an excuse for getting forty winks on the sofa. The shaded room was more to her mind than the glare of the July afternoon sun.
Rupert, after politely escorting the invalid to the drawing-room window, settled himself in the chair she had vacated. He beat up the cushions and arranged them to his liking. Before dropping into the seat he turned to Victoria, who had joined him, and asked:
“Where are you going to sit, dearest?”
“Here,” she said decisively, her hand on the back of a light cane chair that was easily moved. She was in no humour to allow him to continue the arrangement of cushions on her behalf.
He drew the chair a little nearer to the lounge he intended to occupy. He had come for the purpose of having a talk of a business character and he wished to have her full attention. The retirement of Mrs. Barford had been exactly what he most desired.
His plans for the next few months were maturing in his mind. After receiving Fairoake’s warm invitation, he had written to his agent in Madras to say that he contemplated paying a visit to his property in Arukahd. He would be better able by so doing to come to terms with the syndicate that was anxious to buy or rent his land.
The suggestion was approved of by the agent, who considered it by far the wisest course to take. To have both the principals on the spot would expedite matters and benefit all concerned.
Some weeks previously he had outlined his plans to Victoria. She had not only agreed with them, but had made a further suggestion. This was an opportunity, she pointed out, far too good to miss, of extending his trip and of seeing something of the Colonies. Why should he not go to Australia, New Zealand, Ceylon, and return by Japan?
She reminded him that she was very much tied by her aunt’s ill-health; and that there would be much to do between the present time and the spring, when they hoped the marriage would take place. It would be necessary to find someone who could take her place; not an easy task, and it would be still more difficult to reconcile her aunt to the change.
To all of this Rupert had agreed. Victoria was under the impression that it was definitely settled, even down to their course of action after they were married. A short honeymoon was to be spent in England on the south coast, Devon or Cornwall, as it would be a cold season of the year. They were then to go to the Grange, the property he had inherited from his ancestor of the bad language legend.
At present it was let to a retired Colonel and his wife. His tenancy would end in September, and the house must stand unoccupied except for a caretaker till Rupert returned from the East.
During the afternoon of the day of Rupert’s call at the house in Richmond, the gardener was cutting the lawn. When the visitor arrived he had not quite finished. The noise of the mowing machine was an effective check on any lover-like conversation on the part of Rupert; but Rupert was always self-possessed, never the slave of violent emotion, and the gardener’s presence did not trouble him.
His eyes, however, were upon the man and the machine; not with any wish that he would take himself off, but with a criticism that would have irritated the man could he have divined it.
With Rupert’s instinct for precision he was wondering as he sat there why the mower was not keeping his swathes straight. If he professed to be anything of a gardener, he ought to know how to drive the machine in better fashion.
“I couldn’t keep such a man as that at the Grange,” he said to himself.
Victoria’s thoughts were far away from the lawn and from Rupert himself. The sight of the little two-seater standing on the carriage drive under the shade of the trees near the iron gates, brought a host of memories. It had stood at the door of her aunt’s house in the quiet square while its former owner lingered in the drawing-room unable to tear himself away. She had sat beside Fairoake more than once on an afternoon expedition into the country; the precious time, as they threaded their way through leafy lanes, being spent in hot argument, in agreeing and disagreeing, in squabbling and making friends. If only the little two-seater could speak! Yet nothing had been said on either side that the world, including Mrs. Barford and Rupert, might not hear.
“Victoria!”
She started. Had he not been so much absorbed in his own thoughts, he must have seen it. He had called her from a dream.
“Yes, Rupert; what is it?”
“Would you like to be married before I leave England?”
The mowing machine was at their end of the lawn now. She waited till it had turned and was in retreat. The colour mounted slightly as if she had been taken by surprise.
“I thought we had definitely planned it for next year. I am afraid it would be impossible to alter,” she replied slowly.
“Not at all—-if you wish it. It would not be necessary to make any break in your present way of living; you could remain on with Mrs. Barford. Then if anything happened to me——”
He stopped short on a sign of protest on her part.
“Nothing will happen. In these days there is no more danger in travelling to the antipodes than to Scotland or the Hebrides.”
“It crossed my mind that it might be convenient; that I was not treating you quite fairly in forsaking you in this fashion.”
“The suggestion of a tour round the world came from me, I think,” said Victoria. “Therefore you must not accuse yourself of forsaking me. You are only marking time, like the good old dear you are, till I am ready.”
She spoke decisively, as though his proposal had raised no doubt in her mind as to the advisability of altering the arrangements.
“Will you think it over?” he asked.
“If you wish, but——” She laughed, not quite at her ease. She was conscious of an uncomfortable feeling of distaste towards the marriage that was new. True, she had never had it brought so near; but far or near, in ten days or in ten months’ time, it would mean the same. A slight quiver of apprehension passed through her. She shook it off resolutely and turned to him with a serene smile which hid something of which he had no suspicion.
“But what?” he asked, unsuspecting, placid and content.
“No amount of thinking will make any difference. I wish to wait till next February. By that date I shall be ready and prepared. So will you. Your tenants will have left the Grange. I shall have settled Aunt Ann comfortably with a companion. You will have had your yearning for wandering satisfied, and will not want to carry me off sight-seeing to the ends of the earth when I want to be settling down in England.”
She put out her hand impulsively with an inward repentance for a disloyal thought, but he did not take it, because he did not see it; he was absorbed in himself.
“As you will, but all the same I shall be better pleased if you will give it a little consideration,” he said.
“Dear old Rupert! It is very good of you to think of me in this way. It will be best for me to remain as I am till next year,” she said, laying the unnoticed hand upon his arm.
She assumed that he had acted entirely on her behalf without any ulterior motive. The gardener had finished the last swathes and was in retreat with his mower. Rupert took the hand and kissed it. He held it for a few seconds in a close grasp and then gently released it. The action was graceful, courtier-like, devoted; yet it did not stir the girl’s pulse. It was impossible to be blind to his little betrayal of self-satisfaction in his performance. He knew that it was neatly and gracefully done, but he did not realise that he was playing a part, as all self-centred people must do when they pose.
Instead of being flattered by this exhibition of devotion, she was rubbed up the wrong way and unaccountably irritated, although she was careful not to show it.
“Colonel Morton gives up the Grange at the end of September,” Rupert remarked presently.
“You have a good agent who will look after your property,” she replied.
“Yes; I know Batten will do his best. All the same it would be to our advantage, yours and mine, if you could run down and see him after the Mortons leave. You could do it easily any day with the car.”
“What good would come of a visit from me?”
“To begin with, you may like to go over the Grange and look at the house. Also, the agent will understand that I have left someone behind who is interested in my belongings. This is where a wife comes in when a man is married,” he concluded with a smile of satisfaction.
Victoria did her best to stifle the thoughts that flashed through her mind as she listened. She did not reply. He glanced at her without any suspicion that she detected the self-interest underlying the proposal. Even if she had shown that she had fathomed his reason for wishing to be married before he left England, he would have seen nothing to be ashamed of in that wish. When a man marries, his own and his wife’s affairs should be identical; and of the many duties she undertakes, the care of his property is one of them. It should be a pleasant task, he thought, as it implied trust and confidence.
“Dearest!” he said softly. “You will make the best of wives and we shall be very happy.”
He spoke with never a doubt in the fulfilment of his prophecy.
“We!” He would be happy if she came up to his estimation, was the thought that shot through her brain. So far she had given him no cause to believe otherwise. As for her own happiness, until quite lately she had cherished the conviction that it would come in time.
She had been brought up within conventional lines in a calm backwater; and had imbibed from Mrs. Barford preconceived notions of what a husband should be like. Rupert Shelford seemed to present in his person all that a woman could expect. She had seen him with her aunt’s eyes and had accepted him at her aunt’s valuation.
Now suddenly a vague, intangible element invaded that secluded backwater in which her life had been passed; a mischievous, disturbing imp of unrest and criticism was troubling her. It was opening her mental vision and removing the carefully adjusted blinkers she had worn under Mrs. Barford’s tutelage. It was suggesting a search for deeper knowledge, a wider experience and a broader field for emotion.
The sheltered life of the moneyed, refined Englishwoman of birth suddenly palled upon her. The tameness of it seemed artificial and unnatural. She was the cow in the fenced meadow looking over the hedge towards the wilds of mountain and valley, of forest and common, with a dawning consciousness that they held something more than was to be found in the secluded meadow.
This imp of unrest pointed the finger of sharp criticism at the man by her side. Rupert, with his neat and perfectly appointed figure, his precise manners, his love of detail, got on her nerves for the first time in their courtship. She became aware that he was speaking, and compunction took violent hold upon her. She turned and looked at him. He was regarding the lawn with disapproval.
“Is that gardener of yours employed regularly here?” he asked.
“He is the usual suburban jobbing man. He comes three days a week. We found him here.”
“Poor sort of a gardener! Look at those swathes in waves instead of being straight. I couldn’t stand such a man at the Grange.”
“We’ll get the right sort for ourselves by the spring. This man was engaged by the owner of the house and we couldn’t well dismiss him.”
“Will you make a note of it and inquire when you go down to see the Grange after the Mortons leave?”
“You really wish me to go?”
“Please, and if you’re not satisfied—if the place is untidy and neglected—you might dismiss the present gardener and engage another. The Mortons took him on; I am not bound to keep him.”
“I’m afraid I shan’t have authority.”
“H’m! You would have if you were my wife,” he marked.
Again Victoria was conscious of a tiny pin-prick of irritation. She had tried hard not to believe that his offer of an immediate marriage was made for his own sake rather than for hers, but she could not shut her eyes to it when he gave himself away for a third time. She let his last observation pass in silence. He followed his line of thought.
“Anyhow, I will tell the agents to carry out whatever suggestions you may think fit to make. Send the suggestions in writing and I will instruct them to take them as if from me.”
“When are you thinking of starting?” she asked presently.
“At the end of July. I hope to meet Fairoake in December or the beginning of January. We shall go to his district, Arukahd, and I shall complete my business in a few days. I shall sell the property if they offer me a fair price. Then I must leave India and come home by the usual route. I don’t think I can do Japan. I shall not have time, as I hope to be home by February the fifteenth. What about getting married soon after that date—if you won’t have it now?”
He looked for a sign of gratified approval to the amended plan that he had sprung upon her.
“The end of February will suit me admirably,” she replied dully.
February of next year seemed a long way off, and it was easier to discuss plans of the future than those of the present. Marriage regarded from a distance did not create the mental disturbance that pervaded the question when it was proposed immediately.
Her eyes rested on him as he leaned back in the lawn lounge and continued to criticise the uneven markings of the badly guided machine over the velvet green.
“It was just in the very centre that the idiot swerved,” he said. “And then he hadn’t sense enough to correct his line. He must have seen it.”
Victoria rose abruptly. The complacent manner in which he was arranging for their marriage, considering the preservation of his property through her good will and service, and criticising the cutting of the grass, drove her desperate. Her nerves were on edge and she felt that she could bear it no longer. She was as much irritated with herself for being angry as she was with her lover.
“I’ll go and see about tea,” she said. “The wind is just a little too cold for Aunt Ann to sit out of doors. We’ll have it in the drawing-room.”
Shelford pulled up a cushion behind his back and resettled himself into a more comfortable position. He was quite content that Victoria should go about the housewifely duty of superintending the preparation of tea. His eyes followed her as she walked towards the house. She was good to look at. No uneven swathes about her! No flaw in manner nor bearing—a fitting mistress for the Grange.
He could not imagine Victoria disorganised mentally by temper; nor did she seem in the least likely to lose her presence of mind in any crisis. Storms were not in her line any more than they were in his. Under any circumstances she would retain her grace and her self-possession. She would take the contretemps of life as he did, and get things altered to her taste without fuss or fluster, and always with restraint and good breeding.
Voices sounded in the veranda. He glanced towards the house. Victoria was returning at once with two callers, one on each side of her. As they moved towards the spot where he was sitting, they made her the objective of a duet.
“You see, old dear! We found you out at last!” said Susie Graham.
“And we’ve motored down to have tea with you,” added Beattie.
“Gave up an engagement to do it.”
“And left the mum to spread herself out in excuses.”
“We told her to say we had measles or the pip.”
“So glad to see you,” said Victoria. “I shall be able to introduce you to Mr. Shelford.”
Rupert slowly lifted himself from his seat and stood before them, smiling and composed. They thrust out small gloved hands at him. He looked from one to the other in momentary doubt.
“Me first; I’m the eldest,” said Susie.
“By two hours only; we’re twins,” said Beattie.
“You wouldn’t know us apart except for our colours.”
“Mine is pink or mauve—must have an alternative to relieve the monotony. I’m Susie Graham.”
“Mine is blue or green; I’m Beattie.”
“We’ve left yellow and black for the mum.”
He gazed from one to the other in amusement. At the same time he made a mental note of their distinguishing colours. Suddenly a thought struck them. It seemed to come to both simultaneously, as was often the case with the sisters.
“Are you the man who is to marry Ria?” asked Susie.
“I hope I am,” he replied.
“Good for you!” remarked Beattie.
“We were afraid it was to be the other,” said Susie.
“Which other? “asked Rupert.
“They mean Mr. Fairoake,” explained Victoria. “He was with me at the Stores one day when we met.”
“Why do you say ‘Good for you!’ about me?” asked Rupert with curiosity.
“You look better tempered than he did,” said Beattie.
“We think that most men are like fires,” remarked Susie.
“Some want stirring to make them burn.”
“And some want feeding with the best coal.”
“And some want letting alone or they will flare up and go out.”
“Which sort am I?” asked Rupert as soon as he could get a word in.
“You’re the sort that has been properly laid and lighted; a well made drawing-room fire,” said Susie, looking him over as if he were a specimen of the human race brought for their inspection.
“No need to take the poker to you!”
“Or put anything but the very best coal on.”
“And Fairoake, the man you saw at the Stores?” asked Rupert.
“Sparks! spittings! flarings! cracklings! A back garden bonfire!” said Susie.
“Might need a bucket of cold water sometimes to cool him down a bit and to keep him from burning up more than the rubbish,” added Beattie.
Rupert laughed with appreciation of the apt criticism on his friend.
“You’ve hit it to a tee. You should hear him on the subject of India and our policy out there!” he said.
“India! Oh! I do so want to see India!” said Susie.
“We mean to see it before we die,” said Beattie.
“And before long, too; the whole lot—Ceylon, New Zealand, Australia.”
“And tons more.”
“When are you going?” asked Rupert, as Beattie put in the final clause about the tons.
“We are starting next week,” replied Susie.
“With the mum, of course,” added Beattie.
“Garbed in black and yellow?” inquired Victoria. Without waiting for a reply she continued: “Come to the house and have some tea, you ridiculous young chatterpies!”
She led the way to the long French window of the drawing-room.
“I am going to India and Australia and the rest of them,” said Rupert as he strolled after Victoria with a twin on either side.
“Oh! great! With us?” asked both at once.
“I’m leaving in three weeks’ time; when are you off?” he answered.
“Bad business this time,” said Susie; her sister always allowed her the first innings as her birthright. “We’re off in a few days.”
“All the same we may meet, we are all going over the same ground,” said Rupert by way of consolation.
“Hope so!” “Sure to!” said the sisters.
“We’ll make it so and arrange to meet somewhere,” said Rupert.
“Good, old dear!” “First rate, old sport!”
“Ria! your best boy is going to join us in Melbourne or Colombo,” called Susie to Victoria in front.
“Say good-bye to the darling when he leaves you,” said Susie.
“Because if he turns out decent we shall certainly keep him,” said Beattie.
“And divide him between us!”
“You’re quite welcome! Sugar, Susie? Milk, Beattie?”
And Victoria stopped the phone and antiphone with sweet tea and cream cakes.
Five months passed; five long months. Three of them were uneventful and very quiet for Victoria. The last two were full of incidents that changed the whole course of her life.
After Rupert left England for his last flight of bachelor liberty, existence for Victoria was made up of a routine that had Mrs. Barford’s health and amusement as its centre. The quiet household with its efficient staff of servants moved on silent wheels, passing from day to day without any of those jarring occurrences that raise a chorus of complaint and an aftermath of discontent.
The twins departed with their mother before Rupert left. They did not appear at the house in Richmond again. Victoria received an effusive letter, a joint production. The first part was written by Susie; the second by Beattie. They promised—unasked—that they would look after Mr. Shelford and give him the time of his life. They spoke of him as an old dear and a scrumptious darling. She really must not be surprised if they appropriated him. As he was not divisible into two, they proposed to marry him to the mum, who was not a bad sort, and so retain him permanently in the family.
They wrote in fun and Victoria understood. They had no designs upon her lover. Their light words of chaff, however, brought Victoria up against the fact that lovers might possibly be stolen. She faced it with the growing conviction that she would not grieve if Rupert were stolen.
When she forsook Mrs. Barford in February of the following year, she would be exchanging one gilded cage for another. Once she had ventured to suggest to her aunt that the marriage would mean too great a sacrifice for the invalid, but she was silenced.
“Dearest and best of daughters to a lonely, childless old woman! let me have the gratification of seeing you married to a good man before I die!”
After this Victoria said no more, but let matters move on unopposed to the end. And that end would be, that her attention, instead of being concentrated on an invalid, would be transferred to the companionship and consideration of a precise and well-regulated husband.
On the one hand he would be in sound health, able-bodied and mixing with the society he affected. This would rescue her from the atmosphere of invalidism in which she had lived for the last two or three years.
On the other hand he might be more exacting than the gentle, patient aunt and less grateful. Mrs. Barford demanded no society duty from her. Rupert might require a good deal of that kind of service. Victoria was capable of rendering it; but now and then, as she thought of it, her heart misgave her. Might not a social life in the depths of the country prove stagnant, selfish and unprofitable?
The life she was leading now might be quiet to dullness, but it was neither unprofitable nor selfish. It was a daily service of love with an appreciable amount of self-sacrifice to make her conscious that she was living for another and not for herself; she was of some use to a fellow-creature who needed her.
Her married life would be a service in a way, and there might be a certain amount of unselfishness about it; but beyond gratifying a man who was self-centred and virtually an idler, she could not discover that her life or his at the Grange would benefit a single creature.
She thought of those chance words of the babbling twins. Men were like fires. There was some truth in it. Rupert would need nothing more than the periodical attention given to a drawing-room fire. From this she went to the other extreme, the bonfire; it was confined by no conventional grate and burned as it would.
The girls had likened Brian Fairoake to a bonfire. They knew nothing of his character and had spoken at random; but they were not far wrong. With his fierce likes and dislikes, he seemed to be sending out flames that might devour and annihilate. The sudden and unexpected bursts now on this side, now on that, as fresh fuel was pitchforked on to the glowing ashes, produced spittings, flarings, cracklings and smoke.
One morning in August the maid whose business it was to take Mrs. Barford her early tea came to Victoria with fear in her eyes.
“The mistress! she has fainted! I cannot wake her!”
It was more than a faint. She was dead. She had passed away in her sleep without pain or distress. The doctor pronounced it to be the result of a weak heart left by her repeated attacks of influenza, a common thing with ladies of her age.
Victoria did her best to reconcile herself to the inevitable, but she felt strangely empty-handed with no Aunt Ann to consider; no invalid to cater for, to cheer and amuse; nothing to do but live for herself. Hitherto she had lived for Mrs. Barford. It was impossible to adopt a new object all at once and that object her own self.
Mrs. Barford’s entire fortune came to her niece, and Victoria found herself with almost more money than she knew what to do with, now that only her own needs had to be provided for. She had no extravagant tastes and had never been accustomed to opulent luxury. Comfort in suitable dress and appropriate surroundings were a necessity to one brought up as she had been. Fate did not ask her to forgo these, nor to work for them. She was free from all financial anxiety. The necessities of her life would come as they had come from her childhood’s days, naturally and as a matter of course; the future was provided for.
The house at Richmond was given up as soon as possible; the other in London was let furnished. Victoria felt that she could not remain alone in the old home where she had spent a happy childhood. It would only keep her grief alive with all its memories and create a melancholy atmosphere.
She moved into a part of London that was not associated in any way with her aunt. From her windows she could see the river and its unceasing traffic on the waterway, and hear the whistle of the steam-tugs and the sirens at the various Thames-side wharves. Her new London world helped to bury the recollection of the quiet square with its groups of trees. She could do nothing more than provide for her daily existence until she could hear from Rupert. Before leaving England he had suggested an earlier marriage than they had at first agreed upon. He might on receipt of her news cut short his trip and come home sooner than he had intended.
Rupert did not delay his answer. He cabled to the effect that he would carry out his tour as it was first arranged; it was imperative that he should see his estate in India. This he could not do till January, as his host, Fairoake, would be out in the district till the third week in December.
So, then, this meant that she would not have to be planted down at the Grange just at present. At the bottom of her heart she was glad, very glad.
Then occurred an incident that changed the aspect of the immediate future entirely. Victoria’s father, whose letters had at all times been short and devoid of personal news, wrote warmly and sympathetically, as he had never done before. The letter awoke the filial instinct and appealed to a heart that was sore and empty from its loss. It seemed to draw her out of a backwater.
“Come to India,” he said. “Come to us, child. I want you. You are my only chick. Come and see your old dad and learn something of his life out here. Mims and I will give you a good time—the best you have ever had.”
Almina, her stepmother, known to all her friends and acquaintances by the shortened form of “Mims,” added a postscript:
“Yes! come on, Victoria! We will give you the time of your life, old thing!”
This invitation reached her by the end of October. In a fortnight’s time she was on board a big liner bound for Bombay. She could scarcely believe her senses, so quickly had her plans been made. She was carried along on the wave of events—shopping in a whirl; paying farewell visits to two or three old friends of her aunt; and then gliding down the Channel, her eyes lingering on the pearly grey cliffs of the south coast.
She was leaving without regret. Rupert would be in the East almost as soon as herself. Her father and her stepmother, her only relatives now that Mrs. Barford was gone, were there.
At Arukahd, her father’s station, she would find Anwar-u-din. His head-quarters were at Kondagiri, not many miles distant. Then there was Fairoake.
She was not afraid of admitting to herself that it would be a pleasure to meet Fairoake again, even as it would be a pleasure to see Anwar. Fairoake left her in June. As he held her hand in a close grip, to which her own firm fingers responded, he spoke of a meeting in the distant future at the Grange, where, by that time, she would be settled with Shelford. He himself would be home again on leave and he would unfailingly pay them a visit.
At the time he spoke it sounded a natural sequence of events which nothing could upset, and she had responded warmly. Shelford had endorsed the promise of a welcome and identified himself with her in so doing. It had been the secret thrusting of a knife into the heart of the hot-tempered man, who against his better judgment had cultivated his friendship with a woman whom he knew that in the ordinary course of events he could not possibly hope to marry. Victoria half guessed at the possibilities which both were too honourable to formulate even in their thoughts, but she did not know the strength and depth of that mysterious force of attraction that neither could hinder nor avoid.
By this twisting of the thread of life, produced by her father’s invitation, the meeting to which they both vaguely looked forward to, when Victoria would be another man’s wife, was materialising much sooner than either had anticipated, and under entirely different circumstances. She would still be Victoria Wargrave, and neither she nor Fairoake would have formed ties that robbed them of their independence or freedom. The ties on her side were tightening, but the irrevocable step had not been taken. As she realised this fact, a thrill of elation passed through her which filled her with a strange disquiet.
The mail train from Bombay to Madras drew near the big central station. For many miles the country through which Victoria had been passing was a dead level expanse marked by palm groves, patches of cultivation and rocky waste ground where the buffalo and goat wandered at will among the thorn and cactus, cropping the new blades of grass that had sprung up after the November rains.
The sun set in a red glowing sky. Over a range of low purple hills to the south hung clouds piled together, their round heads taking red and gold tints from the sun. After the sun passed below the horizon the grey masses were streaked with thin threads of lightning.
Darkness came on with the usual swiftness. The lights of the carriage in which she had spent nearly thirty-six hours burned dimly. Her journey was nearly at an end. Although the heat had not been overpowering, the dust had made its presence felt. She was relieved to think that it would not be necessary to pass another night in the gritty atmosphere of the railway carriage.
Before the train reached the station the short twilight had merged into purple darkness. Victoria, feeling the pace slacken considerably, began to gather together the little articles of travel that she had needed on the way.
As the train stopped, the Mohammedan servant she had engaged at Bombay entered the compartment. She had taken him by the advice of the agent who had met her on board ship and arranged for her departure by the mail. Cassim spoke English and had been with various employers all over India. Middle-aged, silent and keen-eyed, he pleased his new mistress, who found him useful and attentive from the very hour he had entered her service. He quickly completed her preparation for leaving the carriage.
The roar of the train in motion was nothing compared with the noise that met Victoria’s ears as soon as it ceased moving. The harsh voices of what appeared to be a wildly excited crowd of brown people was a babel such as she had never heard before. It had been bad enough at Bombay, but there the crowd had more space and the people seemed under more restraint.
Some of the Indians at the Madras station were clothed in white draperies. A few had red or white turbans. The greater number were naked to the waist and barelegged below the small cloth that covered the loins.
She glanced out of the carriage doorway, aghast at the thought of having to push her way through such a crowd.
She looked up and down the platform from the step in search of her father. The station was a glare of electric light that should have helped her to discover him if he had been there. She supposed that he had not been able to come to the station.
“Can you get me a cab, Cassim? “ she asked.
“Yes, lady. It will be best if Madame will take a cab.” Cassim had never given her the title of missie, usual among Madras servants in addressing an English girl who was unmarried. “If Madame will leave me to collect the luggage, it is possible to start at once and drive straight to the hotel where his honour the Judge is staying.”
Victoria was about to step down to the level of the platform, Cassim following with her hand luggage, when the shouts of a noisy party approaching warned her to wait. She drew back into the carriage and sat down. Cassim remained on guard in the doorway. Through the deeply shaded window she caught sight of a group of Englishmen and women as they passed.
They were in possession of a platform luggage lorry that was propelled by electricity. It was being driven by an Englishman, one of the party, who was not in the service of the railway company. Immediately behind him and perched on a deal case were two or three girls. Behind the girls and clutching their shoulders unsteadily stood three more Englishmen. The men had adopted ties of fuchsia colour. The tint was repeated in the stockings of the ladies.
The driving was erratic and too fast for the safety of the many travellers leaving the train. It was evident that the driver was new to his work, although he might easily have been an experienced hand with a road car.
As the lorry lurched from side to side, threatening to charge first the standing carriages and then the wall of the rather narrow platform, the figures on it swayed perilously this way and that. The girls screamed with laughter and shrieked with excitement.
The party disappeared up the platform with a continuous chorus of screams and laughter. The native crowd closed in and hid them from view. The porters resumed their work.
The scene jarred on Victoria’s nerves. In any spot, England or elsewhere, it would have savoured of unseemliness in her eyes. She hated herself when she felt she was bordering on the priggishness which she was beginning to believe was her besetting sin, but she was not inclined to accuse herself of prudery when she condemned the display that had occurred just in front of the carriage window.
She glanced at her servant. His face was immovable and without expression. It was impossible to guess from it if he, like the railway coolies, had found the scene humorous. She was inclined to believe that with herself he considered it indecorous for the sahibs of the ruling race—if it could still be called such—to disport themselves in this manner in public places. This was nothing like the India she had expected to find. He caught her eye as she looked towards him and he responded at once.
“It is a good time to go now, Madame, before the lorry returns.”
She stepped down once more on to the platform and was engulfed in a sea of brown humanity. The tall figure of Cassim thrust a way for her through the throng, firmly but without violence. She followed him closely and found herself at the exit.
A taxi was called up and Victoria stepped into it. She was glad to be out of the crowd; not that she had been jostled—it was the close proximity to the naked brown flesh that disturbed her. She had not arrived at the knowledge that a clean, smooth brown skin is preferable to dusty, travel-worn garments that should long ago have been sent to the dhobi.
Cassim gave the driver, an Indian, directions and the cab moved away. From the large station yard that was full of vehicles of all kinds, it passed into the road which was lighted by electric lights. It was too dark to distinguish the features of the landscape. By the light of the cab’s moons she could see trees by the roadside and stretches of grass. Then they entered a wide road that was full of traffic. She heard the clang of the tram gongs and the honk! honk! of motor horns. Mingled with these familiar sounds was the shout of the bullock driver with his country cart. The high-wheeled cart with its narrow hood of dried palm-leaf was lighted with a single glimmering oil lantern which swung beneath it—a strange contrast to the last word in road vehicles, displaying dazzling electric moons that left a blackness behind as confusing as the light.
The cab turned in at an open gateway and drew up under a portico. It was brilliantly lighted, and several servants stood about with ears alert for their various masters’ call. One of the men belonging to the hotel came forward.
“Is Mr. Wargrave in?” she inquired.
Yes, he was in his room. She inquired for Mrs. Wargrave. Madam was out, but she would be back before long.
Victoria stepped down from the cab, paid the man, and walked into the hall, where she was taken possession of by a resplendent peon in a black and yellow uniform. He was the Judge’s servant and he piloted her to the lift. They ascended together and he conducted her to a suite of rooms opened to the evening sea breeze.
Her father was seated close to a tall standard lamp and he was studying the evening paper. It was several years since she had seen him; and it was with a small thrill of apprehension that she gazed at the man before her. Would she see a change? Would old age have laid its mark upon the tall, gallant figure that she had worshipped as a child?
So absorbed was he in what he read that he did not observe the presence of a visitor. The peon advanced and spoke. He was a Tamil and he used the customary English of the South Indian domestic.
“Sir! the missie has done come. She is asking for your honour.”
Wargrave bounded to his feet, surprised and full of a sudden, joyous expectation that banished all thought of the serious news he was gathering from the paper. There were no age limitations in the vigorous upspringing from his chair. His hair had greyed, but the figure was spare and as lithe and erect as she remembered it. The apprehension passed. She was reassured. He was the same dear father, the identical daddy from whom she had so sadly parted when her hair hung down her back.
“Victoria! welcome, dear! How nice to see you again!” he cried as he advanced quickly towards her.
He turned to the peon with an order to bring up a second chair and place it close to his own. She took it and he slowly seated himself again, his eyes devouring her with strange newly-awakened memories, roused by her likeness to her dead mother. He was thrown back into a world long since buried and overlaid with new ties and a new personality. As Victoria smiled at him, the wife of his youth seemed there, linking father and daughter in an exclusive bond that no other could enter.
“Where is—is——?” asked Victoria.
He understood to whom she alluded and raised a long, slim hand as if in warning.
“Mims, your stepmother? She wishes you to call her Mims. We—you and I—are not to mention the word mother. I’ve been solemnly warned and I pass it on to you.”
“I am glad she doesn’t want me to call her mother. The servant said that she was not in.”
“Didn’t you see her at the station? She went off early in the car and should have been there in good time. She was going round by the camp to leave a message at the mess. Your train was not before its time, was it?”
“Five minutes late. I feel sure she was not at the station. But you forget! I have never seen her.”
“No more you have! How odd!”
“What is she like?”
“Tiny, never still—an electric eel, I call her. She will be delighted to take you about and show you the ropes. She means to give you a very good time.”
“That’s kind of her, but I don’t want taking about dad. I’m out of my teens, remember, and I am still in mourning.”
“How long is it since Ann died?”
“Four months. I miss her; she was very dependent on me latterly. What I want is an occasional quiet time with you.”
“And you shall have it, my dear! you shall have it! We’ll begin right now, as the ‘Amurricans’ say. I want to know all about your Aunt Ann if you can bear to talk about her. She was a mother to my dear wife, who was devoted to her.”
He put up his hand and pulled down the shade so that it covered the bulb of the electric light by which he had been reading. The glare was reduced to a pleasant semi-darkness that was cool and restful after the racket of the train. Through the wide French window leading into the veranda came the sound of the night wind as it swept across the fronds of the palms outside and rustled the leaves of the neem trees.
Away in the broad, dusty Mount Road the trams rumbled and clanged their gongs. Brilliantly lighted motor-cars shot up and down the road like erratic comets. The ubiquitous and imperturbable bullock driver maintained his course by the side of the road, indifferent to shouts and horns and warnings of collisions. It was the new West running in a channel side by side with the old East—two rivers in one bed that could not mingle their waters.
Twenty minutes passed quickly, during which Wargrave was carried back into a past that he had believed closed. Victoria had her mother’s low tones and even speech. Her movements were free from the restlessness that had caused her father to liken his second wife to an electric eel.
As he listened he felt the spell of other days and another life, when an unknown future faced him with its hopes and fears. The fulfilment of the hope had come, but with developments entirely different from those anticipated. And the woman who had so confidently looked forward to sharing his successes was gone. She had vanished out of his life never, as he thought, to return. A miracle had happened. She had come back, and now sat looking at him with warm sympathy out of his daughter’s eyes, speaking to him in his daughter’s voice. His dream was abruptly dispersed by the sound of voices.
A party of young people poured out of the lift and approached the sitting-room. Some of them were hanging back with protestations that they really must not intrude; it was time for them to be getting back to their quarters. A voice Victoria seemed to recognise in its shrill laugh hurried them forward.
“Come along, boys! I tell you it is a bit of all right! She’s a sport; I know she is! Hurry up, dear lambs!”
Wargrave sat up in the lounge with a comical expression of dismay at this sudden recall from the things of the past to the events of the present.
“Mims and her crew!” he said in a low voice, with a glance at his daughter that held something apologetic in it.
Before Victoria could respond, a little figure, dressed like a manikin in the very latest fashion, rushed forward and clasped in her arms as much of Victoria’s tall figure as she could reach. The girl had a sense of being embraced by a Dutch doll built of wire instead of wood. A strong scent as of a powder-puff filled her nostrils almost to sneezing point; she found it difficult to resist the inclination to shake off the clinging creature as she would have shaken off a whirring grasshopper. Her father’s name of electric eel for the new stepmother was apt and appropriate. Mims seemed to be charged with electricity which shot hither and thither through the soft fluffiness of her powder-puff body.
“How did you manage to miss each other?” asked Wargrave after introductions had been made. Victoria was bewildered between the nicknames and surnames mentioned of the four lambs who had escorted Mims back to the hotel.
“We found the new luggage lorry working,” explained Mims. “We hoofed off the head porter, who couldn’t work it for nuts; and we loaded up with ourselves and two or three others. Then we scorched up to the end of the platform and nearly took a header on to the line.”
“I was driving, sir. No treat! I can assure you,” said one of the lambs called Jimmie.
“We were scared to death, you bet!” rejoined another lamb known as Budge. “Wonder he didn’t send us all west on the spot.”
“Only just stopped the bally machine in time,” said Jimmie, continuing his story and in no way offended at the criticisms passed on his handling of the lorry. “I brought her up against a pile of luggage. Had to do something. Couldn’t find the gadget that put the brake on.”
“And he calls himself an expert chauffeur! Where does the blooming old bat expect to go to!” asked the third lamb.
“I nearly fell off half-way up the platform,” said Mims. “Darling Nood” (presumably short for Noodle) “grabbed me by the arm and saved me.” She indicated a fourth lamb conspicuous for his fuchsia-coloured tie and socks.
Victoria glanced at her stepmother’s legs. Enough stocking was visible to display the affinity to the fuchsia tie worn by Nood. The scene came back to her mind that she had witnessed at the station and she felt the blood in her veins tingle.
Yet Wargrave was in no way disturbed by the accounts given of the doings of these featherheads. On the contrary he appeared to be highly amused. If he did not object, why should she, Victoria, take exception to such behaviour? The thought disturbed her. It would never do for her to quarrel with the atmosphere of her father’s house if it was in accordance with what he wished. She glanced at him. Already his attention was wandering from the history of the lambs’ doings, which was being given to him in the up-to-date phraseology used by Mims and her satellites. He was leaning back in his chair, the paper, retrieved from the ground where it had fallen, was lying across his knee. He had turned up the shade of the lamp so as to get the benefit of the light. His thoughts had come back from the past and were focused upon certain bits of news contained in the night’s paper.
He sighed. The quiet chat he had enjoyed so much with Victoria before his wife’s return was at an end. He could not hope for a continuation of it as long as Mims was fluttering about. If he could read in peace and quiet he might master the facts which would assuredly be discussed by the men after the table d’hôte dinner that evening. Trouble was in the air, but so far it had not come to a head. One of the danger spots was Arukahd itself, his own station. A judgment he had lately given was held up as prejudiced and unjust towards the Indian whom he had condemned and sentenced. The paper contained a leading article on that judgment, and it was only natural that he should be curious to see what was said and if the Press upheld him.
As a man Wargrave was the best tempered and most peaceable individual in the Presidency. As a judge he was rigid and just. Some people called him severe. The criminal feared him; the injured confidently looked for justice and protection and received it. He, therefore, had his friends and his enemies.
Victoria’s eyes rested on her father. She was curious to see how he would get rid of the party that had invaded his privacy. He was actually smiling indulgently at his electric eel and was enjoying the embarrassment of the lamb dubbed “Darling Nood.”
Mims was observant where her husband was concerned. She glanced from him to Victoria and summed up the situation. He wanted to be alone; his daughter was not in sympathy with her own friends—at present. Whether she would ever be, it was impossible to say. She prepared to clear away the buzzing company that she had brought along in her train.
“Now, children, run away, dears! See you all again later,” she said turning to the boys, who dutifully echoed a chorus of “Good-bye, sir,” to Wargrave.
“Hope the railway company will not send me in a bill for damages to their new luggage lorry,” Wargrave said, addressing the particular lamb called Jimmie.
“I don’t think they will, sir,” replied Jimmie confidently. “I handed the old bus over to the head porter in good going condition and there ought not to be any complaint.”
“And I gave him a five-rupee note,” added Nood, whose privilege it was to be cashier and banker for the wild bloods of his party, he being the one among them endowed with the most money.
“Ah! that’s paved the way for peace, no doubt!” remarked the Judge. “Although the principle is entirely immoral,” he added as an afterthought.
Mrs. Wargrave, with a quick comprehensive glance at her husband, once more attacked her body-guard with a view to effecting their retirement.
“Shooh! shooh! shooh! all of you, scoot! See you again, my blessed ones, at the club ball. You’re coming, Victoria?”
“Not to-night, please. I’m too tired after my long journey.”
“Oh! Miss Wargrave!” protested the lambs together. “We’ve all kept dances for you! Rotten luck for us!”
“Never mind, dears!” consoled Mims. “Plenty more balls to come, and if you’re good boys she’ll give you tons of dances and show you the latest trot.”
She extended her arms as if to gather her flock together, and she drove the four of them ruthlessly to the lift. There each kissed the back of his hand and waved the saluted hand towards Mims, who stretched out her own hands in blessings. As the lift dropped out of sight she turned to Victoria, who had followed.
“Darlings, aren’t they?”
“Who are they?”
“Army, from the camp. Now come and see your room. Then you must dress for dinner.”
Mims hurried her down a corridor on the same floor and led her into a large bedroom. Beyond the bedroom was a sitting-dressing-room luxuriously furnished. At the back was a bathroom for her own use. It all appeared most comfortable and inviting.
Cassim had arrived with her luggage, which he had disposed of round the big bedroom. A plump, smiling ayah salaamed low.
“I have engaged an ayah for Madame. If she does not give satisfaction, Madame will complain and I will find another.”
Mims regarded the tall Mohammedan with approval.
“You were wise to engage a man of that sort. Knows his work, I’m sure. The Madras servant is almost extinct. Got a set of village idiots who are the limit! I must be off. Dinner is at eight.”
Victoria dressed for dinner and went to her father’s sitting-room. He was ready, but was waiting for his wife. Victoria noticed that his face wore an expression of resignation that was peculiarly free from impatience. It denoted habitual endurance; it sent a stab of commiseration through her heart.
Mims was rarely in time for an appointment, however important it might be. She knew how to gauge the patience of her victims to a nicety. At the critical point of its exhaustion she appeared, never apologetic, always smiling as though confident that she would receive no reproof.
Just as Wargrave was making up his mind to wait no longer she entered. She wore a shimmering, glittering costume that a short-sighted person might possibly have mistaken for a sheath dress of the nature of tights. Her curious gliding motion when she moved reminded Victoria of an eel, and the shining drapery lent force to the likeness.
The visitors had assembled and taken their seats. Most of the tables were occupied. Servants were busy, attending on their respective masters, bringing in plates of soup.
Many eyes were turned upon the trio as they entered. Mims was known, personally or by reputation, to the whole company. She was always more or less of a surprise either in dress or in the latest eccentricity that her ingenuity could devise. If it was not in the fashion of her garments, as was the case this evening, it was some object of a freakish nature that she had picked up which drew all eyes upon her.
The second evening after her arrival at the hotel she appeared with a huge bunch of toy balloons. Under the breezes of the electric punkah wheels the balloons became apparently unmanageable. They floated hither and thither, gently colliding with guests and servants, and bobbing up and down on the dinner tables. As was the case this evening, she was just a little late in arriving and the tables were set with the soup plates. The balloons dropped into the soup.
In a sudden panic she threw down the tangled threads by which she had insecurely held them, and they floated away trailing their threads behind them. The servants, far more disturbed than the company, made frantic efforts to catch the delicate toys, whilst the guests were convulsed with laughter.
“I’m so sorry!” she said penitently as her husband glanced at her in reproof. “I forgot all about the fans.” Wargrave could not help joining in the laughter as he watched the antics of the Hindu waiters. Instead of attending to the wants of their masters they pranced about as if a dozen tarantulas had been let loose among their naked feet.
Another evening she arrived late as usual and just as the first course was being served; she carried an enormous Japanese umbrella of gorgeous colouring. It was open, and she twirled it slowly as it rested on her shoulder.
It proved, as in the former case, confusing to the servants. Their behaviour brought smiles or frowns to the faces of the diners according to their sense of humour or annoyance. Constant collisions occurred between the umbrella and the men who had to pass round her chair to hand the dishes or remove the plates.
“I’m so sorry to be in the way, but my eyes are weak and the electric light——” began Mims with a childish penitence that no one could resist.
The sentence was not finished. In shifting the umbrella to the other shoulder one of the waiters lost his turban. In his haste to retrieve it, he dropped the dish of potatoes he was carrying.
Wargrave thought it was about time for him to interfere. He rose with his imperturbable smile and quietly took the umbrella from his wife’s unresisting hand, furled it and gave it to his servant to carry to his sitting-room.
“Oh! dear!” cried Mims with an apologetic glance round that seemed to take in everybody and oblige the company to exonerate her from all blame. “It was too big for me to manage all by my little self.”
On this night of Victoria’s first appearance Mims was contented with her new stepdaughter as a point of attraction. No greater contrast could be found than that which existed between herself and the girl robed in a black frock cut in the latest fashion: at the same time a marvel of restraint and smartness combined. Mims recognised the up-to-date smartness and the refined dignity of Victoria’s dress and envied neither. It pleased her to be conscious that her own was more youthful than Victoria’s. She who, by all the rules of matronhood, should be wearing sober shades of colour was glittering in the drapery of a debutante.
The small tables in the dining-saloon were laid for four, and most of them were filled. It was only here and there that a vacant place was to be found. At Wargrave’s table a fourth chair was unoccupied.
Just as the Judge with his wife and daughter took their seats, a late arrival entered the room. He glanced round in search of a chair that was not already appropriated.
The head steward regarded him in doubt. It was for the steward to accommodate the stranger; and to do so with as little delay as possible, if he had any regard for the good name of the hotel. He searched the tables anxiously, revolving in his mind which of all the parties would least resent the introduction of the stranger who was not an Englishman.
While he hesitated, Victoria rose abruptly. She pushed her chair back and started forward with both hands extended in warm greeting. The colour deepened in her cheeks under the surprise and pleasure of the moment, and her eyes shone.
“Deen! Deen! This is luck indeed!” she cried in her clear intonation, joy ringing through her words.
A corresponding light of happiness crept into the face of the Mohammedan as he took her hands and held them in the close grip of confident friendship.
“Little sister! why, what brings you here? I thought you were with Mrs. Barford in London.”
She glanced down at her black dress, and her eyes held a suspicion of unshed tears. He understood.
“How long ago?” he asked.
“Four months. It was rather sudden.”
“Poor little sister!”
She withdrew her hands from his lingering grasp and took refuge in a hasty solicitation for his comfort.
“Have you a seat?” she asked.
“I only arrived half an hour ago with barely time to dress.”
“Then come to my father’s table. There’s a vacant seat. I will introduce you.”
“No need for that. The Judge and I are known to each other.”
She slipped her hand in his arm and led him towards her father with a friendliness that spoke of a long-established acquaintance.
Wargrave had risen from his chair and was watching his daughter with eyes that betrayed surprise. There was no annoyance in his grave regard. He was habitually self-restrained. A curious hush fell upon the diners. People did not stare; they were too well-bred a crowd to be guilty of bad manners; but their perceptions were quickened, and their attention suddenly concentrated on the little group. They unconsciously waited for the development of the situation. At any moment it might be acute, and within the bounds of possibility, tragic.
Every man and woman present except Victoria was aware that just a fortnight ago Judge Wargrave had passed a sentence of two years’ imprisonment on the son of Anwar’s uncle. The crime was manslaughter.
In a fit of ungovernable anger the passionate young man had beaten his syce severely. He had no intention of killing him. His only thought was to make him suffer, as the valuable Arab mare under the syce’s care had suffered from gross neglect.
A ruptured spleen had brought about the syce’s death, and the cause of the rupture was the beating. The man’s disastrous neglect of his charge was considered by his master’s family ample excuse for the thrashing. The villain only got what he thoroughly deserved. That he died under it was in their opinion his misfortune, his fate—caused by his own misdoing.
This was not the view taken by the Judge. The offence was not only proved, but readily admitted with the instinctive autocracy of the Oriental ruler. It was brought in as manslaughter, and the Judge pronounced the sentence accordingly.
It was not severe. Had the culprit been anyone but the relative of a prominent Indian of good birth nothing more might have been heard of it. But these were unrestful days, and India after the Great War was seething with disloyalty. Established law and order were resented, and there was an outcry over the case among the Mohammedans. The Indian Press took it up. The extreme party openly denounced the judgment as an act aimed generally against the Moslem race, and in particular against an Indian member of the service which in former days had been considered exclusively to belong to the Englishmen. In short, it was made the foundation of a hostile demonstration against the present constitution of the Indian Civil Service.
Although Wargrave and Anwar were stationed in the same district, they had not met since the case had been adjudicated. If the newspapers were to be believed, there existed ill-feeling between the two men. The Indian Press insisted that Anwar resented the judgment, and intended to let the Judge know of his attitude.
At the very moment of Victoria’s arrival her father was reading inflammatory extracts quoted by the chief English daily paper of the Madras Presidency. He regretted as he read that such thoughts should be ascribed either to himself or to the Mohammedan. He refused to believe that there was any resentment on the part of Anwar against the very moderate but just sentence he had pronounced.
Anwar showed a slight reluctance to accept Victoria’s invitation. His hesitation had nothing to do with the case in question. It arose solely from the diffidence he felt in joining an English family party without being invited by the head of the family. Victoria overruled his hesitation by pressure on his arm.
“I am afraid I shall be intruding,” he said in a low voice.
“Nonsense! Deen! Come along at once. I am sure you will be welcome. Father,” she said as she came up to Wargrave, “this is my old friend of whom I used to write sometimes. I am so pleased to meet him again. He will take this empty place at our table if you will invite him.”
“Delighted! Do sit down,” replied Wargrave with a ready smile that reassured Anwar if the words were not sufficient.
“How nice of you to join us,” said Mims, extending her hand and gazing up at him with eloquent eyes of welcome.
It gratified her to observe that by this time they were the centre of the company’s observation. She was never so happy as when she was provided with a stage and a large audience.
“Do take this chair,” said the Judge as he resumed his seat. “Of course we have heard of Miss Wargrave’s old friend, ‘Deen.’ It is our fault that we have not associated you with the Deen of her letters.”
The attention of the assembly reverted to the dishes which were being served. Curiosity was satisfied as the Wargrave party settled into their places and began to chat in friendly fashion. There would be no demonstration of enmity on the part of the Mohammedan against the man who had passed sentence on his cousin; and Wargrave showed no sign of stiffness in his manner towards Anwar.
Their curiosity was, however, not altogether dispelled. It was turned upon another point. The friendly greeting they had just witnessed between the Judge’s daughter and the Mohammedan Government servant spoke of old acquaintance bordering upon intimacy. Where had she met him? and how had she learned to know him sufficiently to take his arm in that manner?
Since all the unrest that had arisen since the end of the war, Englishmen had been more than ever shy of forming friendships with Indians, or of allowing the women of their family to befriend Indian men. No obstacle was put in the way of Englishwomen associating with Indian ladies; but exclusive friendships, such as appeared to exist between Anwar and Miss Wargrave, were not encouraged in these days. Possibly the Judge would have to point this out to his daughter and give her timely warning. His wife, with all her wayward eccentricities, would be of no use in guiding her stepdaughter; it was not in her line. He would be obliged to act for himself; he was quite capable of doing so in his own time, and he would see that the Mohammedan did not take advantage of Miss Wargrave’s ignorance.
Having settled so much in their minds, conversation became general. At the Wargraves’ table it was of the trifling character that ruled when Mims was present, inconsequent and shallow. But who could say what the shallowness hid where Mims herself was concerned?
Anwar, being a Mohammedan, had no caste prejudices to prevent him from enjoying the excellent dinner. He was dressed in European evening dress, his hair short, his moustache small, as was the fashion with Englishmen. There was absolutely nothing to mark him as different from a European but the olive complexion, which was very similar to that of a Spaniard in whose veins flows often Arab blood. In contrast with the dusky servants of South India present in the room in attendance on their masters, he seemed more nearly related to the English than to the Indian race.
Behind his chair stood Houssain, his Moslem servant, uniformed like the rest of the personal attendants in Eastern dress. As the man took up his position he exchanged a glance with Cassim, Victoria’s servant. It was the only sign given that the men were acquainted with each other. After this single glance they behaved as strangers who had never met. The rest of the servants, whether belonging to the hotel or to guests staying there, were of the south, mostly Hindus.
Wargrave’s geniality, which was quite genuine, met with ready response from Anwar, who was prepared to talk on any subject but the one on which a rupture of friendly relations might have been hung. Neither had Wargrave any desire to discuss the case.
The Judge, having acted according to his sense of justice, had the courage of his opinions. He was not prepared to hear any criticism or to listen to further pleading on behalf of the man who had incurred the penalty of the law. Sentiment was never allowed to enter a case that came before him; although mercy, where it did not interfere with justice, was not absent.
Anwar was equally anxious to avoid the subject. He had no excuse to offer for his cousin’s conduct; and his keen sense of rectitude convinced him that Wargrave had only done his duty.
Mims knew all about the manslaughter case, although she pretended to be childishly ignorant. Through her servants she learned the view taken of it by the Mohammedans. In one way she heard more than came to the ears of her husband. She was fully aware of the value of a friendship between the head of the family and her own family. In her insinuating way she held out the olive branch unobtrusively and drew Anwar into conversation that contained little flatteries which in her opinion could not fail to please any man.
Between Wargrave on one side, slightly anxious to show his friendliness, and his wife on the other, with her innate desire to sparkle and charm, Victoria was very silent throughout the dinner. There were questions she would have liked to ask. She and Anwar did not correspond, consequently she had had no news of him since they parted in London. She was not ignorant of his unwillingness to talk of himself and of his family affairs. She contented herself with the thought that, as they were staying under the same roof, she might have a chance of a chat later on.
“You have come to Madras for the Christmas holidays like the rest of us?” remarked Wargrave.
“That is so, sir.”
“And you will be at all the festivities?” asked Mims.
“If I am invited, Mrs. Wargrave.”
“Of course you will be invited; you are in the service. Can you dance?”
“I think Miss Wargrave can answer that question better than I can,” he replied, looking at Victoria. She smiled as she recalled the lessons she had given him and the happy dances they had had. Mims turned quickly to her.
“You have danced with him? Does he know the very latest?”
“You must find that out for yourself,” was the reply.
“Right-o!” Mims turned to Anwar. “Are you going to the ball at the club to-night?”
“I have only just arrived, and haven’t had time to leave my card anywhere; nor to write my name down at Government House; so I have received no invitations,” he replied.
“You must get busy to-morrow, and run round in your car. We must have you at all the shows,” Mims answered, as if the prospect of meeting her was for him the one object of his visit. This was Mims’s attitude towards most men.
“Do you know where Mr. Fairoake intends going for the recess?” asked Wargrave of Anwar.
“I know nothing for certain; I believe he will gravitate towards Madras like the rest of us.” Anwar turned to Victoria. “He will be surprised to hear that you have come out to India, unless, you have already told him.”
“I have not mentioned it to anyone in India——”
“Do you know Mr. Fairoake, Ria?” asked Mims, breaking into the conversation, which she never allowed to wander away from herself if she could help it. “Where did you meet him? How long have you known him?”
Victoria was ready to explain, but Mims gave her no opportunity of speaking. She ran on without waiting for answers to her inconsequent catechising.
“I am interested. He is a human cocoanut with a hard, tough shell, and who knows what is inside? I don’t. He scares me stiff. Even his back hair frightens me. As for his eyes, they look at me as if they were saying that I was a mischievous little monkey.”
“Probably he thinks you are one,” remarked Wargrave, with a smile.
“He will turn me into one some day. I shall seize him and shake him. I don’t like cocoanuts unless they are green and soft.”
Wargrave laughed; his wife’s babble amused him. He turned to his daughter.
“Could you make anything of him, Victoria? Perhaps you did not see him often enough to take his measure.”
Victoria remembered her drives in the little two-seater and other occasions when she had ample opportunity for taking his measure as her father called it. She was not obliged to give precious memories away, however; and she answered vaguely that she had met him now and then. Mims sat up at attention.
“Did you like him?” she asked quickly, giving her stepdaughter a swift glance, short but keen.
“As Rupert’s friend, yes; decidedly,” she answered with studied deliberation that eliminated every trace of enthusiasm from her words.
“Ah!” breathed Mims, her curiosity fading into indifference. “I forgot Rupert Shelford.”
“My fault! I am afraid I have said too little about him.”
“You are engaged?”
“Yes.”
“Haven’t broken it off?”
“No.”
Victoria’s colour heightened slightly. She hated being questioned in this fashion, as if she was a child. Mims gazed at her for a few seconds like a wicked little sprite. Then she raised a slender finger to mark her next sentence.
“Ria! You’re not in love with Rupert!”
Anwar turned his eyes abruptly on Victoria. There was wonder in them. Before anything more could be said, however, Wargrave rose from his chair and restored the disturbed atmosphere to its accustomed calm.
“Come to our sitting-room, Anwar-u-din. We shall get the sea breeze up there.”
He signed to his wife to lead the way.
Mims was correct in saying to herself that Victoria’s engagement had escaped her recollection for the moment. Rupert had not yet appeared to impress his personality on the Wargrave family and claim his position.
He had intended to make the acquaintance of Mr. and Mrs. Wargrave when he came to India. They would have heard all the details of the engagement from Mrs. Barford, who, in their absence, stood in the place of a mother to Victoria.
That they could have any objection to the alliance was a contingency that did not occur to the self-assured Rupert. Without being conceited, he had a shrewd estimate of the qualities that should make him desirable as a husband in the eyes of any guardian. In birth and well-being, as well as in moral character and appearance, he had the advantage over most men of the day.
Shelford was keeping in touch with Victoria by a leisurely, unemotional correspondence. His letters were precise and informing. If Victoria found them dull she did not betray the fact. His last letter was posted at Sydney and addressed to Marseilles to catch her on her way out. She had not left him in ignorance of the change that had been made in her life by her aunt’s death, and she had duly informed him of her intention of joining her father in Madras. Rupert quite approved; and he sent polite messages to her parents. He spoke uncertainly of his own movements. He hinted that it would be wise to take advantage of an opportunity that had occurred of going to Japan. His change of plans did not trouble her. On the contrary she was conscious of an unaccountable relief at finding that he was in no hurry to be married.
Anwar, at the Judge’s invitation, accompanied the Wargrave party to the private sitting-room. He stayed only a short time. It was just long enough to assure himself that he might accept the fourth place at their dinner table while he was staying at the hotel, without fear of being regarded as unwelcome.
After smoking half a tiny cigarette Mims threw it away and rose to her feet from the low stool near her husband’s chair, upon which she had settled like some shimmering demoiselle fly.
“You don’t mind if I leave you?” she said with a comprehensive glance that included her three companions. “I have promised the first dance to Nood. He’ll cry and sulk, poor babe! if I disappoint him. Good night, Mr. Anwar-u-din. I hope we shall see a great deal of you now that you have joined our party.”
It was not the words but the manner in which she spoke that warmed the heart of the Indian. He took her small hand—it was like the antenna of a glittering grasshopper—-and pressed her fingers. The pressure was returned. It reassured him, if he had any further doubt as to his reception, and set him at ease. The subtle little mind of Mims was already busy with a scheme of her own. To attach Anwar personally to themselves and, if possible, put him under an obligation would be one way of combating the animus that might have risen against the Judge.
“I must also be going,” said Anwar as he dropped the hand she had given him.
“Oh, no! You must stay and have a chat with Miss Wargrave,” she replied quickly, with a suspicion of imperiousness in her tone. Mims was accustomed to command and looked for docile compliance from everybody. Anwar paid no heed to the order beyond listening politely. He was not the willing, obedient “boy” that Nood was. He took leave of Mr. Wargrave, who was in his chair by the standard lamp. The Judge’s attention had gone back to the newspaper which he had laid aside at the sound of the dinner bell.
Victoria went with her old friend to the top of the broad staircase. Mims glided away in the direction of her room, anxious to put the finishing touches to her toilet and start for the ball.
“Will you breakfast here, Deen?” Victoria asked as she stood with him on the wide landing for a few seconds.
“Certainly.”
“At what time?”
“When will you be breakfasting?” he asked by way of reply.
“At half-past nine.”
“Right! I shall be there,” he said.
Victoria watched him as he strolled down the staircase, then she turned back to the sitting-room. Her father was the only occupant. As she passed through the open doorway he put down his paper. His eyes dwelt dreamily upon her figure. Memory once more asserted its sway to the exclusion of Eastern politics and the diatribes of excited Oriental races.
“Come here, child. Take that stool; I want to talk to you.”
He indicated the seat lately occupied by Mims. Victoria obeyed him, but not in the manner of her stepmother. Instead of turning towards him and looking up into his face as Mims was wont to do, with a hand or elbow on his knee, Victoria presented her profile and the graceful fine of her shoulders.
Quite unconscious of any attempt at posing, she had assumed the attitude which vividly recalled her mother to the observant man. There was the strong likeness that grew upon him as he watched his daughter. At the same time there was a difference. The outline of the head was similar, but the hair was darker; it was the colour of his. The line of her figure was like her mother’s; but the dress was of another fashion.
In those far-away days it was he who had bent forward and laid a hand on the beloved one, bringing, with the action, a warm flush to the cheek and a soft light into the eyes. He did not wait, as was his custom with Mims, for the touch of love. He stirred in his chair and sat up, unconsciously assuming the old position.
Victoria did not speak. She waited for her father to put the questions he wished answered. He had intended to inquire about Mrs. Barford. But his intention was forgotten by a suddenly awakened desire to probe the likeness between mother and daughter; test its reality and discover how far it was merely fancy on his part. Was it actual inheritance? Did the mother live again in the girl, in the child of their youth? The thought awed him.
He leaned forward and laid his hand on her shoulder as he had done with another woman a quarter of a century ago.
The half-expected happened. She turned and looked at him with smiling eyes that held him under a spell. She put up her cool, slender fingers and clasped his. She drew the hand towards her lips and kissed it with the light, tender touch of a child. It was her mother’s action. As far as he could remember, Victoria had never seen it done. It sent a strange thrill through him as memory quickened yet more and conjured up visions that had long been sunk in oblivion.
“Dear dad! How nice it is to find you ready to love me like this! I am going to be very happy.”
The mother’s soft tones followed by the gesture made his pulse throb. Unknown to himself he was experiencing the birth of a new emotion. It had dawned when the child was born. It had gone to sleep, had sunk into a dormant state when the child was removed to England and lost sight of except as a financial responsibility.
The awakening of the paternal love confused him. He could scarcely believe that the figure seated there was not that of his first wife.
Further, he had to distinguish between the love he bore for his wife and the love that was welling in his heart for his daughter. It was like, and yet unlike. It was shorn of its gross material character and was purified and refined. In place of its worldliness it had acquired to itself a wonderful spirituality. Conjugal love, we know, has no part in Heaven, where there is no giving in marriage. Paternal love, on the other hand, is one of the greatest things of Heaven; it is an all-pervading attribute of the Beneficent Deity.
It seemed to Wargrave as he sat there gazing at his daughter, the living image of his first love, that a miraculous change had taken place within him. The love that he believed was dead, a thing of the past never to be born again, had gone through some mysterious process of resurrection by which it became glorified and transformed from something human, into something divine. It awed him.
His hand dropped to his knee with fingers slightly bent as though closing over some precious gift; but he did not change his position. He remained sitting upright as he had sat when he was a young man, leaning slightly towards her, held by the spell of the past and its strange mingling with the present.
Mims had finished her preparations. She had powdered her throat and reddened her lips with delicate fairy touches that enhanced her maturing charms. As a rule, when she was going to a late evening entertainment alone, she slipped away without disturbing her husband.
It had been her intention to do so now; but the memory of Victoria’s presence in the room roused her curiosity as to how the daughter would fit into the father’s life. Would she be superfluous, an interruption to the even routine?
Not knowing Victoria’s character, she was unable to sum her up. She would have to study the girl to discover exactly where she would come into their lives and what particular groove she would fill.
She listened as she turned towards the sitting-room. There was no sound of voices. Perhaps Victoria was reading; her father would, no doubt, be absorbed in his paper, from which it was never easy to detach him. More likely still she was taking forty winks after her long journey. It would be wiser on Victoria’s part if she went to bed. She would go in and make the suggestion.
Mims glanced through the wide opened doorway. The standard lamp, the only light turned on in the big room, illuminated the couple as if they had been posed for a living picture. Victoria, being farther from the lamp than her father, was partly in shade. He was under its full light, and nothing was hidden in pose and expression from the keen gaze of the wife to whom he owed his present allegiance
The scene was a sudden revelation that disturbed her more than a little. Instinct teaches a woman to read what is passing through the mind of a man. What she read in the face of her husband was not infidelity to herself, nor even disloyalty. It was something altogether apart from her own life—illusive, impossible to formulate. She thought she recognised it; but it belonged to a world in which she had no place—a world out of her reach and beyond her sphere.
The light in his eyes was the unconscious betrayal of a love of long ago that had nothing to do with her. The living evidence, if she needed further witness to the truth of her interpretation, was in the child seated near him, upon the low stool Mims had appropriated to her own use and had so recently occupied.
Mims had been married before she became Wargrave’s wife. He was not the first to be all in all to her. The dead husband of her girlhood had left her no living proof of his love. She had no children; what was more, she had never desired to have any. Considered from her point of view, a child would have interfered with the life of pleasure she had adopted.
As to whether it would have added to her husband’s pleasure she did not trouble to concern herself. It was sufficient for him to know that she did not wish it; and she was too selfish, too satisfied with her personal attractions to dream of the necessity of adding to those attractions the greatest a woman can create for her husband—a child.
The fact that the attraction had been offered by another woman to the man she called husband now forced itself upon her from an unsuspected source. She gazed at father and daughter as they sat there absorbed in each other to the exclusion of all else, including her potent self.
In his face she recognised a deep heart-stirring emotion, the existence of which she had had no suspicion. Never had she called up the mysterious spiritual expression that shone in the paternal eyes. With her greedy, acquisitive temperament, the fact was forced upon her brain.
She might have called up just such a look if she had held his son in her arms.
It was too late now in all probability. It was the other woman’s child, not hers, who would summon the paternal light into his eyes. The thought coming upon her so suddenly was of the nature of a shock. It brought with it a sharp piercing dagger, the weapon of jealousy.
She was jealous of the dead woman whom she had never known, and until that moment had never thought of otherwise than as a unit of another generation with which she had no concern. She entered the room with noiseless, sinuous movement.
“You will not sit up for me,” she said, placing a hand upon his shoulder. As she spoke she pressed him back gently but firmly into his chair till he reclined at its full length.
“No, dear,” he replied, looking up at her in surprise. It had never been his custom to sit up. He retired to bed early, even for an Englishman in India, who keeps early hours and cannot afford to burn the candle at both ends. “I never wait up, as you know. You had better not let us delay you. What time does the ball end?”
“I shall be home between one and two.” She added, as an afterthought, “Unless I am tired of the boys.” She turned to Victoria. “The dear lambs get on my nerves occasionally. Then I run away and leave them to play by themselves. I don’t quite like leaving you.”
“Don’t trouble about me, please,” said Victoria, disturbed by the suggestion that she should be the cause of any change of plan on the part of Mims. “You mustn’t let me come in the way of your pleasure.”
“Anyway, I can look after your comfort. We must find you an easier seat. I know how uncomfortable that little stool is, even for wee Mims. Here’s a chair that will suit you better.”
She dragged forward a light cane chair, and Victoria felt obliged to take it with a semblance of gratitude she was far from feeling. As she rose from the stool, Mims seized it and thrust it aside, pushing it with the point of her toe into the dimness behind her husband’s chair.
Wargrave looked on, still under the thrall of memory, his mind on the past. He made no movement to help in the rearrangement his wife was engineering. A faint smile, rather sad than otherwise, rested on his lips. Did he suspect the underlying reason for his wife’s action? He glanced again at Victoria. It was evident that she had no suspicion of the reason why she was so summarily deposed. The change had considerably widened the space between herself and her father, and made confidential chat less easy.
“I must go to bed in ten minutes,” said Victoria as Mims still hovered round them, uneasy and suspicious.
“You will be wise, Ria. You must have had a very disturbed night in the train. You will want at least ten hours to rest and recover. By the by, I did not show you how to set your electric fan going. How forgetful of me. I will do it now.”
“I think I know.”
Victoria was not allowed to refuse. She was conducted to the bedroom and was initiated into punkah mysteries—how to turn it off as well as start it in case she might be cold in the night.
When Mims had ended she called the ayah. The woman came with alacrity, only too glad of the prospect of completing her duties.
“Your mistress is tired, ayah. She will like to go to bed now.”
“I must say good night to dad,” remarked Victoria, who was beginning to feel slightly hustled.
“I will do that for you. You are sure that you have everything you want?”
Without waiting for a reply Mims gave her stepdaughter a light kiss, and Victoria sank into an easy chair before her dressing-table. Mims regarded her with satisfaction and relief; she returned to her husband.
Wargrave was lying in his chair as she had left him. He was in a reverie from which he roused himself at the sight of her. The newspaper was opened once more and he began to read.
“Oh, darling, you are dead tired!” she cried. “So is that delightful girl. She has gone to her room for good and the ayah is looking after her. I was to give you a kiss for her and say good night. You really must follow her example.”
“Presently, my will-o’-the-wisp,” he replied dreamily. “I must read what is said about the sentence I passed in that Mohammedan case. Apparently the Hindus are beginning to join with the Mohammedans in raking up grievances against the Government.”
“Which means that someone is stirring up strife. Don’t worry about them. They’ll cut each other’s throats as soon as they have turned us out of the country. Good night, darling old top-dog!”
She dropped a kiss on his hair and glided away to the lift.
Her best play-boy, as she called Nood, was waiting for her. The dance was about to begin. He took her hand without a word and they slid into the whirl of dancers.
As Mims was circling round the ball-room with the latest step to the last word in waltzes, her mind at rest over the temporary separation of father and daughter, Victoria returned to the sitting-room. Quietly she retrieved the stool, placed it in its former position and seated herself as before. She drew the newspaper from his hand and laid it aside with the firm touch of filial authority.
“Hallo, child! I thought you had gone to bed!”
“Mims suggested it very kindly; but you see I haven’t fallen in with the suggestion. I have dismissed the ayah.”
“You are going to sit with me a little time?”
“If you will allow me. We are going to talk about my mother.”
Again the note of authority and the right of relationship sounded in her words. It was not like the wilful demands, often eccentric and unreasonable, of Mims. The authority was founded upon the right of birth, and he knew it.
It was as well for Mims, with her electric jealousy, that she was not there to see the warm, soft light that came into her husband’s eyes as he listened to his daughter’s request that she might hear the story he had to tell of a boy’s devotion to an equally devoted girl, which ended in a perfect union.
An hour later they rose to retire to their respective rooms.
“Little girl, may your marriage be as your mother’s was!” he said, as he was released from the clinging embrace of his only child.
Wargrave had just returned from his morning ride. In the hotel he met a man who belonged o the same service as himself and of his own standing. He was also staying in the house for the Christmas holidays. The Judge greeted him and was passing on to dress for breakfast when his friend stopped.
“Did you see the article in the paper last night, Wargrave?” he demanded.
“Yes, I read it through carefully, as well as the quotation on which the editor founded his remarks.”
“Well, what did you think of it?” he asked with a touch of impatience.
“The writer was careful to tell his readers that the opinions set forth in the quotations from the Indian Press were not the opinions of his own paper.”
“That’s just the editor all over; a careful man.”
“He showed no sympathy with his Indian contemporaries,” remarked Wargrave. “On the contrary he hinted that they were disloyal and inflammatory in their tone.”
“Then why did he flatter them by making excerpts and writing about them? Would he have reproduced them if he had considered them beneath notice?”
“It is the duty of an editor to keep his readers informed of things unpleasant as well as pleasant,” Wargrave replied, smiling easily and unconcernedly as he made the commonplace observation. There was no smile on the face of his companion as he answered quickly:
“Of course it is right that we should know the opinions of the races we help to govern. I have no objection to that.”
“To what do you particularly take exception in the article?” asked Wargrave.
“I regret the editor’s choice of quotations from the Indian Press.”
“The man must give the extracts if he intends to comment on them in his leader,” said Wargrave.
“Yes—but——” his friend paused. He was in doubt whether it was part of his duty to his neighbour to open his eyes and point out evil where evil was unsuspected. He decided that it was his duty; no man should be allowed to go unwarned where danger lay.
“Didn’t you see the menace contained in the writings of the Indian Press?”
Again Wargrave smiled.
“My dear fellow! it was nothing worth noticing.”
“The writer of the article saw something serious in those writings,” rejoined his friend.
“The editor was only expressing his opinion after the manner of critics,” replied Wargrave. His indifference irritated his friend into warm assertion. He abandoned hints and spoke plainly:
“From beginning to end those writings of the Indian Press were full of threats. You of all people must not be blind to them. They were levelled at Government officials generally, and you in particular. For your own sake you ought to read between the lines and be warned.”
Wargrave gave a short laugh and unconsciously lifted his chin, a habit that Victoria had inherited. It denoted with him that he was tired of the subject, and not only unconvinced but to a certain extent obstinate.
“I don’t believe that there was anything of the nature of a serious threat in one of them,” he asserted. “An Indian always overstates his case; and the country Press is prone to hysteria; more so when it is written in English, a language the Indian writes and speaks fluently without intimate knowledge of the relative value of the words he uses. The marvel is that he can write and speak English as well as he does. Just before we left Arukahd my butler told me that his wife had fallen asleep in death, likewise two female fowls for dinner.”
Wargrave’s friend refused to be led aside into a lighter vein.
“Then you see nothing serious to be troubled about in the extracts?”
“Nothing; it is only the usual highly coloured language that is common to the Oriental.”
“The editor of the evening paper saw something more, or he would not have drawn attention to the extracts nor have quoted them.”
“What did he see?” asked Wargrave.
“He believed that it all pointed to the case of manslaughter that has lately passed through your hands, and that you were threatened.”
“He didn’t mention the case.”
“Not by name, but it was easy to understand that the vapourings of the Indian writers were directed against you and the English officials in our service, as I said just now.”
Wargrave moved towards the lift. He was really anxious to get to his room, as he had not allowed too much time to change. The other noted his impatience and strolled with him to the lift.
“Editors of daily papers must often be rather at a loss for a subject for their leading articles,” remarked Wargrave, falling back on the generalities that relieve the conversation of the personal interest.
“He was not at a loss in this instance. He had something to say that concerned his readers, and he would not be doing his duty to the English public if he failed to say it.”
“Then you believe that he was seriously giving me a warning against the consequences of having done my duty?”
Wargrave’s companion glanced at him sharply.
“He was, and you know it.”
“And what if I don’t care?” he asked lightly and with perfect good humour.
“Have it as you like, my dear fellow! If you are knifed or shot on your way from court, don’t say that we didn’t give you timely warning.”
“Dost Ali, the father of the young man, is not likely to resent the administration of justice,” replied Wargrave.
“It won’t be Dost Ali himself that you will have to reckon with, but his household, his family.”
Wargrave entered the lift and was carried upwards. He thrust the forebodings of his friend out of his mind with good-natured contempt. He appreciated the kindness that drew his attention to the warning. But at the bottom of his heart he despised nervousness and self-mistrust on the part of public men who had undertaken to administer justice and were honestly doing their best for the people they ruled.
Half an hour later he entered the cool, palm-bedecked hall. Victoria was waiting for him with Anwar-u-din in attendance.
Breakfast with its many courses was served. Victoria was rested after a good night and happy. Anwar was responsive and had lost the shyness and diffidence he had shown the evening before. As Wargrave glanced at him, his attention absorbed by Victoria, he smiled. Whatever the outside world might think and the newspapers choose to say, his sentence on Dost Ali’s son was not resented by Anwar. The fulminations of an excited Press could not be based on any hostility expressed by the Mohammedan civil officer. By neither word nor look could Wargrave detect the faintest sign of ill-feeling towards himself or his daughter.
“By the by, Anwar-u-din, has your uncle Dost Ali come down to Madras?” asked Wargrave presently.
“No, sir,” answered the Mohammedan readily and without any alteration of voice and expression. “The old man has gone to Hyderabad, where his wife’s people live. The change will do him good and perhaps help him to forget his trouble. I am sorry that he has not taken his family with him. It would have done them still more good and distracted their thoughts from the boy.”
“I was sorry for all of them,” said Wargrave.
“We regretted his hastiness.”
“I am glad that the offence was brought in as manslaughter and not murder. I had no alternative in giving my judgment.”
“That point was made clear to everybody,” responded Anwar without hesitation. “I should have pronounced the same judgment had I been in your place.”
The reply given readily and with such apparent honesty satisfied the Judge that his friend had made a mountain of a molehill. The affair was not worth a second thought.
When breakfast was ended the three rose from the table. Victoria and her father returned to their sitting-room. Anwar drifted into the shaded veranda, where several men were smoking and reading the papers. No one took any notice of him, and he on his part did not look for recognition. All were strangers, although he knew two or three by name.
He found a chair to his liking and settled down with a cigarette and paper as any Englishman might have done. He was quite ready to meet any advances in a friendly spirit, but they were not made, and he was far too diffident to take the initiative. Pride was an inherited instinct with him, the unconscious pride that goes with good blood in the East.
If the Englishmen present had been accused of holding themselves aloof from an Indian, who had invaded a field of employment held for nearly two centuries to be the exclusive property of the European, they would have denied the charge with indignation. Yet the fact remained that not one of them gave Anwar so much as a glance that would make an opening for even a nodding acquaintance.
A few of the older men had lifted an eyebrow at the sight of Anwar-u-din at home and at his ease at Wargrave’s table. They did not trouble themselves, however, about the incident. They simply wondered if it was wise to encourage the man with that good-looking daughter there. Noble he might be and of blue blood, but there was the “invidious bar of birth” between the white races of the West and the dark races of the East to preclude all intimacy on the part of the Judge’s daughter and the descendant of the Princes of Arukahd.
On arrival in his sitting-room, Wargrave at once resumed the study of the mass of papers lying on his writing-table. In the Indian Civil Service work has a habit of following some of the senior men into the holiday sphere.
Victoria, seeing her father absorbed in official documents, dropped into a cushioned lounge and occupied herself with a half-read novel, begun on her journey in the train.
The electric fan with a hushed fluttering sound moved the air. Outside in the brilliant tropical sunlight the sea breeze brushed the palm fronds together. It was a sound distinct and apart from the rustling leaves of the beech and elm. It carried with it a suggestion of cool winds.
Distant noises such as had fallen on her ears the evening before came from the traffic in the broad road—country carts, motor-cars, the shouts of native drivers to pedestrians to get to the side of the road. These last were fatalists to the tips of their fingers; they persisted in using the centre of the road regardless of consequences. During the night the low boom of the distant surf, still chafing under the recent monsoon, had been audible. Now it was drowned by the chorus of humanity.
The hotel itself was quiet. The army of servants belonging to the establishment were mostly in the kitchens and outbuildings. Only those who were on duty with their masters were in the house. Two peons in the Judge’s uniform sat outside the sitting-room on the wide landing upstairs, ready to come at the call of their master.
To Victoria the morning was pleasant and restful. After the roar and rattle of the rail journey, the silence, sufficiently full of the echoes of Oriental life to save it from being oppressive, was strangely attractive. It was difficult to concentrate her attention on the book. Her brain was too busy with the real to be capable of concentrating itself on fiction.
How often had she looked forward and pictured her possible entrance into the Indian home and the taking of her place in her father’s house! The real event had proved even happier than her anticipation.
She glanced at her father, who was immersed in his work to the exclusion of all else. He had accepted her with deep affection and given her a place in his life that seemed to her vivid imagination to have been waiting for her ever since her mother died. It was the desire of her heart now to fill that little corner into which no one—not even Mims—had been allowed to enter. It had been prepared for her by her dead mother. She would occupy it as long as life lasted.
Her train of thought brought her abruptly to the existence of Rupert. The blood flowed hotly to her cheek as she recalled her father’s words when he bade her good night the evening before. Her father and mother had been much more to each other than she and Rupert could ever be. She was startled and dismayed.
Rupert had written long and admirable letters to her of his doings and his impressions. They were all that a man of his intelligence and precision might have been expected to write. Yet Victoria had missed something in them; she could not say what it was. Through every letter a vague something was wanting, something intimate and human.
It was the spirit of the lover.
He struck the note of friendship, of companionship and of good-fellowship with no lack of the affection so often fatally mistaken for love. But the impetuous passion of the lover which is in constant torment till it meets with response was absent.
“Your very affectionate,” “Your loving,” “Your devoted Rupert,” had hitherto satisfied her. Now for the first time she looked at these expressions with different eyes and her heart misgave her.
As she sat leaning back luxuriously on the large, soft cushions, her book on her lap, the tropical atmosphere had a curious effect on her senses. It appealed to a side of her nature that had hitherto been dormant. It roused something in her that demanded a comprehending sympathetic response from a rare and chosen companion. Rupert did not fill that position. No! he would only disturb the spell that romance was weaving around her. A nature like his was not capable of sensing such an atmosphere. His attention would be on the presence of the stinging mosquito and its relation to tropical diseases, or upon the mechanism of the electric fan and the precise position in which it would most benefit the room.
She shuddered unconsciously as she recalled Rupert’s level, unemotional voice and his remarks on the inefficient gardener who failed so lamentably to keep his swathes straight in mowing the grass.
Anwar-u-din? Was his the figure to complete the Eastern picture? In his European dress he had no place in the tropical Indian atmosphere. He did not fit in with the palms, the warm sea breezes, the distant hum of Eastern humanity, the grave, silent men in uniform who waited to serve a foreign race of rulers.
Deen was of the class to which her father belonged; he was her adopted brother; he was, like the Englishmen, in the country but not of it. From long acquaintance she was familiar with his features and complexion, and to her eyes there was nothing strange or foreign in them. In speech he was like Rupert—like her father, like Brian Fairoake——
Brian Fairoake! Her pulse gave a curious leap at the sudden remembrance of his existence. Her reverie was broken, her visions dispersed. Fairoake invaded the scene with his stormy activities, his hot likes and dislikes, his passionate disagreements, his overwhelming sympathies. He was a strange mixture of loves and hates, of ardent emotion that was always in danger of overflowing in one direction or another.
Was he not the very figure with his tropical temperament to strike the right note, and be in harmony with the new mood that had come upon her?
Into the restfulness and silence of the sitting-room came Mims with her noiseless glide. She was dressed for going out. She went straight to her husband and dropped a light kiss on the top of his head. He put up his left hand—the right grasped the pen with which he was annotating the papers he was studying—caught the small fingers that fluttered on his shoulder and carried them to his lips.
“Well, little one! up at last! Had breakfast?”
He relinquished her hand and his eyes went back to his papers.
“Yes, in my room. I am going out.”
“Rather early for calling, isn’t it?”
“I’m not making any calls. I finished the social tyranny yesterday. I promised to go to the camp to help the boys to arrange the tent for the gymkhana this afternoon.”
Wargrave lifted his eyes from his work and glanced up at his wife. She had his full attention this time.
“We arranged last night that you were to take Victoria to Government House to write her name down in the visitors’ book,” he said.
“Oh! dear me! I forgot!”
“It ought to be done at once so that she may be included in our invitation.”
“The secretary will see to it that she is included. He knows that we were expecting her. I put him wise myself,” said Mims, but Wargrave was not satisfied.
“That was Mrs. Langham’s supposition when her daughter came out. She was mistaken. Dorothy Langham received no invitations till she did the right thing and made her calls.”
Mims clasped her hands together like a perplexed child. She glanced round the room and her troubled eyes rested on Victoria seated in the chair near the open French window leading into the balcony veranda. The book was closed and Victoria was regarding Mims’s appearance in secret amusement. The skirt her stepmother was wearing was just a little shorter and a little tighter than any dress she had seen in London before she left England.
“The boys can get on for an hour or two without you “ began Wargrave.
She interrupted him impetuously. “They can’t! they shan’t! do without me! I must go to the camp!”
She stamped her foot with the petulance of a thwarted child. It indicated dismayed disappointment. Victoria rose from her chair and came towards them. “There can’t be any pressing hurry,” she said.
Mims glanced at her with reviving hope.
“It must be done to-day,” replied Wargrave. “At the same time you ought to call on Lady Weybridge and Mrs. Patterson. If you could get Mrs. Langham in, so much the better.”
His wife’s face fell as he added the two last names. Victoria felt as sorry for her as for a disappointed child.
“Need we go, dad?” she pleaded. “Won’t it do to-morrow?”
Wargrave knew better than Victoria what to-morrow meant with his elusive wife.
“No, dear; it won’t,” he answered decisively. “Our holiday lasts barely a fortnight, and into that time everything has to be crowded—balls, dinners and afternoon parties. It will make it so awkward for Lady Weybridge and other hospitable friends who are giving dinners with dances afterwards. They have already asked us, and they can’t include you unless you call. They are anxious to send you an invitation, I know.”
“Really, father, I am not at all keen on going to any of these entertainments. What time ought calls to be made?”
“Between twelve and two; or in the afternoon, but there is the regimental gymkhana at the camp to which we must go.”
“I know!” exclaimed Mims, with a little ecstatic spring. “I’ll go to the camp and come back in an hour. It is a quarter-past eleven now.”
She turned to Victoria. “You must be in the hall at half-past twelve. We can call till lunch-time.”
Mims ran out of the room without waiting for a reply. Her husband glanced after her and said:
“Don’t forget, Mims. These calls must be made to-day.”
“Right-o! “ came back from the landing as she touched the lift bell.
“It is really necessary,” said Wargrave to his daughter. He saw that she was not convinced. “Mrs. Patterson’s dinner is to-morrow night; Lady Weybridge’s the next; and the Government House ball is a few days later. The calls are a bore, but once made they need not be repeated. You don’t mind, do you?”
“All I mind is putting Mims out in her plans.”
“You need not lay too much stress on that point,” he remarked shortly.
“Perhaps you could take me if we have any more calls to make. I do so hate upsetting other people’s arrangements.”
“I haven’t a second car. Mims has gone off with the only one I possess.”
“And you are busy,” added Victoria with a touch of wistfulness that escaped her father’s notice.
His thoughts were returning to the volume of evidence he was considering. He was interested in the case and anxious to arrive at a just conclusion. With so much conflicting evidence it was not an easy task.
Victoria went back to her seat, but she found it impossible to pick up the thread of the story in her book. Her real life was of more interest than the lives of the fictitious characters. She was thinking of her father and his wife.
Although he had shown her that there was a place for her in his life, she could not help seeing that this was not the case with Mims. Where Wargrave’s wife was concerned the stepdaughter was an intruder—someone who had to be reckoned with for the future, and to whom new and irksome duties were due.
It was an unpleasant thought, and it had the effect of dispersing the luxurious mental atmosphere in which only ten minutes ago she had been immersed. She was chilled and depressed; and a vague suspicion, like a miasma, was gathering in her mind that she was not wanted in this wonderful Indian existence. A mistake had been made; she ought never to have come. A place might have been ready for her in her father’s heart; but there was none for her in the household.
Unfortunately it was not a mistake that could be remedied all at once. In the meantime she determined to do her best to fit in. It would mean the constant consideration of another person, who, from the short experience she had already had, would not always be reasonable nor unselfish. She resolved for her father’s sake to do all she could to conciliate; and to avoid interference with the routine of Mims’s life. Victoria was one of the most peaceably disposed persons that existed. In living with her invalid aunt she had learned many lessons of self-sacrifice.
At half-past twelve she went down to the hall, ready dressed for calling and carrying her card-case. She had glanced into the sitting-room before going to the lift. Her father was still absorbed in his occupation, too busy to note who passed in or out.
On leaving the lift she went into the big veranda opening on to the portico. She amused herself watching the visitors in their coming and going. The hotel was full. The company was composed of officials with their wives and daughters; of single men, many of whom were messing at the club close by. Most of them were in the service and had come down to the Presidency town like the Wargraves for their Christmas holidays.
She glanced at the portico, hoping to see Mims and the car drawn up and waiting for her, but it was not there. Presently she seated herself in the veranda in a position from which she had a view of the carriages and cars that arrived.
A quarter of an hour passed and no Mims was visible. Victoria had already had experience of her stepmother’s unpunctuality. This was only another instance to confirm the experience. A movement behind her chair caused her to turn. She glanced up and met the smiling eyes of Anwar-u-din.
“Little sister! why do I find you here sitting by yourself?”
“I’m waiting for my stepmother. She promised to come back from the camp to take me to Government House to call.”
“I have just returned from doing that part of my social duty,” he replied, dropping into a seat by her side.
“It’s really necessary, then, even for you?”
“Very necessary if one wishes to see anything of people.”
“You like it?”
He glanced at her with a gesture indicative of the fatalist’s resignation.
“It is pleasant to mix with the English since one is working with them. I should not have come to Madras if I had not intended to see and be seen at Government House.”
“Will other Indians be here?”
“Very few indeed—on the same footing as myself. I am in the same service as your father—junior to him, of course, and in a different department.”
She questioned him about the Civil Service and learned that he ruled in the name of the British Government a province nearly as large as England itself. On account of his position he was included in the official social gatherings and received many invitations from the senior men of the Civil Service stationed in Madras.
She was surprised; yet she ought not to have been. Anwar-u-din, apart from his position, was well qualified to mix in any English society, whether in London or in India.
The time slipped by quickly. There was so much to talk about and for both to hear, since they had not exchanged letters. The clock in the hall struck one. Anwar broke off in the middle of what he was saying to remark on the lateness of the hour.
“If you are going to make calls before lunch, you ought to be starting, little sister. You have only an hour left.”
“Mrs. Wargrave must have forgotten her appointment,” replied Victoria.
“I’m afraid it is so.”
She glanced at him.
“You don’t seem surprised, Deen.”
He smiled, and there was a touch of commiseration in the brown eyes that met hers.
“The Judge’s wife has the reputation of being a little uncertain in keeping her engagements. We who know her up-country are used to her ways and don’t allow ourselves to be disappointed.”
“What am I to do?” she asked in some consternation. “My father will be dreadfully troubled if I don’t make these calls.”
She gave him the names of the ladies her father had mentioned who were to be called upon after her visit to Government House.
“You can easily do it if you have a car.”
“That’s just the difficulty. My father has only one car and Mrs. Wargrave has it with her at the camp.”
“Take mine, little sister,” he said with the quiet authority of a helpful brother.
“Yours? is it here?”
“At the door; or, I should say, waiting outside for orders.”
He rose and moved towards the portico. A fine tall Mohammedan peon, his own servant, advanced to receive the order.
“Call up the car,” said Anwar. “You will have to go out with it. See that you take proper care of the lady to whom I am lending it.” He went back to Victoria, who was looking puzzled and anxious. “Come along, little sister, I will put you in the car and tell my man where to take you. My peon understands English, though the chauffeur doesn’t.”
Still she hung back, uncertain what to do—whether to wait for Mims or whether to accept the timely offer. He divined her doubt.
“You need not fear that you will miss Mrs. Wargrave. I assure you, knowing her as I do, that she has entirely forgotten her appointment. At Arukahd no one ever waits if she is behind time; and she relies on it.”
He touched her elbow with gentle pressure and led her forward to the portico; her unwillingness yielded to his persuasion.
“You have often given me a ride in your car in England. It is delightful to have an opportunity of returning it,” he said, thinking that perhaps she was also hesitating on account of the favour he was offering. But he need have had no fear on that score. She had no scruples at present in accepting such favours from her old friend.
“Will you come, too, Deen?”
“Sorry, but I have just done my duty to these very ladies. I mustn’t call twice in one day.”
“You could remain in the car while I went in. I should not stay more than a few minutes, seven or ten.”
If she could have known what a temptation it was to take a drive with her, she would not so readily have accepted his second and rather forced refusal. To have spent the next hour driving up and down the shaded roads in her company, the sea breeze blowing through the open windows of his luxurious car, would have been a wonderful joy to the lonely man. The thought of it quickened his pulse.
He had no intimate friend like Victoria on either side of the globe. A few Englishmen had been kind and friendly, but none of them had approached anything like intimacy.
As for the Englishwomen, they always remained strangers. It might have been due to his own pride and aloofness, his natural shrinking from anything that might be construed into patronage on their part, that stood in the way of breaking through the barrier. No one, Mohammedan or English, had entered his life as Victoria had done; no one had set at defiance the invidious bar of birth and called him brother.
There was a side to the question, however, of which Victoria knew nothing when she invited him to be her companion in her morning drive. This was the censure that would have been passed on him had he accepted her invitation. He could not plead ignorance of the attitude of Englishmen towards Indians, who accepted social hospitality without making it reciprocal.
There was good reason for the absence of any return of the hospitality on the part of the Indian. With his education and training, his society manners might be beyond reproach in the eyes of the European. But it was not so with the women of his family. Indian ladies, Mohammedan and Hindu alike, had had no advantages of the kind to fit them for entering a social life that was different in almost every detail from their own.
A few had overcome the difficulty of exile and had crossed the sea to that wonderful world in the West, where the home training seemed to be the inverse of their own. There they learned how to fall into line. But the number of the initiated was not sufficient to create a public opinion among their companions or inspire them with any desire to follow their example.
Because there could be no reciprocity at present, the Eastern races were obliged to hold aloof or be held aloof as the case might be.
Certain Englishmen who prided themselves on their broad-mindedness invited cultured Indians to their houses; but where there were daughters encouragement to become intimate was absent. The Indians were not invited to play tennis, dance or join in the games that bring young people together and promote friendly relations.
It was because he recognised the conditions of society that Anwar resolutely refused to accompany Victoria on her drive. To put an end to the temptation he signed to his chauffeur to start, and the car slid away in the direction of Government House.
Many eyes turned curiously towards the couple as Anwar helped the Judge’s daughter into his car and gave directions to his servants. Again the question arose in their minds: how had Miss Wargrave made the acquaintance of the Mohammedan? How had he managed to establish such friendly relations as to enable him to make the offer and for her to accept it? It suggested an established friendship of longer duration than a few hours or days. They must have been known to each other in England, and what was more they must have seen a good deal of each other.
If this were so, she would not understand the gulf of birth that separated the two races. It was to be hoped that she would not give him too much encouragement.
Victoria leaned forward as the car moved away and waved her hand. Anwar smiled and returned the salutation. For several seconds he stood at the top of the steps of the portico, gazing after the car. Even when at length he turned back and re-entered the hall to go to his room, the smile lingered and the eyes gleamed softly.
Victoria returned from her drive at two. She called at Government House, where she wrote down her name and address after the usual custom. She then went on to the Pattersons’ and was presented with the “Not-at-home” box, into which she thrust her card. The same thing happened in Mrs. Langham’s case.
At Lady Weybridge’s she was asked to come in and her card was carried before her by a servant bearing a large silver waiter. Lady Weybridge, a charming Late Victorian dame, received her kindly.
“You are Mr. Wargrave’s daughter?”
Victoria explained why her stepmother had not come. Mrs. Wargrave had made a previous engagement which she could not break. Lady Weybridge smiled as if she quite understood. Victoria also made excuses for her father, which was an easier task than apologising for his wife.
“I know!” said her hostess with a nod of the head. “It’s all right. In these days girls like yourself pay their visits sometimes by themselves and dispense with a chaperon.”
“They do call, I suppose?” said Victoria.
“Yes, we like it. It enables us to invite them at once.”
While talking, Lady Weybridge’s occasional glance took in a great deal more than the stare of a less well-bred woman. She summed up the Judge’s daughter as one who possessed a will of her own and who was by no means a child. She wondered how she would fit into the Wargrave household; but she asked no personal questions of a searching character.
A few queries as to the people staying at the hotel kept the conversation on safe fines. Only once did Lady Weybridge allude to Mims.
“You knew your stepmother in England, of course.”
“We never met until I arrived yesterday,” replied Victoria.
“And the people in the hotel, they are mostly strangers, I suppose.”
“All but Anwar-u-din. He is an old friend of my childhood’s days.”
“Indeed! He is Assistant Collector of Arukahd, isn’t he?”
Lady Weybridge was by no means ignorant of his identity. The information that he and her visitor were old friends surprised her. He was the very last person with whom she would have connected Victoria’s youth.
“He lives at Kondagiri, but he is often in Arukahd, he tells me,” said Victoria.
“Where did you first meet him?”
Victoria gave her an account of how she made his acquaintance when he was a lonely little exile in England, and how her aunt, Mrs. Barford, had taken him up and shown him many kindnesses. Quite by chance he had come to their hotel and at her invitation he had joined their table.
“Father says he is a wonderfully good officer.”
“One of the successes in this doubtful experiment which the Home Government is making.”
Victoria looked at her with a question in her eyes. Something in the tone in which this was said hinted at criticism.
“What experiment is being tried?” she asked.
“Putting Indians into the Civil Service in place of Englishmen. Risky, in my opinion, very.”
“Why is it risky?”
Lady Weybridge did not answer her question. After all it was only an opinion; she was not stating a fact. She went back to the personality of the Mohammedan.
“The men who hold appointments in the service are not all like Anwar-u-din. He is of noble birth.”
“And the others?” asked Victoria.
“They are well educated, naturally, or they would not have been admitted, but we know nothing of their birth, and still less about their caste if they are Hindus.”
“I don’t see why a man like Anwar-u-din should not be admitted to the service,” said Victoria, who felt vaguely that she would be wanting in loyalty towards her old friend if she did not express her warm approval.
“Granted!” responded Lady Weybridge readily. “But they are not all like Anwar-u-din. He is exceptional. However, apart from their fitness or otherwise, we old servants of the Government regret to see the posts which our sons should fill, occupied by men whose standard of morals is founded on a different tradition from that which is the very backbone of the Englishman’s code.”
They talked of fêtes and balls that were in the near future, and Victoria rose to go.
“You have your father’s car to make your calling easy,” said Lady Weybridge as she went with her to the veranda.
Victoria explained that Mrs. Wargrave had taken it to keep her appointment. As she had not appeared in time, Victoria had accepted Anwar-u-din’s offer of his car and had borrowed it to make her calls.
Lady Weybridge’s eyes rested on her visitor with curiosity. That handsome Mohammedan made welcome at the Judge’s table and lending his car to the daughter! What was Mr. Wargrave thinking of?
“How like Mrs. Wargrave to forget all about you! Well, you’re old enough to take care of yourself,” she added with the frankness of a family friend.
As Victoria arrived at the hotel the visitors were passing from all directions through the hall and veranda to the luncheon-room. Many of them had not seen her go. These turned to look at the beautiful car with its flowers and luxurious fittings; it was recognised as the property of the Mohammedan.
To their astonishment Victoria stepped out of it, and Anwar himself, who must have been watching for her coming, went forward to help her to alight. His manner was confident and courteous. He feared no rebuff. He gave an order to the peon in Hindustani and followed Victoria immediately to the luncheon table, where her father was already seated.
“Well, child! did you accomplish Government House and your other calls?” he asked as she removed her gloves.
“All; but only Lady Weybridge was at home.”
“I’m glad that’s done. There are two or three more that must be done to-morrow. Hope Mims didn’t keep you waiting.”
“I sat in the veranda till one o’clock. Then, as she did not appear, I took Deen’s car.” She turned to him with a grateful smile. “I hope it didn’t put you to any inconvenience.”
“None whatever; I have a second car.”
He did not tell her that he had wired for a smaller car which he used for short distances and office work at Kondagiri. Mrs. Wargrave’s little ways were well known to everybody. Her husband was seldom to be seen using his own car unless he was accompanying her to some entertainment. If he wished to go anywhere in Madras independently of his wife, he hired a taxicab. At Arukahd he had a horse and brougham which was kept exclusively for his work in court and for taking him to the club.
Wargrave himself was only half alive to the situation. He had persuaded himself that his wife and daughter would naturally fall into companionship and be to join in all social affairs.
Even now he did not quite realise that Mims had failed to keep the promise given to him the previous evening; nor that it was due to Anwar’s kindness in lending his car that Victoria was able to make the calls which would ensure the inclusion of her name in the invitations to the most important of the Christmas functions.
That this was only the beginning of extending a helping hand, Anwar was at once convinced. On turning away from the portico, after seeing Victoria leave, he went straight to the telegraph office and sent a wire ordering the immediate dispatch of the other car standing idle at his house at Kondagiri. This would enable him to place the big car entirely at Victoria’s service. He said nothing about it as they sat down to lunch.
Wargrave, never a great talker, was inclined to be silent; Anwar and Victoria had the conversation to themselves. At first it was the conduct of his wife that absorbed his thoughts. He was not angry. It was impossible to be angry with such a trifler as Mims. The point he was considering was how to prevent a recurrence of such an incident.
He might take Victoria out himself—a course that would have been pleasant to both of them. It had its difficulties, however. The work upon which he was engaged at Arukahd as well as here in the hotel could not be laid aside, holiday or no holiday. The mornings must be devoted to it; and at Arukahd he would be in court the greater part of the day. In the afternoon between tea and dinner he might have a spare couple of hours.
He was accustomed, whether in Madras or up-country, to go to the club from half-past six to eight every evening. It was rest and recreation to meet his friends, play bridge or billiards and have a quiet smoke before dinner, which was at half-past eight in most houses.
He could easily take Victoria out between tea and dinner. She might drop him at his club and go for a drive afterwards. When she had made a few friends, he could leave her with them at the tennis courts or ladies’ club, till it was time to return to dress for dinner. Victoria was no child; she was capable of looking after herself. He must see about getting her a car of her own. Perhaps she might like to drive it herself sometimes.
“Has Mims come in?” he asked of Victoria, breaking into the conversation she was carrying on with Anwar.
“Not that I know of; I’ve seen nothing of her.”
“Probably she is lunching with the boys in camp.” He paused, as though revolving something in his mind. “Victoria, I am going to this regimental affair in which Mims is interested. Will you come with me? We will start at half-past three and have tea there.”
“I should be delighted, but I think we must consult Mims before making our own plans.”
“She will make hers independently of us.”
“And will want the car?”
“It must come back for us if her time doesn’t fit in with ours.”
The opportunity had come; Anwar took it.
“Let me lend you my car,” he said.
Wargrave looked up embarrassed, hesitating to accept the favour. Had Anwar been an Englishman he would have jumped at it and added: “Of course, you will come with us.” The fact of Anwar being an Indian made him pause. The Mohammedan, sensitive and quick-witted, was beginning to regret having spoken. Victoria dispelled the awkwardness by saying warmly:
“Oh, Deen! that is kind of you! We shall be only too glad to use your car, and you must come with us.”
Anwar smiled, happily at ease again. He glanced at Wargrave, who remained silent and did not echo his daughter’s invitation.
“I am not going to the camp. I have a visit to pay this afternoon to my relatives in Triplicane.”
“Can you spare the car? Won’t you want it yourself?”
“As I told you, little sister, I have a second car. To-day, however, my cousin’s carriage will come for me and I shall pay my visit with all the glory of outriders in the Prince’s uniform.”
“It is most kind of you.”
“Not at all,” he protested. “When I was in England, alone and without friends, who took compassion on me and allowed me to join her? Do you remember our drive from Bournemouth? and our wonderful expedition to Maidenhead when we met the Princess?”
“And you went mad over her on the spot!” she added, laughing.
“Yes! but, little sister, it was only for the moment that I lost my head. You soon calmed me down and had me under control.”
She did not contradict him; she knew that he only spoke the truth.
“Are you often given that way?” she asked, her eyes resting on him as if she were contemplating strange potentialities.
“Not often,” he replied with a smile. “There are times perhaps when something within me catches fire suddenly. Under its influence I might do wild and unpremeditated things.”
“Please let me know, Deen, when you are going mad, so that I may be prepared.”
“The strange part of it is that I am not aware of when I am going mad, as you call it. The fit comes on quite suddenly and takes me by surprise.”
“If I see any sign of it, I shall throw a rug over you and carry you off to less exciting scenes.”
“I give you full permission to save me from myself as you did that day on the Maidenhead road.”
Wargrave, whose attention had wandered as usual, rose from the table. He excused himself and returned to his sitting-room to resume the study of the papers that surrounded him.
“Come into the lounge for ten minutes, Deen. Dad is busy and we shall disturb him if we follow to the sitting-room,” said Victoria, moving towards the hall where the cool air from the whirring punkah wheel stirred the fronds of the palms and fems. Forty minutes later she joined her father; he was alone.
“Mims has come in and gone to her room,” he said as he began to sort his papers. For the time being his task was finished. “She is very apologetic and admits that she forgot all about you.”
“I hope you did not scold her; it turned out all right and no one was inconvenienced.”
The gentle, conciliatory tone awoke memory again. It was exactly what the girl’s mother would have said under similar circumstances.
“Mims is off as soon as she has changed her dress,” he remarked, as he arranged the papers in one of the drawers of the writing-table.
“Then it is just as well that we have accepted the loan of Deen’s car,” said Victoria.
Her father moved his hand with a sudden jerk upwards, a sure sign to his court who knew him of a touch of rare impatience.
“I must see about hiring something while we are here. I don’t want Mims to be deprived of the means of getting about. It would make her utterly miserable. She is down here to get all the enjoyment she can out of her visit. At the same time I can see that we mustn’t depend on her; she is so forgetful.”
“It’s all right, dad. You need not worry. Deen is lending me his car for the rest of the holidays. Do you know, the dear boy wanted to present me with the car outright, but I said no to that.”
“And to the loan of it as well, I hope.”
“On the contrary I accepted it with pleasure.”
“Oh! but we really mustn’t——”
“It’s done, dear; and I wouldn’t for the world turn down the offer of my old friend. I’m going to use it till he goes home. I used to take him about in auntie’s car; he is only repaying me.”
“I don’t like it,” murmured the perplexed father.
“Why not, dad?”
She seated herself on the arm of the chair in which he sat and put a hand on his shoulder.
“I can make some other arrangement,” said Wargrave. “If there isn’t a car to be had, I am sure I can hire a carriage and pair for the time.”
“Too terribly slow and old-fashioned,” she pronounced.
She leaned her cheek on his head and moved a caressing hand up and down his arm—as someone else had done twenty-five years ago.
“Dear, tell me why you want to turn down Deen and his offer.”
“I don’t wish to be disagreeable, but—but——”
“But what?”
“I don’t like accepting favours from an Indian.”
“And why not?”
“It isn’t done; and—and I can’t return them.”
“Wrong, dearest; quite wrong. We return every bit of it by receiving Deen as an old friend and not making a stranger of him. You don’t know how fond he is of me. He calls me little sister and loves me as a sister.”
He gazed up into her face as though to search the innermost secret of her heart.
“And you, Victoria; do you love him as a brother or a friend?”
He would have liked to say lover instead of friend, but instinct warned him that it would be unwise to suggest the term.
“Yes, yes! as a brother—a dear, kind, reliable brother such as I have often longed for and never possessed in reality.”
“A brother! He is of another nation, another blood!” he protested, startled at the bond that she claimed as a link to bind them together.
“Between you and him lies the bar that precludes intimacy and friendship.”
“No, dad. There is no ‘invidious bar’ between the friend of my childhood and myself. Deen—
“‘. . . breaks his birth’s invidious bar
And grasps the skirts of happy chance
And grapples with his evil star.’
I know him. He will let no ‘blows of circumstance’ destroy our friendship.”
He did not reply; he dared not. Already he had said too much. If she was like her mother in temperament as well as ways, her championship would be quixotic; she would maintain it in the face of all opposition. To dictate would be fatal.
He recalled her mother’s championship of himself when unsympathetic parents threw cold doubt on him as one who would never make good, never win his way through an examination that was known to be the hardest and stiffest of the period. He took refuge in silence. Victoria was content to sit there. It helped to fill a loneliness that was already beginning to make itself felt.
“By the by, when does Rupert arrive?” he asked, rousing himself from the abstraction into which he had fallen.
“Rupert? He seems uncertain in his movements.”
“I thought you told me in one of your letters that he was going to join his friend Fairoake.”
“Do you know Mr. Fairoake?” she asked.
“Yes, very well indeed.”
Again there was silence. This time it was broken by Wargrave.
“Little girl! when are you going to be married?
She caught her breath in an unconscious sigh.
“I don’t know. We have neither of us alluded to the future in our letters. I am in no hurry. I am sure that he feels the same.”
“It was to have been in January or February, you said.”
“Perhaps we shall make it March or even April.”
He partly turned in his chair and looked into her face.
“Child!” he cried with sudden intuition, “you are not in love with him!”
“I think I am.”
“You must do more than that; you must be very sure.” Suddenly his manner altered and he dismissed the subject. “Time you had a bit of a rest. I want forty winks myself. Go and lie down. Come back at half-past three and I’ll take you to the camp and introduce you to some of Mims’s boys.”
He rose, and she got up a little reluctantly from her seat on the arm of the chair. As she did so, a figure wearing a short and scanty skirt flitted past the open doorway. Father and daughter were too full of themselves to notice it.
Mims had intended to enter the room. The sight that met her eyes arrested her steps. In one swift glance she grasped the situation.
There was nothing that need have troubled her; but the demon of jealousy took possession of her. It was not the daughter who roused the demon. It was the woman of her husband’s past—the past in which she, Mims, had no place—who looked at him with undying devotion from out of the daughter’s eyes.
Mims passed on to the lift without leaving the usual farewell butterfly kiss upon her husband’s head.
Wargrave and Victoria drove in Anwar’s car to the Island where the camp was pitched. His eye searched everywhere for his wife. Suddenly she emerged from a crowd and brushed past him. Nood, the faithful, was in attendance. Wargrave touched her on the arm.
“Mims, can you spare a few minutes to take Victoria round and introduce her a bit?” he asked.
“Sorry, old dear,” she replied without stopping. “Can’t possibly manage it. Just off with Nood to see his new pony. He’s going to win the V.C. race with it. It’s a wonder; understands two languages and does its own hair, tail and mane, with Nood’s best hair-brushes.”
She concluded her flippant speech over her shoulder as she moved away.
“No use,” he said as he returned to Victoria’s side.
“I must do my best to introduce you myself.”
“To my great content!” she replied quickly. “It is your friends I wish to know.”
The stress laid upon the pronoun conveyed far more than the words themselves.
The banqueting hall at Madras was brilliantly lighted. Revels in the shape of a fancy-dress ball were just beginning. It was not a private entertainment. It was of an official nature and invitations had been issued in the names of their Excellencies to all in the civil and military services above a certain rank.
Among those invited were many Indians. Their wives were included as were the wives of the Englishmen; but the Indian gentlemen preferred to come unattended by their families.
Fancy dress, uniform or Indian dress was the order of the evening. English ladies might appear poudrée if they were disinclined to personate any character.
Victoria was in mourning. She decided to go in an ordinary evening frock that was cut in the prevailing fashion. Nothing in it attracted attention or startled the eye. A lace cross-over and a reticule gave it an old-world tone which was strengthened by her powdered hair. This she had dressed high and ornamented with a black velvet bow. She was quite unconscious of looking conspicuous in any way; yet many eyes dwelt with approval on father and daughter as they entered the ball-room.
The Judge was in knee-breeches, velvet coat and lace ruffles. His wife insisted on providing him with a fancy dress. Since she did not put him to any trouble over it he readily acquiesced.
An aide-de-camp received them and conducted them to the raised dais at the opposite end of the room where the Governor and his wife stood. After a short chat they drifted away, Wargrave introducing his daughter here and there. Victoria had already made the acquaintance of several of her father’s friends. She received a warm welcome from them; for Wargrave was much liked wherever he went. It was for his sake that his wife with all her vagaries was accepted with good-natured amusement devoid of criticism. A little later another aide sought them out.
“Is Mrs. Wargrave here?” he asked.
“She has not yet arrived. She will probably be a little late.”
“Too late for the State Lancers? Then may I include Miss Wargrave?” He hurried away to complete his arrangements.
“Are you in the secret of what Mims is going to wear, dad?”
“Indeed I am not! Are you?”
“No; she doesn’t confide her secrets to me.”
Victoria spoke regretfully. She had tried very hard to establish something like friendliness and a pleasant understanding between herself and her stepmother; but Mims had repelled all her efforts and remained cold and unresponsive. Victoria herself was inclined naturally to be reserved. When she found that she was not met even half-way, she gave up her little attempts to improve their relations and allowed herself to be pushed into a position of aloofness that was not at all to her liking.
With regard to the friends Mims gathered round her, Victoria could find no bond of congeniality. Their interests were at opposite poles. She was slow at catching up the meaning of the slang they used, and failed entirely to see any humour in the sayings and doings that from all appearance were regarded as the very essence of wit.
Only on one point did Mims show any interest in Victoria, and this was in her friendship with Anwar-u-din. Wherever opportunity occurred Mrs. Wargrave encouraged the Mohammedan. She thanked him warmly for lending Victoria his car and declared that it was equally a favour to herself, as it enabled her to use their own car without feeling that she was depriving Miss Wargrave of it. Often as they left the dinner table she invited Anwar to their sitting-room, and she somehow managed to procure an invitation for him to parties to which she and Victoria had been invited.
In consequence of this, Victoria and her old friend were constantly together in public. Wargrave, with his mental preoccupation and his tendency to allow social and family matters to drift, did not interfere. The ready smile greeted Anwar always with the echo of his wife’s welcome.
Victoria had fallen into a train of thought in which her stepmother was the chief object, when the aide, who was arranging the lancers, claimed her attention. He was beating up the couples and showing them their places.
It was a solemn function, orderly and dignified; and she was not surprised to find that Mims had evaded it—-it was not at all in Mrs. Wargrave’s line. At the end of it Victoria again took her father’s arm and they drifted towards groups of acquaintances. Wargrave looked bored and ill at ease. His expression did not escape the notice of his daughter.
“What is it, dad? You don’t want to go home just yet, do you?”
He glanced at her in perplexity.
“I was thinking of the possibility of getting a game of bridge in the card-room. The tables will be full if I wait too long. I wish Mims would come.”
“What difference would she make?”
“I could leave you with her.”
“You can leave me without her. Go at once. I’n go over there and join Mrs. Patterson.”
After a little further persuasion Wargrave slipped away to the whist-room, leaving his daughter, as he was accustomed to leave his wife, to her own devices.
Victoria was not at all averse to being alone. She was quite at her ease and rather enjoyed the freedom than otherwise. As soon as her father had disappeared, instead of going to Mrs. Patterson she moved towards the entrance, intending to watch the company arriving.
The guests’ conception of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen of Sheba, Alice in Wonderland, the woman of the future was so strange and unhistorical that it was quite an exercise of ingenuity to guess the characters correctly. Petticoats were for the most part very short and there was an amazing display of bare backs and arms in many of the costumes. By far the most artistic as well as the handsomest of the dresses among the men were those worn by the Indian gentlemen. They were marked by the display of rich materials and embroidery, and the magnificent jewels set with priceless gems. They had the advantage of being real and not fancy.
“Are you amused, little sister?” said Anwar’s voice at her elbow.
“Very much so,” she replied, turning quickly.
By her side stood a tall, handsome Mohammedan in the robes of an Indian nobleman. On his head was a turban of the finest muslin bordered with gold. Its ornament was a large brooch set with rubies and diamonds. A necklace with pendant fell low on his breast. It was formed of rubies and diamonds which matched the gems in the aigrette. They sparkled in the electric lights, and drew her eyes to them with a fascination she could not resist.
“You don’t know me in my Indian dress,” he said, smiling at her silent admiration which she made no attempt to hide.
“I have never seen you like that. The dress is beautiful! beautiful!”
No man with a spark of self-respect and pardonable vanity could be indifferent to the approval. Anwar was strangely gratified at her expression of appreciation.
“I am so glad you like it; how does it compare with European dress?” he asked.
“The two are not comparable. Yes!” she added with deliberation, “I do like it. I like it enormously—on you.”
Her eye passed over him as it might have passed over a fine work of art. Something in her remark left him unsatisfied. Was it only the dress that evoked her admiration? Was the wearer entirely overlooked in the contemplation of velvet and gold, satin and jewels?
A sudden anxiety seized him. Did his national costume give him a foreign, unfamiliar appearance that opened a gulf between himself and the friend of his youth?
With his racial sensitiveness to comment on his personality he found it difficult to ask the question that was in his mind. Afraid to trust himself, he took refuge in generalities.
“I suppose dress indicates character,” he said with an indifference he was far from feeling. “The sober clothing of the European is in accordance with their reserve, their restraint. Our gorgeous colouring is suited to our emotional love of display.”
“I have never thought of it in connection with temperament,” she replied as she glanced round the room and her eyes came back to her companion.
It was curious how Anwar’s costume seemed to develop the Oriental side of his character and bring it into prominence. The English part of it had completely disappeared. In his robes he was no longer the polite foreigner. He was of the country, Indian in every respect—in tune with the palms, the starry night, the balmy air of the tropics, and the dark-skinned natives. He was an essential part of the picture of the East, which was incomplete without him.
In her close regard he read criticism of some sort. His curiosity was too much for him. Conquering his sensitiveness he said:
“You haven’t criticised my dress.”
“I have no criticism to offer.”
“Yes, you have, little sister. I can see it in your eyes.”
“Well, if you will have it, I think I should like it better without the jewels except in the turban.”
“You don’t approve of jewels? I note that you wear none yourself.”
He glanced at her arms and neck. The white skin was innocent of any ornament.
“I am not accustomed to see jewels on a man.”
“Which means that you think I should be better without them.”
He lifted the necklace over his head and slipped it into his pocket.
“There! is that better?”
“I am not sure if it is an improvement. The velvet and satin seem to want the jewels to complete them. After all, it is only a matter of growing used to a thing. Put the necklace on again.” He did so and she eyed him critically. “Yes; in those robes you need the jewels; they are a feature of your national dress. After a while it won’t look strange and unfamiliar to me.”
“I hope it doesn’t make me strange and unfamiliar. I am still Deen to you?” he asked.
“Always Deen whatever you wear, whatever you do. The dress has de-Europeanised you, that’s all.”
“Only in appearance,” he pleaded.
It troubled him to feel that anything should rupture their friendship and destroy or even lessen the bond woven in the distant past.
“No; there is something that goes deeper than that,” she said quickly. Then, conscious that she could not define the strangeness that had suddenly sprung up nor explain it, she turned the conversation to another subject. “Ah! there’s an Indian lady. What an extraordinary contrast!”
Her eyes went from the veiled figure to the Englishwomen circling round the room as nearly bare to the waist as decency would allow, and then to the Mohammedan lady.
Over a very full skirt of the finest muslin, plain and reaching to the ankles, she wore a long-sleeved jacket of exquisite embroidery. A gauze veil covered her head and face, reaching below her knees and hiding her figure as well as her features. No part of her was visible but a pair of slender, shy hands, the fingers of which were covered with rings. Her feet were encased in white satin shoes. Below the veil hung a rope of pearls, the two ends being finished oft with large tassels of pearls.
“Who is she, Deen?” asked Victoria.
“A member of one of the noble families of Hyderabad. She has been in England and is well educated.”
“Then why doesn’t she dispense with her veil?”
“She is too proud, too well-born to give up her gosha. Her husband has consented to allow her to be present—there he is, standing near her—provided she keeps veiled.”
His eyes dwelt on his countrywoman as he talked. In them was a lingering fascination as well as curiosity. He could only guess what she was like. Imagination painted her as divinely beautiful. Gaze as he would, he could not penetrate that veil. Never would he be permitted to look upon the loveliness that belonged to another man.
“Will you dance with her?” asked Victoria.
“Rather not! He wouldn’t allow it.”
Other Indian gentlemen were equally attracted. They could not keep their eyes from the mysterious figure. Glances passed indifferently over the revealed charms of the Englishwomen to rest with an unsatisfied longing on the gauze veil. Victoria observed their looks, and she wondered where the attraction lay.
“If these gentlemen, who seem so fascinated by the appearance of the veiled lady, are really interested in beautiful women, why do they look so indifferently at all these dancers in their evening frocks?” she asked.
“Our eyes are accustomed to the coolie women, whose faces, arms, necks and legs are fully exposed. They don’t excite our curiosity and speculation; nor do the English ladies, exposed as they are. But if her Excellency, the Governor’s wife, were veiled from head to foot and hidden from our view, shouldn’t we all be crazy to know what she was like—whether she was young and beautiful, with full red lips and shy, alluring eyes?”
Victoria laughed. “You have some strange fancies, Deen. I wonder what you would think of me in a dress like that. Would you want to lift my veil?”
“That would be the privilege of the husband alone,” he replied with a seriousness which Victoria thought greater than the occasion demanded.
At this moment there was an unusual noise at the entrance of the ball-room. It riveted the attention of the guests to the extent of stopping temporarily the dancing. It was a clatter of arms and hoofs with voices raised in protest.
A broad, shallow flight of steps led up to the entrance of the ball-room. There was a wide landing, sheltered by a veranda roof supported on magnificent columns of polished chunam—a material that has the appearance of pure white marble.
On the steps was the guard of honour, drawn from the Governor’s bodyguard. The sowars in their uniform made a fine display as they stood on each side of the staircase with their pennoned lances at rest. They were all picked men from the Indian Army. It was a coveted honour to be drafted into the bodyguard, a reward for good service. As a rule they remained like statues at their post, the only thing in motion about them being the red pennons attached to the lances. The shuffling of their spurred boots was heard as they prepared to obey an order from their officer.
“Surely no one can be riding into the hall!” said Victoria as the sound of hoofs came nearer.
“It sounds like it,” replied Anwar, as the unmistakable ring of iron horse-shoes clattered on the stone landing in nervous confusion over the unwonted climb.
They drew nearer to the entrance, where a little crowd was gathering. The Queen Elizabeths and their cavaliers fell back before a small Arab horse, that was snorting with fear and excitement under the brilliant electric light. It refused to be led forward and was ruthlessly spurred through the veranda and into the room.
The man in the saddle wore the handsome, picturesque uniform of a Hyderabad ressaldar in the service of the Nizam. His turban as well as his uniform was laced with gold, He was armed with a sword, which is permitted in the Nizam’s army. At his bridle walked a jemadar in a uniform almost as resplendent in colour and gold as his mounted superior officer. His spurs clanked noisily as he trod the boarded floor. The pair advanced towards the dais where the Governor and his wife were seated. His Excellency rose from his chair and advanced to the edge of the raised platform to await developments.
An aide hurried down and met them as they reached the middle of the ball-room. Many officers among the guests cast anxious eyes at the strange couple. The country was known to be seething with unrest. Their thoughts flew to some possible danger of personal assault, amounting, perhaps, to assassination of their Excellencies.
None of the guests were armed. The only men who bore weapons besides the intruders were the sowars of the bodyguard, who carried lances. That these men were disturbed could be easily seen from their restlessness. They were anticipating an order which was not given, and they were wondering why they had not been directed to advance and stop the progress of the intruders.
The jemadar on foot who held the bridle looked back at them. He said something in Hindustani which altered their behaviour entirely. They fell back into their places with restored confidence. Their eyes gleamed with humour and their white teeth could be seen beneath their black moustaches as they awaited the development of the situation.
As the jemadar seemed inclined to press on regardless of all opposition, the aide strode forward and placed himself in front of the horse.
“What is it you want? and why have you had the insolence to ride thus into the presence of their Excellencies?”
He spoke in English, and the jemadar replied for his superior officer in the same language.
“His honour the ressaldar has a request to make of his Excellency.”
Some of the guests had drawn up closely to the aide-de-camp, holding themselves in readiness to assist in depriving the two Hyderabad men of their swords if it should prove necessary.
“This is neither the time nor the place to ask a favour. You are the subjects of the Nizam, I take it, judging from your appearance. Retire at once, and send your request for an interview through the proper channel.”
“The ressaldar demands the right to approach his Excellency now and to make his request.”
“It cannot be. Retire at once.”
A touch of the spur and a pull at the rein sent the horse past the aide. Hands were instantly extended to grasp the bit and if need be pull the impertinent intruder out of the saddle. Fearing something of the kind, the man threw himself out of the saddle with a quick, adroit movement. Before anyone could stop him he strode forward to the dais.
The jemadar relinquished his hold on the bridle, leaving anyone who chose to do so to take charge of the horse. Together the two walked to the foot of the dais and made a low military salaam.
“The honourable ressaldar, my superior officer, requests the pleasure of the next dance with your Excellency; and this worm prays for the same favour from her exalted Excellency, your lady,” said the jemadar with very little accent in his English.
The black beard that covered all but the eyes of the ressaldar was thrown aside as his companion finished his speech, and Mims, bubbling with fun and laughter, stood revealed in her fancy dress. Her slim, upright little figure was displayed to the greatest advantage by the glittering uniform and big turban. For all her impudence in adopting such a dress she maintained her dignity. Cries of “Well done, Mrs. Wargrave!” came in a subdued murmur from her friends, bringing a sparkle of triumph to her eyes and a flush of delight. The Governor was prepared to meet the occasion in a sympathetic spirit.
“Honourable ressaldar and jemadar, her Excellency and I are greatly flattered by your request, which we regret we cannot grant. We are neither of us dancing this evening.”
“Then I must dance with my jemadar,” rejoined Mims unabashed.
She turned to her faithful Nood, and the strange pair were presently circling round the room with the equally strange characters that had come from out of all the ages to join in the Christmas revels.
At the sound of the ressaldar’s arrival, Victoria slipped her hand into Anwar’s arm. He pressed it unconsciously to his side with a protective instinct.
The expression on the countenances of the Indian guests was a mixed one of curiosity and wonder. The Oriental rarely smiles under the influence of either. There was no sign of humour among those who watched the arrival and entrance of the two officers of the Nizam’s cavalry. Even when their personality was revealed they saw nothing in the scene to excite laughter.
The servants and peons, more familiar with their masters’ vagaries, were aware that the appearance of the Judge’s wife and her companion at the ball was intended in a way to be humorous. They ventured, therefore, to grin, but it was not a pleasant grin. They regarded dressing-up as little less than buffoonery. They had their own class of actors whose business it was to personate other characters, and to earn their living by so doing. It was inevitable that there should be a comparison made between the Hindus and Mohammedans in their handsome national dress and the English guests who personated weird characters. The comparison was not favourable to the English.
As the ressaldar sprang from the saddle, Anwar and Victoria moved towards the dais to watch the scene, influenced by no other feeling than mild curiosity, little suspecting the shock that was in store for one of them. When Mims threw aside the fierce black whiskers and moustache that had hidden her face, no one in the room was more astonished at the revelation than her own stepdaughter.
Victoria’s attention, up to the moment, had been given entirely to her companion. She had forgotten the very existence of Mims. To see her in such a costume, the observed of every eye, gave her a mental jar that overwhelmed her with confusion. It was followed quickly by a sense of shame that her father’s wife should cut such a figure before the concourse of friends and strangers assembled in the hall.
At a private house it might have been excusable. But here, where the Indian nobles and gentlemen of Madras were so largely represented, it seemed bare-faced and indecorous in the extreme. How could Mims do it! How could that young Englishman who shadowed her give assistance and encouragement to such a personation as Mims had adopted!
It was ten days since Victoria had arrived. She had been to several social functions of a private nature. This was her first experience of a public ball.
At the private parties Mims had worn evening dress, daringly and extravagantly cut, but passable in a fashionable crowd of friends. A smile here and there might have been raised, nothing more. Victoria had wished that her stepmother had looked more like one of the well-bred women by whom she was surrounded in her youth, but beyond this vague desire she had not been troubled. Never before had she been made to feel her cheeks burn and her eyes smart with a vexation that was seasoned with indignation.
“Come, Deen! Take me somewhere where I can’t see my stepmother. She gives me the horrors in that dress,” she said in a low voice.
He led her towards the corridor that ran the length of the ball-room. The corridor was less brilliantly lighted, and the seats, mostly in pairs, were partially screened by groups of ferns and palms. The place was nearly empty, as the guests were mostly dancing. The few ladies who imagined themselves to be playing the part of chaperons were grouped on the dais. They may have felt obsolete and superfluous as chaperones, but they were out to enjoy themselves all the same, and share in the sightseeing, the chat with friends, and the excellent supper that would be served later.
Anwar guided Victoria to a chair where she was sheltered behind a palm from curious eyes. He took the seat next to her. There she was able to hide her face until the hot flush that had suffused it had died down. It was followed by a dull resentment and anger against the woman who bore her father’s name.
If Mims had desired to wear a costume belonging to the other sex, why could she not have chosen the robes of a prince or a rajah? At least they would have been dignified. The long velvet coat with its rich embroideries and the satin trousers might have been commendable in the eyes of the Indians, whether guests or servants. They might even have been becoming on a figure like that of Mims.
But the breeches and tunic of the Imperial service, gorgeous as they were in their resplendent colours and gold lace, were an outrage on the fitness of things.
It might have comforted her to know that she was alone in her condemnation. The English company not only expressed unanimous approval, but declared that of all the costumes Mrs. Wargrave’s came nearest to being the most perfect in character representation.
As for Mims, she was jubilant over her success. Victoria caught sight of her in the distance as she whirled round the room with her jemadar. Her good spirits showed her pleasure. They were displayed in the new kicks and capers that were supposed to be the very last word in present-day dancing. When the waltz was ended she disappeared, greatly to Victoria’s relief.
Anwar sat silent and still by his companion’s side, giving her time to recover from the blow. He understood something of what she was feeling, and he was profoundly sorry for her. He knew her pride, her love of the conventional where society was concerned. Had he not received hints from her himself on the correctness of behaviour in the old days when Mrs. Barford had included him among her guests, or taken him to some brilliant gathering in London?
As the music ceased Victoria glanced at him. She read the kindly feeling that shone in his eyes. He was sorry for her, but did not like to wound her by speaking words of condolence which would have implied condemnation.
“What an idiot I am to care two pins about it!” she cried, casting aside her resentment and anger. “Why should I trouble myself over Mrs. Wargrave’s eccentricities?”
“Why indeed?” he responded quickly. “All Mrs. Wargrave’s friends know her, and accept her as she is. I don’t think they would care to have her otherwise. She amuses them, and is popular with everybody.”
“I know she is; I don’t understand why.”
“It is because she is good-natured, and an excellent hostess in spite of her unpunctuality. There is another thing in her favour.”
“What is that?”
“Her husband approves of all she says and does. After knowing that such is the case, can anything more be said?”
“You mean that I should do well to follow my father’s example.”
“You might do worse, little sister.”
The band began to play the opening bars of a well-known waltz.
“Deen! I will take your advice. I will follow dad’s line, and I won’t worry myself any further over his wife’s vagaries.”
“That’s right! Now I shall see you smile and look happy again.”
“I will not only be happy; I will enjoy myself as well. I’ll begin now. Come and dance, Deen. You used to dance rather well in England. Dance again with me.”
She rose and moved towards the ball-room. He also stood up, but he followed slowly and with some reluctance. His eyes were full of perplexity as he hung back hesitatingly.
“Come, Deen, come! This is one of the latest and most inspiring of waltzes.”
Still he hesitated. To dance with an English girl in England was one thing. To do so in India was quite another, and he knew it.
But she did not know it; she was ignorant of the conventions out in the East, although she had them at her fingers’ end at home. She saw no reason why she and Deen should not take their places among the circling crowd of dancers and enjoy themselves with the rest.
She put her hand in his arm, and drew him towards the ball-room; it was separated from the corridor by a colonnade of massive pillars. Again he halted and made a stand which she resisted.
“Your father may not——”
“My father!” she interrupted quickly. “What can my father have to say in the matter, if that is what you mean? He is deep in a game of bridge. If he can tolerate his wife’s behaviour, he cannot object to mine. You remember how to dance, Deen? You’re not hanging back because you think you have forgotten all I taught you?”
“I shall never forget those lessons if I live to be over a hundred,” he replied with sudden warmth.
“Then come!”
The last command was obeyed. He put one hand on her waist and clasped her fingers with the other, as she had taught him to hold his partner. A smooth glide forward took them into the crowd, and they moved round with the dancers, unconscious as far as Victoria was concerned that they were drawing all eyes towards them.
Anwar was the only Indian who danced or was likely to dance.
Their steps did not include the latest thing in kicks and flourishes; but it was plain to those who understood the art that they were no novices at it. Their skilful movements betrayed the fact that this was not the first time they had been partners in a ball-room.
The glances of the Indian guests were frequently drawn to the strange couple—he in his magnificent princely robes; she in her black dress and powdered hair. Why had she made her hair like that of an old, old woman? they questioned. Was it the custom of grandmothers in England to dance? They were a queer people, those men and women from the West. There was always something to learn about them—something incomprehensible and subversive of all established custom among themselves of the East.
As for the Mohammedan, what would the moolvi have to say to him? Aha! perhaps his Excellency had placed an order on the Sahib Anwar-u-din that he should do whatever the daughter of the Judge of his district demanded of him. If he did not fall in with the wishes of the English and follow their example in these matters he would lose his pay and promotion. Men would do anything in these days to retain such a position as he held—a ruler in a kingdom that had once belonged to his ancestors! All class rules and many caste observances might well be broken sooner than lose such precious power.
Anwar was fully alive to a feature of his action of which Victoria was totally ignorant. On his part it was a daring innovation—a departure from the iron-bound “custom of the country.” Dancing was not considered respectable or seemly among Indians of good caste and birth. The dance in the ball-room belonged exclusively to, and was practised only by, the English. It was not confused with the Indian dance, which was of entirely different character.
In India the art belongs to the dancing girl. She has monopolised it from time immemorial as an adjunct to her trade, and used it for a definite purpose.
Victoria, having thrown her trouble to the winds, gave herself up to the pleasure of the hour. Her enjoyment communicated itself to her partner, who, if he could only have brought himself to believe it, was supremely happy. They danced to the end. As the last bars of the music died away he slowly, almost unwillingly, released his partner. He felt like an expert skater who has had no opportunity of trying his skill for a long period. He starts diffidently, fearing that he has lost a grip of the art. His heart leaps at the consciousness that nothing has been lost. The skill is there, none the worse for having been dormant; all the better, perhaps, for having had so long a rest.
The two fell back out of the circle, he still guiding her. Only when they ceased moving did he take away the hand at her waist. She looked up at him with shining eyes in which he read the pleasure he had given her. If he doubted, her words would have reassured him.
“Oh, Deen! that was like old times. Thank you so much. You have forgotten nothing of what I taught you.”
Before he could reply, she was greeted by a late arrival.
“Good evening, Miss Wargrave.”
She turned, and met the grave regard of Brian Fairoake.
Unnoticed by the absorbed couple, Fairoake had been watching Victoria and her partner for some minutes. His keen eyes detected her enjoyment of the dance. He also read something else that was of the nature of a revelation.
They were neither beginners nor learners making raw attempts. It would have been impossible to have moved in such unison, with a step that fitted so perfectly, unless they had had some previous experience. Anwar showed himself to be an expert at guiding his partner. He moved easily and with a total absence of the awkwardness that always betrays the novice.
This was not the first time that the Mohammedan and Miss Wargrave had danced together, was Fairoake’s inward comment.
The thought disturbed him and added to the annoyance he had felt when he first caught sight of the two among the dancers. He did not blame Anwar. His anger was directed against her infatuation, as he termed it, for the Mohammedan. It had been foolish in England; here it was nothing less than reprehensible. It must tend to make her conspicuous and the subject of criticism. What could her father be thinking of?
“Mr. Fairoake!” cried Victoria, all unconscious of the turmoil her action was creating in his mind.
Her voice had a gladness in it that quickened his pulse and made him forget everything else. She was delighted to see him; and her pleasure was not the conventional pleasure that an acquaintance might show in a foreign land. It was something more.
He grasped the extended hand and held it closely. Deep in his innermost heart he rejoiced in the sight of her, and his impetuous spirit almost proclaimed the fact. He controlled himself, however, and said in an unemotional manner that covered his mental disturbance:
“So you have arrived in India!”
“You see I have,” she replied with a laugh. “How did you know that I was coming? Did Mr. Wargrave tell you?”
“I heard it from Shelford.”
Anwar had been standing by her side, silent and aloof. Victoria noticed that Fairoake had omitted to greet him.
“You remember Anwar-u-din?” she remarked by way of reminding him of his presence.
“Of course! How are you, Anwar?” he said. The absence of geniality did not escape the ear of the Mohammedan. Turning again to Victoria, he added: “He is my Assistant in the Arukahd collectorate. We meet frequently.”
“I remember; you told me that he would be working with you.”
“Will you give me the next dance, Miss Wargrave?” asked Brian.
“With pleasure!” and she spoke truly.
Anwar bowed and moved away as any Englishman might have done at the end of a dance; and Victoria was left with Fairoake. Her eyes followed the tall figure to which the turban with its jewelled aigrette gave greater height. It was a gaze of approval.
“Eastern dress is wonderfully becoming to the men of this country,” she remarked. “Deen is simply magnificent in his robes.”
“They should wear it always, and not ape the European,” he said with more warmth than was necessary.
“Deen wears the one as naturally as he wears the other.”
“Possibly.” Then, after a slight pause, he said: “Excuse me, but is it necessary to—er—honour Anwar-u-din as you have done?”
She raised her eyebrows and looked at him squarely in the combative manner that he remembered of yore.
“I don’t quite understand,” she replied, her voice assuming the cold tone that indicated the resentment she felt at his daring to question her conduct. It brought an apology at once.
“I know I ought not to criticise. It is no business of mine, I admit, whether you dance with one man or another. But hasn’t your father told you that—that the English ladies here don’t dance with Indian gentlemen?”
He did his best to speak suavely and without any show of annoyance. He was more anxious not to offend than he was aware of. Victoria recognised the effort he was making and was ready to overlook the dictatorial manner.
“Do the Indian gentlemen ever ask the English ladies to dance?” she asked.
“Rather not! We haven’t arrived at that yet, thank goodness!”
“The fact that they don’t ask the Englishwomen for dances may account for the reason why they don’t dance with them.”
“Miss Wargrave! I’ve been longing to see you——” he began.
“How nice of you!”
“And now that we have met, we seem on the verge of quarrelling again.”
“Didn’t you love those old quarrels of ours?” she asked with a humorous glance that disarmed his wrath.
“Yes!” he responded with sudden warmth, his eyes taking on the old light. “I loved them for the reconciliations that followed. Victoria! you were very sweet to the cross old bear that I am afraid I sometimes proved to be. I was very grateful to you for your sweet good-temper.”
The colour mounted to her cheek.
“Shall we dance?” she said, as the first bars of the next waltz came from the musicians’ gallery.
“I am afraid I am not such a good partner as your last.”
“I’ll risk it. Poor Deen! You should have seen his dismay at being dragged into it against his will!”
“What do you mean by being dragged into it?”
“I asked him to dance. He wanted to say no, but I wouldn’t take a refusal. It was not at all his doing that we were setting such an excellent example to other Indian gentlemen.”
“Then it was your—your——”
“Out with it! Oh, my enemy! My fault, you would say, that he ventured to dance? Yes, it was entirely my fault; and if he gives me the opportunity, it may be my fault again that the offence is repeated.”
He did not reply. Could she have read his thoughts she would have been astonished at the relief her words brought. It was at her request that Anwar danced. The knowledge of this fact cleared the atmosphere. He banished the Mohammedan from his mind and gave himself up to the enjoyment of the hour. As for Victoria, she was occupied with realising the happy chance that had thrown them together. It was the old Brian Fairoake of last summer—self-assertive, yet anxious not to assert himself; dominant, yet eager to be in agreement and sympathy with the woman he loved.
They floated on over the perfect floor with joined hands, falling under the spell of the isolation that envelops a dancing couple even in the thickest of crowds. It was good to be together again. Neither of them spoke while they danced. Their silence was eloquent. Their hearts throbbed in unison, and they carried with them an atmosphere of unexpected joy and content at being once more near each other.
A sudden enlightenment had come to him. He knew now for certain all that Victoria meant to him. The touch, the nearness, the sound of her voice, the light in her eyes—all these he had been thirsting for ever since he stepped on to the boat that carried him across the Channel. He had starved for the boon of her presence. He had hungered to see her, to touch her, to hold her hand as he was now doing. He had believed that the fulfilment of these wild desires could never be. They would be separated by the width of a hemisphere for the best part of their lives; and when they did chance to meet, she would have created a world about herself into which he could not enter.
He was very silent as he danced. The mad moment of angry, unreasonable jealousy had passed. He had forgiven Anwar his temerity and actually felt just a little sorry for him. The Mohammedan seemed to have passed completely out of Victoria’s mind, so absorbed was she in the pleasure of the renewal of their companionship.
The waltz died away, and they ceased dancing with the rest of the company. Victoria glanced round with a sudden recollection of the ressaldar and his companion. Mims was not visible.
“Have you seen my stepmother?” she asked.
“Not this evening; is she here?”
“Yes; as an Indian officer in the Nizam’s cavalry.”
They were still standing at the spot where they had fallen out of the throng. Something touched the back of Fairoake’s neck. He put up a hand and brushed away what he took to be a mosquito. The creature was not to be so easily flouted; it settled on his ear. He made an impatient dash at it, and heard a little chuckle of amusement behind him.
He turned swiftly and found himself confronted by the figure of an insect known as a praying mantis. It was encased in glittering green. Two large circles of burnished gold fastened on the forehead represented its eyes. They were surmounted by long, trembling antennae which were manipulated by fine silken cord. The ends of the cord were held in the praying hands of the mantis. The tickling had been caused by the antennae. The mantis burbled again.
“Brian! Good old Brian!”
“Great Caesar’s socks! Mims! I beg your pardon, Mrs. Wargrave!”
Victoria stared in astonishment. The ressaldar was gone for good. Mims had encased herself in a second costume which evoked as much wonder as had been given to the uniform.
“How lovely!” exclaimed Victoria. “Congratulations!”
There was relief as well as admiration in her words. The praying hands moved in entreaty.
“Brian! the mantis wants a dance.”
He glanced at Victoria. He had intended to beg her to give him the next dance if she was not engaged. He would beg off the dance, and persuade her to sit it out. He wanted a talk, a long talk; there was so much he wished to say. Mims was determined to take him away from Victoria, however, and she repeated her request in such a way that he could not refuse without being discourteous.
“The next after this, please?” he said to Victoria, as he was drawn away by the impatient Mims.
“Look, Ria!” cried Mims over her shoulder. “There is your old friend Anwar. Go and take compassion on him; he is very lonely.”
The Mohammedan had been on the dais. The Governor had sent for him and they had had a private conversation. That it was of a serious nature no one who cared to observe them could doubt.
“You look very solemn, Deen,” said Victoria as he came up to her where Mims and her partner had left her.
“His Excellency has given me food for thought, little sister.”
“Let’s find a seat and you can tell me what it is.”
“It’s nothing but business. It will cut my holiday short. His Excellency wants me to go back to Arukahd.”
She looked at him in surprise.
“How soon?” she asked.
“I shall leave to-night,” he replied in a low voice as though anxious not to be overheard. “Come and sit down in the corridor. I have something to ask you.”
They walked towards the corridor, skirting the stream of dancers as they did so. Fairoake and his glittering partner glided by. He caught sight of Anwar leading Victoria away.
“Mims, is that what your husband would approve of?” he asked, his eyes following the couple.
“What’s wrong about it?” she asked, glancing slyly up at him.
“Ought he to be—encouraged?”
She did not reply to his question, but went off to a subject that seemed irrelevant.
“Wasn’t it unlucky that Dost Ali’s son had to come before the Judge? It would have been so much better if he could have been tried before one of the Indian judges.”
“An Englishman of your husband’s standing was probably preferable in the opinion of the family.”
“They said so, but——”
“There was no reason to disbelieve them,” said Fairoake.
“One never knows,” remarked Mims ambiguously.
“It was a perfectly just judgment and it should not be resented, if that is what you mean,” he said. “On the contrary, the family ought to consider the young man fortunate in escaping the charge of murder,” he concluded warmly.
“We must do our level best to promote good feeling and allay the resentment that might possibly be felt.”
“Certainly; it is up to us all to promote good feeling between ourselves and all classes of Indians in these times,” he replied.
“Anyway, Victoria can help, if she chooses, in promoting good feeling. I don’t know why she should not help her father.”
“How?” demanded Fairoake abruptly.
“By encouraging, as you call it—I should say conciliating—the head of the family. He is quite ready to be conciliated.”
She gave a little chuckle in which was self-congratulation.
“What!”
It shot from him and startled her. Was it an accidental trip, or did he purposely stop suddenly in the dance? And did he fling the praying mantis off his arm with intention?
“Clumsy!” she said softly. She glanced up at him reproachfully from beneath the great, round, glinting eyes of the insect.
“Sorry,” he said shortly, releasing his hold on her waist. She slipped away from him, her hands raised in the curious position of prayer characteristic of the mantis. “Is this your husband’s idea as well as your own?” he asked, laying a detaining hand upon her arm.
“You know the Judge as well as I do. Is it likely that he sees the dangers of the road? And if he saw them would he take any means to avert them? It is I who will save him from the snags that beset his path; Victoria shall help.”
“Not in that way! It is wrong! Wrong towards her and towards Anwar.”
She would not listen, but turned away with eel-like movement that eluded his grasp. In less than thirty seconds she was lost in the crowd of dancers, gliding round with a copper-coloured stag-beetle for a partner, who answered to the name of Nood.
A praying mantis is not one of the stinging insects of the tropics. In this instance, however, the mantis had left the smart of a needle-prick behind it. Fairoake’s hot blood was on the boil as his eyes searched the room for Victoria and Anwar-u-din.
It did not take Fairoake many seconds to find Victoria. She and the Mohammedan were standing in the corridor. Both were deep in conversation. It seemed to Brian that he was pleading with her, urging a request with an earnestness that suggested a personal element in it.
From Victoria’s smile and manner, an occasional slight shake of the head and a lifting of her mittened hand in protest, he inferred that she was refusing; or giving such an answer that her companion was not satisfied. Anwar took a step towards the door as if to depart; then he turned back and renewed his pleading.
For a few minutes Fairoake watched them, undecided whether to interrupt or to leave them to settle their dispute. Something in Victoria’s manner filled him with a sudden desire to put an end to their interview, if such it might be called. The man had no right to press her, whatever it was that he wanted. The sooner he, Brian, relieved her of Anwar’s importunity the better. In her ignorance of what was due to herself she might grant a request that would prove embarrassing. Good-natured women like Miss Wargrave were often in need of protection against their own kindness of heart.
The suspicion roused by the hints Mims had dropped was taking form in his mind. Was the Mohammedan setting at defiance all the barriers of race and birth and asking her to marry him? If he were already married to a wife of his parents’ choosing, it would be no obstacle in the Mohammedan’s eyes to making a second marriage by the less honourable but none the less legal and binding ties of the nikka or even the moorta ceremony. This last consisted of merely declaring before witnesses that the man took the woman as his lawful wife.
Brian as well as Victoria knew nothing about Anwar’s domestic ties. She took him to be a single man. As such he had always posed when in England.
Anwar’s manner was that of a man who pleaded for something that was very near his heart; her refusal to grant it disturbed him. It seemed that she was sorry for him. By a swift movement his hand touched hers, closing over hers for a second. Victoria drew apart instantly and widened the distance between them.
Fairoake could stand it no longer.
“She doesn’t know! She doesn’t understand! He is getting at her through false sentiment; through her soft-hearted ignorance; call it what you like!” he said to himself, as he walked quickly towards her.
She gave him a startled glance as he stood at her elbow.
“Our dance?” she asked. “Too soon, isn’t it?”
“Not too soon for me if you are disengaged.”
She turned to Anwar, who was ready to let her go. He had said his say and could add nothing more.
“I will say good night, Miss Wargrave,” and Anwar held out his hand. Hitherto he had addressed her as little sister. The formal “Miss Wargrave” surprised her. She made no comment, however.
“You are leaving early, Deen.”
“I don’t like late hours.” For a few seconds he gazed at her intently as if forgetful of time and place as well as company, conscious only of the woman whose hand he held. “I am leaving Madras early to-morrow morning—on business.”
“Shall I not see you at breakfast then?”
“I shall breakfast on the train. You will promise nothing?”
“I must have time for consideration before I give any promise.”
“Your father? He will be on my side.”
“I shall have to find that out.”
“Mrs. Wargrave will warmly back me up.”
“I am sure she will.”
“And you won’t let me hope——”
“Please, Deen, say no more.” She turned to Fairoake who was standing a little apart, a gloomy expression on his face. He could hear all that was said and drew his own conclusions. “I mustn’t keep you waiting if you really want to dance.”
Anwar took the hint and strode away. There was no annoyance on his face, but the eyes wore a look of anxiety and trouble. Victoria glanced after the handsome figure with a lingering regard. Fairoake’s perceptions were keen where she was concerned, and he could not fail to note how the Mohammedan filled her thoughts to the exclusion of other things and men.
“Come out into the veranda; I feel stifled here,” he said with a suspicion of roughness in his voice of which he was unaware.
They strolled down the steps of the entrance, leaving the lights behind them. From the atmosphere of European society with its music and hum of voices and laughter, they walked straight out into the Indian night. Everything, from the brilliant stars overhead to the palms and crotons about them, spoke of the East the India of the past as well as the present.
The beauties of the night had no attraction just now for Brian and Victoria. She had a vague suspicion that he was annoyed. Something in his manner indicated that his mind was disturbed. But why should she care if he was out of humour? she asked herself. What was he to her that she should feel her pulses quicken when the swift frown and gleam of anger in his eyes appeared? Angry or pleased, despondent or elated, his humours should leave her unmoved. She broke the moody silence that had fallen between them.
“You arrived in Madras this morning, I hear. I was wondering whether we should meet.”
It was a commonplace remark, but it touched him that she should have remembered his existence sufficiently to speculate upon their meeting. To cover any sign of emotion that might have been visible, he answered brusquely:
“You haven’t forgotten me, then. Who told you I had come down?”
“Anwar-u-din.”
The name of the Mohammedan seemed fated to come up between them, an apple of discord. Fairoake still had in his mind—and could not forget it—what he had seen and heard. An intense desire seized him to know the subject of the request. He was conscious that his desire was altogether contemptible; but there it was. He excused himself on the score of his intense interest in her welfare. That her reply was of vital importance to Anwar himself, he could not doubt. Fairoake had not been blind to the disappointment that overshadowed Anwar’s face as she persisted in her refusal.
“Sorry,” she murmured, interpreting aright the silence with which he had received her reply. Unintentionally she had introduced the old bone of contention.
The single word was accompanied by a little deprecatory movement of the hands which suggested apology for again rubbing him up the wrong way. She glanced up at him in the light of the moon and the stars; there was something in the tone of her voice that went straight to his heart. It broke through his vexation. The suspicion, sitting like a cloud upon him, must be dispersed if he was to have any peace of mind.
“Victoria!” he cried. “Victoria! tell me what he was asking you to do?”
“I can’t; I must not!”
“Why not?”
“I promised I would not betray his confidence.”
“You are content to leave me to guess?”
“Why should you guess at all? What Anwar was saying concerned only himself and me.”
They had reached the end of the promenade. The band had begun another dance and had drawn the strolling couples back into the ball-room.
“If it concerns you, it concerns me,” he said combatively.
“Not at all. What is it to you where I go and what promises I make?”
They were practically alone in the moonlit darkness among the palms and ferns that formed a temporary garden for the evening.
He did not reply, but stood aloof, partly turned away. He dared not trust himself. What was it to him where she went or what promises she made? she asked. It was everything; it was the whole world. Yet she was engaged to be married to his friend Shelford. Shelford was the only man who possessed a right to question her as to where she went and what she said.
As he made no reply, she concluded that she had put him in his place. Having done so, she would now disperse the suspicion that she shrewdly guessed had entered his mind—a suspicion that was unfair to herself and to her old friend.
“I know what you think,” she said.
“What?” he demanded in a half-choked voice.
“You think that Deen, my good old trusted Deen, was making love to me.”
“I—I—he——”
He could not bring himself to the admission that she was right. At the same time he was too honest and proud to deny the truth of her words.
“Now don’t try to excuse yourself. I will forgive you on the spot for being so—so silly, although you don’t deserve it.”
She glanced at him with a disarming smile that only served to turn his head more hopelessly than ever.
“What else could I think after hearing Anwar pleading with you for something that you would not give?”
“Let me clear Deen’s character once and for all. I assure you that he is not in love with me. He has never been in love with me. He has always looked upon me as a sister and called me by that name”——
“Until ten minutes ago, when he called you Miss Wargrave like the rest of your friends.”
She took no notice of the interruption. The formal use of her surname had surprised her; but she attributed it to the presence of Fairoake himself. Deen, with his quick perception, had thought it probable that she might be more comfortable if he did not exercise the privilege of familiarity in public.
“Deen has never posed even as an admirer; he has always been on strictly brotherly terms. I don’t believe that it has ever entered his head to regard me otherwise than as a sister.”
Still Fairoake was not satisfied, although her words brought a sense of relief to his overwrought mind.
“And you, Victoria, what are your feelings?”
It was a bold question to ask. He took a step nearer and grasped her arm above the elbow, turning her slightly so that the rays of the moon, floating over the belt of palms between the banqueting hall and the sea, illuminated her features.
“Will it make you happier if I answer that I am not in love with Deen and never was?”
For some seconds he regarded her in tense silence. The cry of a bird flying towards the marshy banks of the Cooum river; the distant boom of the surf; the croak of a frog; the whirring of the cicalas in the coarse grass of the compound fell on their ears unheeded.
“Are you in love with anyone?” he demanded.
He bent his head to search for the truth in her eyes. He could see her cheeks darken under the warm blood that suffused them.
“Mr. Fairoake! By what authority do you make yourself my father confessor?” she asked in some confusion; at the same time she did her best to maintain an attitude of friendly indifference. It was impossible to disguise the truth from herself or from him. He read it in her eyes, on her trembling lips and in the breathlessness that betrayed strong emotion under her simple words.
“By the right of love!” was the unexpected answer. He spoke with a fierce, bold insistence that left her in no doubt as to their truth. If the words had left her in any doubt, it was dispersed by the action that followed.
He drew her to him and held her close. His lips sought hers as she yielded; and he was lifted into a realm of marvellous happiness as he realised the fact that he was not repulsed.
A spell, wonderful in its newness and its joy, was cast over her. It wrapped her in a warm, tropical sense of bliss that went to her head like strong wine. It brought oblivion of all else but the fact that he lived, that he loved her, that she was in his arms. The barriers of reason and restraint were broken down. Forces that she had always kept outside her life were let loose, and she was swept powerless along on the crest of the great wave that had so suddenly overwhelmed her.
“Darling! darling! darling!”
She heard the words as in a dream.
“Brian! Brian!” she cried desperately in one last frantic attempt at remonstrance; and then clung to him again in terror lest he should repent of his madness.
The Madras Presidency is noted for its magnificent houses. With their noble pillars and wide verandas and spacious rooms, they might rank with palaces. They were erected in the most prosperous days of the East India Company. The men who built them believed that they were building for those who should enter the service through interest as they themselves had done.
In these days when there are no close preserves, the palaces are the inheritance of Indians as well as English.
In one of these houses lived Anwar-u-din, the Assistant Collector of the Province of Arukahd. It was two miles distant from the town of Kondagiri, which was the headquarters of the Assistant District Officer.
It stood in a large park-like compound adorned with beautiful trees. The garden was a mass of foliage plants and flowering shrubs of a tropical character. Roses, arums, tuberose and eucharis lilies, carefully cultivated in pots, were grouped near the house and filled the warm air with the scent of their blossom.
The front rooms opened into the veranda which surrounded the building and was carried to the upper story. They were furnished with heavy teakwood furniture, finely carved in the old times when labour was not only good, but cheap, as was the food. The furniture was arranged in the Anglo-Indian fashion and there were many pictures and ornaments that showed a fastidious taste acquired in the West.
Two suites of rooms occupied the sides of the house—one, opening into the dining-room, was appropriated to the use of the master; the other, with a curtained door, was entered from the drawing-room. It was put at the service of visitors.
The upper story, rigidly screened and secluded from the ground floor, had lost all its European character, and was thoroughly Indian in its arrangements. Where European children had once romped and played with their ayahs and chokras, Mohammedan boys and girls pursued their solemn little games of make-believe feasts and weddings. Who these unseen inhabitants were it would be difficult to say.
The intricacy of relationship in Indian households between those who are in authority and those who are subservient is always a mystery to the uninitiated. They are dependent on the master of the house for food and shelter, no matter what their status may be. They all stand in awe of him and vie with each other in serving him.
This upper story of Anwar-u-din’s house held a part of his life that was hidden from his friends, not by any autocratic and special decree, but by hard and fast racial custom. He could not have altered it even if he would. It is due to him to say that he had no desire to live otherwise than as a faithful follower of the Prophet and to carry out the ordinances of the Koran.
His private life was altogether apart from his public life. To the Englishman who came in touch with him he was the cultured man of the world, leading a life that was Europeanised in habit and thought. He took his meals in the dining-room and his table was served and appointed as if it had been an Englishman’s.
He entertained visitors and managed to make them feel comfortable and at ease. Occasionally he put up his superior officer for a night or two if it happened to be a convenience.
The sun had not yet risen when Anwar left his room. He had taken his coffee and toast as he dressed, to avoid delay. He was in riding kit, over which he wore a warm motoring coat. Hurrying out into the veranda, he ran down the steps of the portico and jumped into a small motor-car. Accompanied by a chauffeur and a peon, he drove himself away into the cold morning air. No speed limit troubled him; he chose his own pace without breaking any by-laws.
The night mists were still hanging over the tropical jungle of the sugar-cane fields and the gardens of vegetables and flowers. The distant hills showed their outline through the mist against the yellowing sky of a January dawn.
Already men and women were stirring to water their fields and gather the wax-white, heavily-scented flowers that would presently be on their way to the markets of Madras.
He stopped at a point where a horse, sent on over night, awaited him. He mounted and struck across country towards a village that lay some distance off the high road.
He had to pick his way over the narrow tracks that ran along the top of the bunds of the sugar plantation. No car nor wheeled vehicle could have followed the track. The path was trodden down by pack-donkeys and ponies, and by the transport coolie, the best of all carriers in the East.
The village sought by the Assistant Collector was a settlement of Mohammedans whose trade was in the manufacture of leather. They had no caste to prohibit the handling of skins. Theirs was an ancient art, the secret of which was passed jealously from father to son.
Hindus and Mohammedans live side by side in Indian towns. They never inter-marry, but are as oil and water in their religious as well as their domestic customs. In the open market they buy and sell side by side, and both submit to the rule of the Government under which they live.
This particular village, on account of its tanneries, was avoided by Hindus. The Mohammedans had it to themselves. It was not a savoury spot, and the Assistant Collector found his visit somewhat trying.
Anwar drew rein under the group of tamarind trees that sheltered the market-place in the centre of the village. He remained seated on his horse. The syce was sent to summon the headman, to whom the visit came as a disturbing surprise.
With hastily donned coat and turban he rushed forward to prostrate himself before “the Prince,” as Anwar was often called among the followers of the Prophet. The head of the village trembled with the inner consciousness of wrong-doing. He had permitted two smooth-tongued strangers to hold a meeting at that very spot only the evening before. Sedition permeated their speeches and their propaganda was supported by disloyal misstatements and false accusations against the British rule.
The villagers, ignorant and credulous, swallowed the tales and allowed themselves to be worked up into wrathful indignation against their rulers, who for so many years past had protected them from marauding enemies and ensured them peace and security. In the past they cultivated their land with their weapons of defence by their side. Now they ploughed and sowed and reaped without fear of molestation.
“You had two strangers here last evening,” said Anwar.
“Your honour speaks true. They passed through the village on their way to the gold fields.”
“This village is not on the way to the gold fields.”
“They had lost their way.”
“Where did they come from?”
“From Suez, Huzzoor.”
“And their trade?”
“They traffic in Indian goods between Smyrna and Marseilles.”
“What had they to say?”
“They spoke of all that they had seen and heard in their travels. There is great news. The Sultan—may Allah preserve him!—has been brought to Malta by the English, who have shown him much indignity. Did he not defend his country against them and prevent invasion in the Great War?”
The headman needed little encouragement to retail the extraordinary tales related by the strangers. He had an interested listener in the Assistant Collector. The tales were false and intentionally misleading. They were readily believed and served their purpose of inflaming the people against their rulers and fostering discontent and disloyalty.
The headman, thus encouraged, continued his story with increasing excitement. The Sultan had been taken away from Constantinople—so asserted the strangers—and was in the power of his recent enemies, the British. He had been carried to Malta against his will and imprisoned. He had been obliged to eat butter in which lard had been mixed. The Caliph—Allah give him long life and deliverance from his enemies!—had been forced to taste the accursed stuff while a common soldier stood on guard, his rifle in his hand, ready to shoot the sacred one if he refused to eat.
An exclamation of impatience and contempt greeted the ridiculous statement.
“I know for a fact that none of this is true. The men lied,” said Anwar. He felt bound to contradict it, although he had little hope that he would be believed.
“Huzzoor! is not our Caliph—Allah give him His blessing!—at Malta? The newspapers tell us that he is.”
“He has been obliged for his own safety to place himself under the protection of the English.”
“Ah, hah!” There was a world of expression in that long-drawn-out ejaculation. “That is what he has been made to say. The protector is always the master of the protected, and it is hard for the protected to free himself from the power of the other. But it can be done.”
“Why should it be done if protection is needed?”
“But what if protection is no longer needed, Huzzoor?” asked the man, looking keenly up into the face of the Assistant Collector. “There comes a time when men, growing stronger than of old, learn to do without it. Protection becomes tyranny; if it lasts too long it is the enemy of freedom. A country under foreign protection sinks into slavery.”
The man had learned his lesson. Already the poison of sedition was at work in his mind.
“If the strangers spoke thus about our Government, they spoke foolishly.”
“Ben Oola heard all they said. He told us that their words were true and wise beyond the talk of other men in this country.”
“Ben Oola! What was he doing here?” asked Anwar quickly.
“He met them on the way, honoured Prince; and he promised to point out the road to the fields after they had eaten and rested here. They were Moslems, knowing nothing of this country. It was only natural that they should seek a village inhabited by followers of the Prophet.”
Ben Oola was the confidential head of Dost Ali’s household. Anwar was under the impression that he was still with his master in Hyderabad. The last he had heard of his uncle was that the poor old man was completely broken down under the disgrace that had fallen upon him through his son’s imprisonment.
“Has your honour heard news of the Sahib Dost Ali’s son?” asked the headman.
“He is in Madras,” he replied shortly.
“Ben Oola told us that the young sahib fares no better than our lord, the Caliph; that the flesh of swine is served to him at the morning meal, and that the kibob curry of the evening is fried with lard which is swine’s fat.”
“Another lie!” remarked Anwar, looking severely at the man before him. “It seems that the headman and his people in this village are regarded as babes, who know not the world. Any foolishness may be poured into their ears and they believe it.”
“We are truly children, Huzzoor—the children of the children who called your fathers their princes and rulers. If a prince of your line, Shahzada, ruled us——”
He broke off to prostrate himself as if in the presence of royalty.
“Enough, headman!” cried Anwar sharply, lifting his hand in protest. “Let no more strangers enter this village or there will be trouble. It is well known what punishment befalls those who rebel against the British Raj, the imposition of a band of punitive police. They will be quartered on the village where the trouble is made, and those police will be Hindus.”
“Such a punishment is an offence against the faithful. It was not known in the days of your Highness’s noble fathers,” said the irrepressible headman.
“The past is of the past. I am dealing with the present. As headman of this village I hold you responsible for the good behaviour of the tanners. See to it that there is no trouble either here or in the leather market of Kondagiri. Your young men are hot-headed, the sons of turbulent fathers——”
“They were never turbulent under the old rule, honoured Prince. It was only after the foreigner invaded our lands and took possession of it that there was turbulence and discontent. But the faithful were weak in those days and were forced to submit. Now——”
He ceased, uncertain if he dared venture to say more.
“Now, under the benefit of good government, they are strong and prosperous,” said Anwar in a tone of authority. “You understand; I say prosperous.”
He did not add “contented.” He knew that secret agencies had been at work to undermine the people’s loyalty and to make them discontented. They openly counselled a combination of all Indian races. Let them join against the common enemy and kill and annihilate. Then, and only then, would the old dynasties be restored.
“The Shahzada speaks truly; the people are strong and prosperous—stronger than they have ever been.”
“Let their strength be used to keep the law and order which has made them strong.”
“Huzzoor! your Highness has only to command. My people and I will obey.”
“It is the will of the Government I serve.”
“Your Highness serves whom you choose; we serve our prince.”
The headman again fell to the ground and prostrated himself with the old form of homage rendered to the reigning sovereigns of the land.
Anwar’s pulse quickened as he recognised the nature of the reverence done. Ought he to reject the obeisance and command the man to rise? On second thoughts he told himself that he had no right to take objection to the action. In his own person the Government officer represents the ruling power to whom the homage is due.
When the Viceroy passes through the country on his official tours he is received as royalty by European and Indian alike. He is treated and addressed as if he were the King himself. The respect paid to him has nothing personal about it. It is paid to the office; not to the office bearer.
The manner and bearing of the headman suggested a personal note; the vague words spoken supported it. The tender of his fealty conveyed the impression that the headman intended it for the descendant of a long line of princes, and not for the power behind the Government officer.
The thought sent the blood coursing through Anwar’s veins as he turned away abruptly to ride back to his car. Men and women at work in their fields at sight of him showed their recognition by placing the palms of their hands together and bowing low towards the ground They could not have done more had he been the virtual Nabob that his ancestor was.
His eyes rested on the rich land with its wealth of cane and grain, flowers, fruit trees and vegetables. The revenues which were collected under his supervision went into the treasury of foreigners, strangers, men of another race, another religion. They claimed to administer the revenues for the good of the land and people. Perhaps it was so; but it was a strange perversion of the old order——
He pulled himself up sharply. His thoughts, encouraged by his Eastern imagination, were running away with him. Had the sedition-mongers left behind in the air some of the pernicious seeds of disloyalty to poison the mind of the master as well as his people? He had spoken scathingly of the foolishness of the villagers. Was he to be beguiled into similar folly?
He flung the reins to the waiting syce and stepped into the car. The chauffeur and the peon furtively watched their master as he took the wheel and sent the car forward full speed.
Had his honour been angered? Hardly so. This driving was not the driving of one who had lost his temper. It was the reckless driving of a man whose imagination had been stirred; who had been transported from dull reality into the clouds of exhilarating daydreams.
The stolid Englishman has no conception of the richness of the Oriental imagination. It does not need the stimulation of the hemp and poppyseed to set it in motion. A slight incident, a few words, a sudden change in the conditions of ordinary life, may rouse it into spreading its wings and carrying its owner into realms of fancy.
Anwar-u-din had unconsciously given his imagination its liberty. It required an effort on his part to recover his balance. What was sober reality? What was this world of fancy opening out to his mental vision?
He was in British India, a civil officer in the higher Civil Service, carrying out the administration of the British Government. He was a machine to assist in ruling conquered races for their good; to help to keep the peace; to mete out justice and ensure the good of the community.
Yet whatever the present was, the past remained unchanged, unforgotten in the hearts of prince and people. A persistent voice within him reminded him that it was a noble, glorious past of wealth and power.
He was surprised to find himself so near home. He swung the car into the open gateway and pulled up sharply under the portico.
Then he remembered the events of the hour, and they chased away the highly-coloured dreams with which he had beguiled himself on the road.
Victoria and Mrs. Wargrave were coming to breakfast with him that morning. He would just have time to change before they arrived.
Anwar’s quick ears caught the sound of the hooter as the car, bringing Victoria and Mims, sped towards the house. He rose from his seat in the veranda and moved towards the portico.
He was in an English morning suit of light material. Every item of his dress was in good taste and correctly put on. His dark hair, uncovered, was cut like an Englishman’s, and the moustache was clipped according to the latest fashion.
By his side was an English spaniel. The presence of the dog helped to strengthen the British atmosphere of his surroundings.
Victoria had not seen Anwar since she met him at the ball at Madras. There he was wearing the robes and jewels of his family. He had not forgotten the fact.
After parting with her at the ball he had hurried back to the hotel, changed, and caught the night mail. As he had learned from the Governor, his presence in the Arukahd district was needed to deal with a threatened rising. His Excellency had asked him to use his influence among his co-religionists, whose turbulence was directed against the Europeans.
He had begged him to restore order if possible without an appeal for military assistance, and without the shedding of blood. This Anwar had been able to effect, to his great satisfaction. The towns of Kondagiri and Arukahd were quiet and the strangers had moved on to fresh fields, where they hoped for better success.
It was on account of the threats of insurrection that Anwar had begged Victoria to defer her visit to Arukahd. He had not given her the real reason. To do so would have been to reveal an ugly political situation which the Governor had begged him in the interests of peace to keep secret.
Victoria had refused to do as he wished. Usually she was so ready to be guided where she trusted her counsellor. He wondered if he had lost her confidence. Had his appearance in Indian dress emphasised the bar between them of race? At the back of his mind there existed a vague misgiving, which he could not get rid of, that her residence in India was strengthening that bar instead of weakening it. It was inevitable, he feared, that the drifting apart should come. The old relationship could never be what it was in England.
It was his custom to wear European dress in private life as well as in his official capacity. Instead of a hat of English fashion, he retained the turban which was only used when he was out of doors.
The people of his district were accustomed to see him thus; his appearance was a tacit reminder that though the turban indicated his nationality, the rest of his costume indicated his service.
Dress has a great effect on the Indian mind. The authority of the belted, turbaned peon lies more in the uniform than in the man himself.
The car that brought Mims and Victoria was the same as that which Anwar had lent Victoria in Madras. Its black enamelled panels and its scarlet leather cushions were a suitable setting for the white-robed English girl who was seated in it. The colour scheme pleased his eye.
She threw the leopard skin rug across the back of the seat by the chauffeur as the car drew up under the portico, and stood up with a smile of greeting.
He ran down the steps with the keenness of a boy and helped his visitors to alight. For the small form of Mims, scantily draped in pale blue, he had but a passing glance. It was Victoria who caught and held his attention to the exclusion of everything else. The only touch of colour about her was the big bunch of double pink oleanders tucked into the knot of the thick silk rope that girdled her frock. The tint was repeated in her cheeks, and her eyes shone with pleasure as she greeted her old friend.
She was a vision calculated to charm the eye of man. In England Anwar had never noticed the whiteness of her skin. Perhaps the light there, being less vivid, was not as reflective as in India. Or his eyes had not the same power of discernment where she was one amid many. Here she was a rare lily in a garden of wallflowers.
“How did the car go?” he inquired, as if the motor were a live thing with a will of its own.
“Splendidly!” replied Mims before Victoria could answer. He conducted them to the drawing-room. On every table was placed a bowl of Persian roses. The room was filled with the scent of the attar of rose that they gave out. Rob, the dog, had followed his master and was already making friends with Victoria. “Miss Wargrave is so glad to have the use of it,” added Mims.
“I’m delighted,” responded Anwar.
Victoria looked up from her occupation of running her fingers over Rob’s silken ears.
“We mustn’t keep it much longer,” she said. “My father has heard of a car that will suit me. The owner is going home. I have a pony and cart for short distances.”
“Until the new car comes you must continue to use mine, little sister.”
She did not reply. She had been charged by her father to say that the car would be returned in a day or two. Mr. Wargrave had given as his reason that he did not wish to be under a further obligation to Anwar.
“You are making use of it, I hope,” continued Anwar. “Our roads are good for driving, and the scenery is really very fine. Not so fine, perhaps, as yours. Nothing can beat the Thames valley.”
“The towns interest me more than the country,” remarked Mims.
“Just now it is wiser to keep to the country and avoid the towns,” he said.
Mims received the advice with a short little laugh.
“I know why you say that,” she remarked under her breath with a knowing nod of the head. He heard what she said.
“I gave the advice on behalf of your comfort, Mrs. Wargrave,” he replied quickly.
“Our comfort?” repeated Victoria, her eyes resting upon him with a question in them.
“And your—your well-being,” he continued. “Haven’t you discovered that the atmosphere of an Indian town is not as sweet as the air of the country? This morning I had to visit a large village of leather tanners. Even I, who am well seasoned to the scents of my native country, found the air a little trying.”
“I know!” said Mims. “That’s where they make the Ranikeht leather. I want some.”
She spoke with the habitual childish, “I won’t be denied!” tone.
“There should be no difficulty in procuring it, he replied. “How many skins would you like to have?”
“I’m going to do up my car. I want a particular shade of crimson—fuchsia colour. Do you think that the tanners could manage it?”
“If you will tell me exactly what you wish, I may be able to place your order,” said Anwar, prompted by a desire to please her.
“I would rather go and choose them myself and give the order.”
“You don’t know the language, Mrs. Wargrave. The men might not understand. You had better allow me to do it.”
Again she laughed like a sly, mischievous child who intended to get its way. The gong sounded, and he led the way into the big dining-room, where a round table standing near one of the open windows was laid for breakfast. There were three servants in attendance. They were Mohammedans, and they wore white, with broad cummerbunds of scarlet and gold.
Mims looked round with inquisitive eyes. They settled at last on the bowl of roses in the centre of the table.
“Where do you get your roses?” she asked.
“From my garden.”
“We will go and see it after breakfast.”
“It is some distance from the house. I can show you a palm house and fernery that joins the veranda. It will interest you, little sister,” he added, turning to Victoria. It was she with whom he would have talked; but Mims had no intention of allowing her host to devote even a fraction of his time to anyone but herself.
“Your rooms are on that side of the house,” said Mrs. Wargrave with a glance towards the suite he occupied.
Victoria knew him of old. Something in his manner betrayed the fact that he was not at his ease with Mims. He shrank from her inquisitiveness and from her very personal remarks. They were cloaked under an infantile attitude which might appeal to a friend like Nood, but failed to strike any note of sympathy in the Mohammedan.
He replied shortly in the affirmative.
“I’ve been here before. My husband and I came to dinner with you soon after you took up the appointment.”
“I have not forgotten that you did me the honour.”
“I suppose your family have the upper story to themselves,” remarked Mims as she helped herself to the chicken pilaw that no English cook could hope to make.
He again answered in the affirmative and without comment. Victoria’s eyes were upon him. His family! She was not aware that he had any family in the sense of the word as it was used in Europe.
“Gosha; strictly gosha, of course,” continued Mims, still probing for information concerning his private life.
“The ladies of the Prince of Arukahd’s family have always been gosha,” he said with a quietness he was far from feeling.
“You won’t let me see any of them, I suppose,” went on Mims with a persistence that sent the blood to Victoria’s cheek.
“Deen, tell me about your garden, since I am not to see it to-day. Can you grow the noisette variety of rose that we love so much at home?” asked Victoria, determined to divert the conversation from personalities, that she knew must be painful to him, to a safe subject in which they had a common interest.
“It will grow; we have it in the garden close against the house. My servants prefer this pink Persian rose when visitors who are to be honoured are expected.” Then he turned deliberately to Mims to answer her question as to whether she could see any of the ladies of his family. “I am sorry that my mother, the Beebee, is not here to receive you. She has been away since Christmas.”
“Coming back soon?” Mims looked like a brilliant insect, as full of eyes as a dragonfly.
“Not yet; this is a dull place for Indian ladies. They prefer the big towns like Hyderabad or Delhi. Little sister, try some of these mangosteens.”
He offered Victoria a dish of brown, uninviting-looking fruit.
“Did they grow in your garden?”
“No such luck! They come from Singapore.”
He broke one open, and showed her the snow-white luscious figments clustered inside. Mims refused the dainty.
“May I smoke?” she asked, pushing her chair from the table.
“Please do!” Anwar hastened to say.
She rose from her seat and moved away.
“I’m going to look for your fernery. I want to see it.”
Anwar, with a hasty word of apology to Victoria, followed her out to the fernery. It was built of split bamboo, latticed to break the heat and light, and to reproduce the leafy shade of a forest. Anwar drew a gold cigarette case from his pocket.
“I can recommend these, Mrs. Wargrave,” he said, offering the case.
“Put them away,” she said petulantly. “I don’t want to smoke yet; I want to ask you a question or two.”
Her manner changed entirely. Flippancy and irresponsibility, the two marked characteristics of the woman, disappeared; he found himself closely regarded by a pair of anxious eyes.
“I shall be pleased to tell you anything you want to know; but your husband——”
She stopped him with an impatient movement of her hands.
“He is blind! blind to everything but what goes on in the court. There is disloyalty and sedition everywhere. You need not deny it, or try to throw dust in my eyes. You know; I know; Mr. Fairoake knows.”
“Are you sure that you are not overstating the case and unnecessarily alarming yourself?” he asked.
She took no notice of his question beyond dismissing it with a gesture of the hand.
“Two men have been talking in the bazaar at Arukahd. They say that my husband ought to be removed from his appointment for having sent your cousin to prison. They say also that you and all your people are furiously angry.”
“Do I look like an angry man with a grievance?” asked Anwar-u-din rather pathetically.
“No! You have every appearance of being the true friend Miss Wargrave calls you. She believes in you. Am I to follow her example?”
“Please do! Believe me, I bear no ill-will at all towards your husband. Had I been the judge in the case myself, I could not have given a different judgment.”
“Does your uncle, the Sahib Dost Ali, say the same?”
“I am sure that he is convinced that it was just,” he replied; but he spoke with less confidence than when he was answering for his own feelings on the subject.
“All the same there is unrest and dissatisfaction in Arukahd.”
“I think you are mistaken.”
“You can’t deny that there was trouble there as well as here in Kondagiri which shortened your Christmas leave.”
“True; but you must remember, Mrs. Wargrave, that every Indian bazaar has its wild, exaggerated rumours. They are like bats, coming from one knows not where.”
For answer she thrust a paper at him.
“Read it; be quick; Miss Wargrave knows nothing of all this.”
The letter was anonymous, and was addressed to Wargrave. It was in English, but evidently written by an Indian. It reproached the Judge for having brought shame and misery on the family of a nobly born member of the Government Service—one who had always been distinguished for his rectitude. It was a poor return for his services. As for the father of the imprisoned boy, he would never be able to hold up his head again. The writer went on to say that these were days when a conquered and downtrodden people dared to demand justice. If a blind Government could not see what was due to its subjects, it must be prepared to face the fruit of righteous indignation.
Anwar called to mind the two men who had so lately visited the tanners’ village. This was probably the outcome of their seditious itinerary through the district. Wherever a grievance could be magnified into tyrannical oppression, there was the disloyal rebel to do it. Anwar returned the letter to Mrs. Wargrave.
“What does your husband say to it.”
“He laughs! he speaks contemptuously of it; calls it foolish gassing; says that it is just what might be expected in these days. Is that so? Tell me, Anwar-u-din, tell me if it means nothing.”
She placed her hand on his arm in her agitation, and he felt it tremble. He felt sorry for her.
“Let me assure you, Mrs. Wargrave, that you need not be frightened——”
“You warned Miss Wargrave that she would be wise not to return with us to Arukahd.”
He was slightly taken aback; she saw it.
“Don’t deny it! You asked her as an old friend to take your advice; to go first to Ootacamund or to Bangalore, and she refused. She wished to be with her father. Why didn’t you warn me as well, if you thought so seriously of the situation?”
Her eyes shone with a curious light of jealous anger.
“I—I could not interfere in your case. You are the Judge’s wife, and would naturally look to him for guidance.”
“Isn’t my life as valuable as hers? or has she laid a spell upon you as well as upon others?” she asked angrily.
Her words puzzled him. What spell could Victoria cast over her friends to make them forget all but herself?
“You know India better than Miss Wargrave does,” he returned gently. “You have many friends——” he pulled himself up; he was becoming personal, a breach of good manners among his own people. “Let me assure you that the danger which threatened us at Christmas—when you were safe in Madras—has passed. I came back to Kondagiri and Mr. Fairoake followed to Arukahd before our holiday was ended. The affair fizzled out just as suddenly as it sprang into existence.”
“You think we are safe from riots, incendiarisms and from possible murder?”
“I sincerely hope so.”
“That letter to my husband gives no foundation whatever for your hope. What do you advise me to do? Go away or stay?”
“If you really feel nervous, Mrs. Wargrave, it might be as well to go to Bangalore for a few weeks. Bangalore is a large military centre. Whatever happens in the different districts of India you will feel safe there. Miss Wargrave might meet Mr. Shelford there as easily as at Arukahd.”
Mims scanned his face with a sharp, inquisitive glance.
“She hasn’t told you, then, that Mr. Shelford has deferred his visit to India. He is going straight on to Japan, and from there to America.”
“And the wedding?”
“Is put off. If you ask me, I should say that she does not mean to marry Mr. Shelford at all.”
She had startled him, and was delighted with herself for having done so.
“I have not seen Miss Wargrave, until to-day, since the fancy-dress ball at Madras. She has had no opportunity of telling me her plans,” he remarked. He shrank from asking any questions. Mims might catechise him as she liked; she had no scruples; but he did not venture to take a similar liberty.
“I believe that she has changed her mind,” continued Mims. “Why you may like to ask. I don’t know. I am supposed not to know anything about it. She has told her father, but she does not confide in me. Why has she done this? In my opinion she prefers someone else.” She eyed him with closed lips, as though to imply that she could say a good deal more if she chose. He remained silent, somewhat to her disappointment. “Now give me a cigarette. I’m going to smoke in the veranda while you show Miss Wargrave the ferns.”
Victoria advanced slowly towards Anwar-u-din. Her movements were in sharp contrast to those of her stepmother. Her expression was also different. She was serene and smiling, whereas Mrs. Wargrave’s face had betrayed something very like peevish anxiety during her conversation with her host.
Mims’s tone often jarred upon him. There was a hardness in it that did not please him. A flash of jealousy had been revealed as she upbraided him for not having been as solicitous over her own welfare as he had been over that of Victoria. It was actually a relief when she abruptly left him.
As Victoria came up she held out her hand; on the palm of it was an egg. She explained that his servant, Houssain, had taken her to see a peacock and three peahens. Houssain had informed her that in India the birds were considered royal; they ought only to be found in palace gardens. The Princes of Arukahd had kept them for many generations. The Shahzada, as he termed his master, graciously permitted the peafowl to live in the compound of his house. Their keeper was Houssain’s own little son. The Shahzada—Allah preserve him!—was of royal blood. He ruled where his fathers ruled; but it was in the name of another power. If the English had never come to India——
Houssain murmured the rest of his speech in his beard; for a small boy, brilliantly dressed in spangled cap and embroidered waistcoat, came forward and salaamed to the English lady. Young as the child was, he compared her with the moon in his courteous little speech, probably learned from his father in anticipation of the occasion. In a curiously dignified manner he presented her with a peahen’s egg at the conclusion of his speech. None but the most favoured guest was honoured in this fashion; the egg was rarely given outside the family, a fact of which Victoria was ignorant.
After this little bit of picturesque drama, so dear to the heart of the Oriental at all times, Houssain pointed out the way to the fernery where the lady would find his master.
Anwar did not speak immediately. His eyes were studying the figure of the woman who was bringing a royal gift in her hand. He listened as she described her visit to the peacocks, but his thoughts wandered to the last item of news about Victoria which Mims had fired at him as a parting shot. He was puzzled and perplexed. A question arose in his mind. Had her father made an objection to the proposed marriage? Had he reasons for wishing to dispose of her hand elsewhere?
He recalled the custom of the English in the arrangement of their daughters’ marriages. The girls were left to choose for themselves. It was only after the choice had been made that the parents’ consent was asked.
The change, then, was Victoria’s own doing. It must have been brought about by circumstances that had occurred since her arrival in India.
“There is something so strange about my visit to you, Deen,” she said recalling his wandering thoughts.
“Is there? What is it?”
“The tables are turned. In England you were my guest and I was hostess. Now you are the host and I am the guest.”
“It is an honour that I never dared to hope for in those old days.”
She laughed as she replied:
“We need not pay each other compliments, you and I. You forget that I am still your little sister.”
He gazed at her questioningly. Was it possible that he could still be her adopted brother? The relationship seemed to have died away when she stood by his side in the ball-room. It was the dress he wore at the time which killed it. It marked his nationality and destroyed the British touch acquired in his exile. The gulf between the man of the East and the woman of the West yawned wide between them. It was incapable of being bridged by any ties of adoption.
He wished now that he had not exhibited the robes. It was a bit of foolish vanity involving a loss he had not contemplated, a loss he regretted. The dress proclaimed his race.
When they were in England she had taken him into her life, into her domestic circle. She had made him, an exiled boy, one of the family; she had allowed him to call her sister. Now that the tables were turned, she the exile and he the host, he could not reciprocate, and, unintentionally, he had shown her why by wearing the dress of his people.
It would be impossible for him to invite her to enter his family circle as she had invited him. He thought of the women who often occupied the rooms above; of their want of education; of their habits, so different from the refined customs of English cultured life. They were like a string of beads confined on the same string—all patterned the same, without individuality of their own. His mother ruled their actions and controlled them arbitrarily.
The thought of Victoria existing as one of that circle—surrounded by intrigue and espionage—almost made him smile. Victoria could only stand by herself, a jewel apart from the string of beads. A sister never stood by herself in the families of his nation. A sister remained confined on the string until she was singled out to become a wife——
The word “wife” rushed unbidden into his mind, bringing confusion of thought. He turned abruptly to a wing of the fernery with the quick movement of a man who was instinctively avoiding a suddenly-revealed danger.
“See, here, Miss Wargrave; you will appreciate what I have attempted in this corner. I have made a collection of ferns that are indigenous to this district.”
Her attention was caught at once. She had taught him when he was a boy to collect the ferns and wild flowers of the country places where they spent their holidays together with Mrs. Barford.
“I have seen some of these in hot-houses at home. How interesting to find them growing wild in the open.”
Presently her eyes were withdrawn from the plants and fixed upon him with a question in them.
“Tell me, Deen, were you vexed with me for refusing to run away to Bangalore at your bidding? I was sorry, but I couldn’t leave my dear father whom I had so lately found.”
“Of course I was not angry; I was only anxious for your welfare—the more so since your father seemed to have no sense of the danger that was in the air at the time. I fully expected trouble in Arukahd and I thought it a pity that you should run into it.”
“I didn’t turn your advice down without consideration. I spoke to my father about it. He thought the report was exaggerated, but even if it was not, he said we ought to show no fear. It would be courting disaster for any of us to run away. It would only serve to increase the danger.”
“The danger is over for the present,” he said.
He did not tell her how much he had had to do with the pacification of the whole district. It had not been an easy task and it was one in which Fairoake was unable to give him much help. The people had listened to his arguments; not because he was the Government officer, but because he was dear to them on account of his birth, a son of the old line of Indian rulers. And he was not ignorant of the fact.
The town of Kondagiri clustered round the foot of the rock on which stood the old fortified palace of the Princes of Arukahd. The building usually went by the name of the Fort.
It was to Kondagiri that the last Nabob retired after being driven out of Arukahd, the capital of the kingdom, by the English. From that time the Princes of Arukahd were pensioners of the British Government. The head of the family preferred to live in the town of Madras, where he surrounded himself with a show of state that deceived no one.
The rock was visible from the house in which Anwar lived. Its Mahratta battlements stood out sharply against the sky. His eyes rested on its curved lines, as clear-cut as when they were first built. Victoria, standing by his side, followed his gaze across the bank of green ferns. It was she who broke the silence that had fallen between them. It seemed as though she possessed the power of divination, so near was her speech to the subject of his thoughts as his eyes dwelt on the walls.
“Does it ever strike you that India is fast approaching the time when she will be sufficiently advanced to govern herself?” she said.
“I have not considered the question from that particular point,” he replied slowly. “But I admit that I have sometimes wondered if the British Government, with its curious tendency to impose Western methods on an Eastern people, is not weakening its own power and losing its grip on India.”
“What methods do you call Western?”
“The privilege of free speech and a free Press. Admirable in countries where such boons are understood, but dangerous weapons in the hands of those who don’t understand them.”
“Have you any particular case in your mind?”
“Just now my cousin’s case is often in my mind,” he replied quickly. “Agitators, strangers to the country, have been asking our people to consider if the Government has a right to punish crime. Of course it has the right to do so, as well as to put down sedition. It has a right to insist on governing for the good of the community instead of for the good of the individual. To question the right to rule is sheer disloyalty to the paramount power.”
“Yes; and if we were not able to rule India for her good, we might as well clear put at once, and leave others to try their hands at it,” said Victoria.
“What! Treat us as you have treated Ireland? Allah preserve us from such a catastrophe!”
Victoria smiled at his vehemence and asked:
“What would happen if we left India?”
“It would be given over once more to barbarism except in one or two spots where a man of strong character picked up the reins. With a following of devoted adherents, who believed in him, he might perhaps be able to continue the good work begun by the British.”
“Might! He would do so,” said Victoria with conviction.
“You forget the animosity that is always smouldering between the different races—a hatred that has its origin in a prehistoric struggle for supremacy. In addition there are insuperable religious differences.”
“The races are living peaceably side by side now. Why shouldn’t they continue to do so?”
“Granted, if you like, that such might be the case, how could India, broken up as it would be into different states, be able to protect herself from the hostile tribes upon her borders? The tribes of the far north are for ever turning hungry eyes on the flocks and herds, the fertile fields of grain, fruit and sugar of our plains. Read history, little sister. History repeats itself.”
“If a man like you, Deen, caught up the reins here in the south——”
“Treason! treason! Miss Wargrave!” he cried, the olive tint of his cheek deepening as the blood rushed through his veins. He laughed, but the laugh hid a sudden leaping of the imagination. It was impossible to forget that his ancestors had ruled the kingdom of Arukahd in their own way with a strong, autocratic hand. It was a prosperous land and they had been able to hold their own—until the English with their modern methods of warfare arrived. She saw that he was moved.
“I didn’t mean to talk treason, Deen. But it wouldn’t matter if I did. You are safe and sound—-as loyal as men are made—one of the best.”
He flushed under her warm, spontaneous praise. It thrilled him.
“May I always deserve your good opinion, little sister!” he answered, his eyes alight with a sudden uplifting of the spirit.
“To go to another subject,” she said after a slight pause. “I want to talk to you about the car. It is to be returned. My father wishes it.”
“I would rather you kept it till the new one comes.”
“No,” she replied in the decisive manner which he knew of old. “No; I have the pony and trap, which serves my purpose.”
“Mrs. Wargrave——”
She stopped him. “I know what you would say. It is just that which my father wishes to avoid. Her car is in excellent order. Since she has seen yours with its beautiful red leather cushions and new fittings, she has been wild to have something of the same kind. My father begs of you to do him the favour of allowing him to return the car at once, Deen! I demand it as an old friend.”
After this there was no more to be said. He acquiesced and the subject was dropped. They strolled towards the veranda, where Mims, already tired of her own company, was on the prowl, restless and inquisitive. Houssain was on the alert. Once when she went towards the door that led to the room used as a guest chamber, he had interposed his stately person with the information that the door was locked. If Madam desired it, he would fetch the key from the master.
Mims refused his offer. She did not wish Anwar to think that she was prying. She had come to breakfast with him self-invited. This fact was not known to Wargrave, nor to Victoria. They supposed that she had received a written invitation from Anwar. Her first object was to discover what he thought of the anonymous letter. Her second was to go to the leather sellers, procure patterns and place the order herself. She was quite ready to go back, and as soon as Anwar appeared she asked him to call up the car.
“I shall keep this car,” she remarked, smiling sweetly at him. “I shall be glad to have it while mine is being done up.”
Anwar did not reply; a glance from Victoria kept him silent.
Mims mounted to the driver’s place and took the wheel. The chauffeur occupied the seat by her side and Victoria was alone at the back.
“Mrs. Wargrave, when you have passed through the gateway, take the road to your left and avoid the town,” said Anwar.
“Why should I avoid the town?” she asked petulantly.
“The road that skirts the town is far better for driving than the one that goes through it.”
Victoria had extended her hand in farewell, and he had possessed himself of it with a firm, close grasp. He continued to hold it while he spoke to Mrs. Wargrave. His attention came back to Victoria.
“Good-bye, little sister. This has been a great pleasure to me and a new experience. I like having the tables turned, as you called it.”
He released his hold and stood back. Mims’s attention was upon the wheel and she did not see the lingering gaze which followed the car with its figure in white at the back.
Mrs. Wargrave was a good driver and a lover of speed. As she passed out of the open gateway, which was some distance from the house, she slowed down.
“To the left, madam,” said the chauffeur, thinking that she had forgotten the master’s directions.
She took no notice of his words, but drove straight on towards the town. Presently she was threading her way through the thronged streets.
Kondagiri was not new to her. She had been there two or three times previously and had visited the old fort. She passed through the bazaar and pulled up in a part o the town where the leather sellers had their shops.
The men who kept them were Mohammedans—tall, long-limbed, active creatures, with thin, rugged necks. They formed a striking contrast to the soft, full-bodied Hindus, smiling and good-natured when they were not excited or irritated. The leather sellers started with surprise at the sudden appearance of Mims and Victoria.
“Tell them that I want to see some leather like this,” said Mrs. Wargrave to the chauffeur.
An elderly man came forward and to him the order was interpreted. He examined the leather of the car, passing a bony hand lovingly over it as if the touch as well as the sight of the brilliant scarlet was pleasant.
“This is English leather,” he said. “We make only brown and yellow and black. Our leather is highly prized,” he added jealously. “And our customers prefer the dark brown.”
“I must have red. You must make it red and in sufficient quantity to cover all the cushions of a car like this,” she said imperiously.
A crowd gathered in the street round them. It was composed mostly of Mohammedans. No Hindu but a pariah would have been seen with the dealers in skins, the material used by shoemakers, one of the lowest of the outcasts.
The old man, who seemed to be the owner of the most important of the leather shops, declared his inability to supply what the lady demanded. Mims again insisted, and refused to take his word for it that he could not give her what she wanted.
“It is useless, madam,” said the chauffeur. “The man has not got the red leather, and he does not know how to make it.”
“Silly old thing!” she said irritably.
Although the words were not actually understood, the tone in which they were spoken conveyed an impression of contemptuous impatience. Someone in the crowd laughed. Another shouted to the chauffeur to show the ladies the way to the shoemakers; the foreigners had no caste to spoil.
The words were rough and rude. The chauffeur had enough sense not to translate the speech.
“Drive on, Mims,” cried Victoria. “I don’t like the look of these people.”
“Make way! make way!” shouted the chauffeur. “Madam is satisfied.”
“Who are you to speak?” asked the shopman, looking curiously at the chauffeur as though he recognised him.
“The Shahzada’s driver of his devil carriage,” shouted the chauffeur over his shoulder. It was still difficult to move. “There will be trouble with his honour if the car is stopped.”
“The Shahzada’s car?” they said, falling back. “He has lent his car to the English ladies?”
“He has, and I am commanded to see them safely home.”
By this time Mims had put the car in motion, but progress was slow on account of the increasing throng of people. The leather sellers ran alongside shouting questions.
“Where are the English ladies going?”
“To Arukahd,” was the reply given by the chauffeur.
“Let them go; they have done no harm,” said the old man, falling back and losing interest in the strangers.
The car was beginning to slip along a little faster, but the crowd still impeded progress.
“Who are they? who are they?”
“The wife and daughter of his Honour the Judge, Judge Wargrave,” replied the chauffeur, hoping to inspire the crowd with awe.
It was an unfortunate admission. The mention of Judge Wargrave’s name only roused their animosity. It was the signal for a roar of indignation.
The chauffeur seized the wheel from the trembling hands of Mrs. Wargrave, who was fast losing her nerve and becoming frightened. He opened out and let the car go. There was a collision and a man was thrown aside by the car. Fortunately the wheel did not go over him, but he was terrified at the touch of the devil carriage and yelled.
Sticks and stones were hurled after them. A broken piece of tile caught Mims in the neck, giving her a smart blow, sufficient to bruise the skin but not break it. She screamed, and cowered down on to the seat vacated by the chauffeur. It was lower than the driving seat, and there she crouched.
In two minutes they were out of the town and once more safe on the wide avenued road with nothing to impede their progress. The chauffeur was quite as anxious to put a safe distance between himself and their assailants. He knew more of the animosity underlying the apparent tranquillity of the people than did the Judge and his wife.
That evening Mims wrote to Nood, her pet lamb, imploring him to take short leave and come to Arukahd at once. She required his help in a matter that was of vital importance to herself. She would never, never speak to him again if he failed her.
Brian Fairoake, like Anwar-u-din, had been called back to Arukahd before the Christmas vacation was over. It was considered advisable that he should be on the spot, but it was the Assistant Collector who dealt directly with the trouble and successfully nipped it in the bud before it became serious.
When the Mohammedan princes invaded the old kingdom of Arukahd, numbers of Mohammedans followed them with the intention of occupying the new territory. They settled in towns as traders and formed strong colonies in nearly every town and village. They kept rigidly to themselves in domestic as well as religious matters. Agriculture, ploughing, sowing and cattle raising, that played so important a part in the building up of the prosperity of the land, they left to the conquered Hindus.
The keen-eyed descendants of the followers of the old Nabobs possessed short memories about some things and long memories about others. They forgot the tyrannies of the arbitrary autocrats who ruled their fathers in the old days, and they remembered only the glory and pageantry of the past. There was a tradition of gold being so plentiful in those times that it was coined and circulated; it was used not only for personal ornaments but also for household utensils and adornment. Sugar and grain were cheap and no follower of the Prophet was poor.
The Mohammedans of the Arukahd district associated the traditions of the past with Anwar-u-din, the descendant of the Nabobs, and secretly pointed to him in moments of restlessness and discontent, as their rightful sovereign, who would restore the ancient glories. They disliked Fairoake.
In their opinion he was a usurper. They admitted that the unsympathetic Englishman was rigidly just. He neither oppressed the weak nor took bribes from the rich, nor favoured one man at the expense of another. But for all his good and sterling qualities they did not like him as they liked his subordinate.
Anwar-u-din was everything that Fairoake was—just, incorruptible, impartial. There was nothing to choose between the two except that the Englishman was an alien and the Mohammedan was a descendant of their former princes. They surrounded him with a glamour of romance and were to a man his devoted adherents. In addition to his claim by inheritance to their regard, he had a great personal attraction. Tall and good-looking, he had acquired during his residence in England something of the confidence of the successful man of the West. This, added to the romance of his birth, drew the Mohammedans to him. He was aware that his fellow-countrymen regarded him favourably, but he was ignorant of the aspirations to which the sight of him gave rise.
At the time of Victoria’s visit to Anwar-u-din with her stepmother, Brian was in camp. She and he had met only once after the memorable evening of the ball. It was on the following morning before he left for Arukahd. They discussed the course it would be best to pursue to extricate themselves from the difficulties with which they had entangled themselves by their rash behaviour.
As might be expected, they were not agreed on the line to be taken. Brian demanded nothing less than an immediate engagement. He was prepared, he said, to let the whole world know that he intended to marry her and no one else. But to this she objected.
“I can’t possibly be engaged to two men at once,” she declared.
“You can say that the other arrangement is at an end,” he said imperiously.
“But it is not at an end—yet,” she protested. “I can’t break it off without communicating with Rupert.”
“Marry me at once and the rest will follow naturally.”
He gazed at her with pleading eyes and she found it hard to resist. Her sense of duty and fairness held her to her resolve.
“If you will only have a little patience, Brian, all can be arranged without hurting anyone’s feelings or outraging the conventions.”
He smiled grimly, unconvinced.
“I don’t fancy that we can get through this business without treading rather heavily on other people’s corns. Better do it slap-dash and get it over than allow things to hang about. If once we are married, there will be no more to be said about it.”
She did not speak, and he took her silence as a sign of yielding. He was wrong. They were both strong-willed, but with a difference. He was quick and impetuous; she was slow and deliberate; and each had a full share of fixity of purpose and determination
“Look here, best beloved. Your father will be returning to Arukahd on the fifth or sixth. I shall be out in camp. I must go; I can’t possibly put off what has to be done. But I can come into Arukahd for a day or two. Why shouldn’t we be married about January the twentieth and honeymoon in camp? We should have six weeks of splendid weather. How you would enjoy it!”
She shook her head. It sounded very tempting, but it was not in accordance with her idea of the fitness of things. In the absence of comment on her part he continued to describe the delights of a leisurely trip through the beautiful country of Arukahd, embracing an ideal climate, sunny days, cool nights, spreading trees, grass, streams, and miles of avenued roads good for motoring and riding. He had an admirable staff of servants, a motor-car, a trusty pair of riding horses to carry them where the car could not go. The words poured from his lips with persuasive force.
“Impossible! Please don’t press it further. You make me unhappy.”
“Unhappy!” he repeated. “What else can you expect if you persist in turning your back on such perfect happiness as I am suggesting?”
“Later on, perhaps.”
“No one in his senses can think of camping after the first or second week in March.”
“We can go to the hills instead.”
“If I can get leave, which is very unlikely.”
“I am sorry,” she said at last. Her penitence encouraged him to make yet another attempt to get his way.
“Remember, you are brewing unhappiness for me as well as yourself,” he replied with a touch of anger which he considered justifiable, since her refusal affected his interests as well as hers.
“If I cause you unhappiness I am sorry,” she said with a sudden coolness that recalled him to his senses.
He begged her forgiveness; blamed himself for distressing her; declared hotly that it would be better for her in the end if she turned him down at once and stuck to that self-satisfied ass Rupert.
“Brian! Brian!” she cried in a different tone altogether. “I won’t have you so cross and fractious! You are an old darling, but you have a masterful spirit that mustn’t be allowed to get out of hand. Keep it for managing your unruly district. Now listen and I will tell you what I am going to do. I shall write to Rupert at once. I shall catch him at Tokio, where he is going to stay at the hotel. The Grahams will be with him. Perhaps Susie and Beattie may be able to console him. They are shadowing him and he seems well content.”
“How long will it be before you get his reply?”
“I shall receive my release before Easter. At Easter you will have a day or two to spare. If you’re good——”
“Best of women! I will be good!”
“Meanwhile, until I have Rupert’s reply, we meet as friends.”
“I shall come into Arukahd as often as I can. The car will bring me in for dinner and take me out again easily. I may be able to steal a Sunday off now and then, but unfortunately Indians don’t regard Sunday as a day of rest.”
“If you can manage a week-end we’ll have a drive. It won’t be the first motor drive we have had.”
They drifted into reminiscences, and laughed over his diatribes against the educated Indians and how he had prophesied that the country was going to the dogs.
“What a down you had on poor Deen!” she said.
“I thought you petted him a great deal more than was good for him.”
They parted that morning in Madras—he to return at once to his district, and she to fulfil the social duties that her position as Wargrave’s daughter demanded.
No engagement was announced and no one knew of the change in Victoria’s feelings. It was perhaps fortunate that Fairoake was obliged to leave Madras. They were not seen together and there was nothing to give rise to any gossip.
The fact that she received letters from him was known only to her father, to whom the post-bag was brought. To him she confided her secret, certain that she would have his sympathy. Fairoake he knew and liked—hot-tempered, but as good and generous a man as ever stepped. Shelford was an unknown quantity. The fact that he was passing India by while Victoria was there was not in his favour. “A lukewarm lover” was his verdict.
Mims, inquisitive and suspicious, questioned her husband and drew her own conclusions from his evasive replies. Her suspicions were sufficiently strong for her to make the statement to Anwar in the fernery that she believed Victoria had no intention of marrying Rupert Shelford.
Wargrave was informed of the occurrence at Kondagiri. He was disturbed by it. Something must be done. He would have been glad to let it pass, but if any evil consequences arose out of it, he would be blamed for not having spoken.
The proper course was to write to the Collector, as being the superior officer, he having control over the whole district. It was his business to direct the Assistant Collector to make the inquiry. Accordingly, Wargrave wrote his report of what had happened, leaving Fairoake to act as he thought best.
His letter brought Brian into the cantonments immediately. It was his first visit since Victoria’s return. Wargrave had not given him many details; he did not wish to prejudice anyone connected with the case, nor did he make any complaint.
Fairoake grasped one fact thoroughly: Victoria had been to Kondagiri and had accepted the hospitality of “that fellow Anwar-u-din,” as he mentally termed him. The mere thought of it roused his anger. He did his best to hide it, but with a man of his temperament, concealment of emotion was not any easy matter.
The first person to be interviewed after he had had a chat with the Judge, who really knew very little of the details and regarded the whole affair as unimportant, was Mrs. Wargrave.
Mims had been very persistent in claiming the privilege of being the first to tell her story. It was a curiously garbled tale. Fairoake, knowing her character, should have taken it with a grain of salt, and remembered that Mims was nothing if she was not highly dramatic and even tragic.
“I must see Miss Wargrave,” he said as Mims rambled on, wasting precious time.
“She can’t tell you anything more than I can. It was for her sake that I paid the visit.”
“For her sake? I don’t understand.”
“That she might see her old friend, Deen, as she calls him.”
She glanced at him sideways with sly, mischievous eyes. If he had had any discernment he would have arrived at the conclusion that for some reason or other Mrs. Wargrave had no special love for her stepdaughter.
“Why did Miss Wargrave wish to see the Mohammedan?”
“Oh! ask me another!” she replied with a movement of the shoulders that suggested a shifting of responsibility from herself to others. “Why shouldn’t she want to see him? If Rupert Shelford is agreeable, we need not trouble about her choice of friends.”
Again she threw an inquisitive glance at him, curious to see if this would goad him into self-betrayal. He let it pass without a sign.
“Now tell me once more exactly what happened.”
Mims described the incident from, her point of view, omitting all mention of Anwar’s advice to avoid the town.
“Could you identify any of the men?”
“Oh, no! No, no! I was much too frightened even to look at them. Whenever I am frightened I shut my eyes tight and scream. I’ve always been like that ever since I was a little booby child.”
He gave a short laugh as she clasped her hands, interlocking her fingers in childish fashion and fixing her eyes on him with a pathetic expression as though tears were imminent.
“I shall never, never go to Kondagiri any more! Ria must go without me next time. I can’t play chaperon again!”
Did she know that she was stirring up his ire? Was she probing his feelings cunningly to find out how it really stood between them?
As he stood contemplating her with a gathering frown, Victoria appeared in the doorway. She hurried towards Brian with hand extended in greeting and a heightening of her colour.
Mims glanced sharply at her; then at Brian, who stood still instead of advancing to meet her. A little twinkle of gratification shone in Mrs. Wargrave’s eyes. His attitude, aloof and offended, raised her hopes that there would be no exchange of confidences between them which would incriminate herself. She had successfully placed the blame for what had occurred on Victoria, as well as the responsibility. She turned to her stepdaughter with a well-simulated smile of relief that would have done credit to a troubled child.
“I’m so glad you have come, Ria! Now you must give your account of the accident—that is to say, as far as you could see it from the back seat.”
Brian had taken the hand offered and had dropped it immediately. The warm grasp of her fingers penetrated through the armour of his annoyance and thrilled him, but he was careful not to allow her to see that he was moved in any way.
“I shall be pleased to tell all I know,” said Victoria, catching her breath in surprise at Brian’s attitude. It was so different from what she anticipated. She felt as if a sudden splash of rain had caught and chilled her to the bone.
“You know, Mr. Fairoake, I had my doubts all along as to whether we were wise to go,” said Mrs. Wargrave.
Victoria turned on her in astonishment; she could scarcely believe her ears. If Mims reckoned on twisting the facts to exonerate herself she would find that she was mistaken.
“It was your arrangement, not mine,” she said quickly.
Mims shrugged her shoulders in her own peculiar manner and raised her eyebrows. The shrug suggested the irresponsibility that was so often an excuse for thoughtless actions; the raising of the eyebrows implied a misstatement. She made no reply, but sidled away and disappeared through the drawing-room door, leaving Victoria to face the whirlwind, the seeds of which she had sown in the Collector’s mind. The two remained standing.
“Why did you take that irresponsible idiot out to Kondagiri?” he demanded brusquely. As Victoria did not reply, he continued: “If you really wanted to see the Assistant Collector, you might have asked him to come here.”
“You make a mistake, Brian. Mims has given you a wrong impression altogether. It was she who, for her own purposes, accepted the invitation.”
“You need not have gone,” he said roughly.
His tone roused, her temper. This was not the way he should speak to any woman, nor was it nice of him to call Mrs. Wargrave an idiot in that blunt fashion. She looked at him with grave, steady eyes and a slight upward tilt of the chin.
“True; I need not have gone, as you say. But it so happened that I wished to see Deen, and I went.”
He glanced at her, meeting her eyes with the old gleam of combat, as he recognised that she was standing up to him with the determination of holding her own. It was no child, illusive and irresponsible, that he had to deal with in Victoria, but the self-reliant woman whose character was strong and courage stronger. She was neither to be browbeaten nor hectored.
There was a short silence. He did his best to conquer the jealousy that all along lurked in his heart since he had heard of the visit. Her admission that she wished to see Anwar aggravated it. An impetuous temperament like his was bound to make him the victim of suddenly aroused passions. They caught him in their grip before he was even aware of their presence.
Jealousy was a mean, contemptible passion, unworthy of a man of his kind. He knew it, and at the back of his mind was the conviction that he had no real grounds for it. Nevertheless, the mischievous yellow-eyed demon raised by Mims gripped him, all unprepared as he was, and robbed him of restraint and reason.
“If you wanted to see the fellow as much as that, couldn’t you have invited him here? That in itself would have been a greater honour than he ought to expect. But to go to his house——!”
He checked himself as he became aware of a little movement on her part. She drew a few inches away. It was slight, but significant. Up to this time they were standing close to each other. He could have touched her and have drawn her into his arms had he chosen. Now there was just that amount of space between them as might have existed had they been strangers meeting for the first time. The more angry he became, the cooler and more deliberate she seemed. He little suspected the fire that was hidden under that calm bearing. It was she who first spoke. Her words had nothing to do with what he had just thrown at her.
“Mrs. Wargrave mentioned something about your wish to have my account of the stone-throwing,” she said in a cold, business-like voice.
“Please; if you will kindly give it I shall be much obliged,” he answered with an assumed politeness he was far from feeling.
“We drove to the Assistant Collector’s house without accident by a road that skirts the town, arriving at nine. We breakfasted and had a chat in the veranda. At eleven we started on our return journey. Mims would not have the hood up. She took the wheel, making the chauffeur sit by her side. Deen warned her that she would do well to avoid the town.”
Fairoake stood listening in moody silence, his face averted in his determination to avoid her eyes. She paused to give him an opportunity of speaking. He did not take it. She continued:
“You know how contrary Mims is. The mere fact of his offering her advice was sufficient to send her in the opposite direction. If he had known her as well as dad and I know her, he would have recommended her to drive straight through the town.”
Her little attempt to take a lighter tone at the expense of her stepmother’s foibles fell flat. Not a muscle of his face moved. He kept his eyes on the glow of the green and gold of the garden visible through the open French window.
“Mims had a reason for going to Kondagiri. Perhaps she did not mention it,” added Victoria.
“She gave no reason except——”
He pulled himself up sharply. Mrs. Wargrave had certainly left him under the impression that her only reason for paying the visit was to please Victoria.
“She was anxious to order some leather from the leather merchants direct. Since she has seen the fittings of Deen’s new car, which he lent me in Madras——”
“Was that the car that took you to Kondagiri?”
“Yes; I have been using it up here as well. To go back to Mrs. Wargrave. She will not rest till she has had her own car upholstered in a similar way. The leather sellers did not know us. They had not got the leather she wanted. Apparently they don’t make it. She became impatient and the men inquired who she was. The information that she was the Judge’s wife, instead of impressing them, was the signal for the hostile demonstration that followed.”
“Why didn’t she ask the Assistant Collector to order what she wanted?”
“Deen offered to do so without any asking.”
“Have you written to him to tell him of the assault?”
“No; my father said that you were the person to be informed.”
“Then Anwar-u-din is not aware of the treatment you received?”
“He must have heard all about it from the chauffeur.”
“Isn’t the man here?”
“My father sent him back with the car yesterday. Another car is coming up from Madras for my use.”
“High time, too!” commented Fairoake. “I have been trying to find one for you myself.”
“You!” she said, giving him a swift glance. She was ready to accept the olive branch if he would extend it, but she was no nearer accepting the admonitions and scoldings that he seemed bent on administering. “That’s very kind of you, but I should really be no better off. I should still be borrowing. If I am to borrow, I may as well take Deen’s car. He has two, as well as a stable full of horses.”
“You would be much better off using mine. At least I am an Englishman. You would surely prefer to put yourself under an obligation to one of your own race than to a—a Mohammedan.”
He shot a swift glance at her, expecting a reply. There was none. She left him to infer what he pleased.
“Is there anything else you wish to know?” she asked.
“Did you see the man who threw the stone?”
“It came from behind, just missing me and hitting Mims in the back of the neck. The blow was slight and, I imagine, more accidental than intentional. It terrified her. She threw herself down on the seat. The chauffeur kept his head. He took the wheel, put on the pace and brought us safely home.”
She ceased speaking. He asked no more questions. She was conscious of a strange sinking of the spirits that rendered her dumb.
Ever since her father had informed her that the Collector was coming in from camp to institute inquiries, she had rejoiced in the thought that they would so soon meet again. Their parting had been one of passionate protestations on his part, and of trustful response on hers.
Did it all count for nothing, forgotten as soon as spoken? It could not be. Then what had come over her impetuous lover who only ten days ago was clamouring for an immediate marriage? What was the matter with him?
Pride prevented her from making an appeal, from asking the reason for the change.
As she stood in deep disappointment, silent and even more detached than he had been, her head turned away, and the distance between them increased by another little movement on her part, he ventured to look at her.
First his eyes fell upon her left hand. He noted with something like an inward start that Shelford’s ring was no longer on her finger.
Then, whatever she might have said about considering herself bound and the engagement still standing until her release was obtained, she was virtually free. In her own eyes she no longer belonged to Shelford; she no longer recognised any tie. She was free! free to give herself to whom she chose.
The knowledge took him by surprise and sent a thrill of strange, joyous elation through him. The feeling was sobered almost immediately by the realisation of the fact that though she had severed the ties that bound her to Shelford, she had forged no others. She was free, it was true. Yes, free to make fresh ties and new promises. Until they were made to him, he had no recognised claim.
Yet he had been hectoring her as though he had the right to criticise and dominate her every action.
If only he could have dislodged the demon from his shoulder, he would have greeted all that the absence of that ring stood for with a lover’s delight. Pride on her part and jealousy on his held them apart.
Victoria wore a small diamond ring on the third finger of the right hand. He knew it of old. It had been her mother’s engagement ring. Her father had given it to her, and she had worn it constantly. He caught the glint of it in the morning light. There came a swift memory of moments in the past when he had watched the prismatic rays as he sat with her. Those tiny flashes of colour were associated with happy hours. They appealed to him now. They pierced the rough coat of his resentment and pointed to the folly of dashing the cup of happiness from his lips.
A great longing seized him to capitulate, to ask pardon for his roughness; to pour out his love and crush her in his arms in a paroxysm of repentance.
It was too late; the moment was gone.
Wargrave appeared in the doorway. Victoria, catching sight of her father, walked away towards the open French window leading into the veranda.
“Fairoake, can you spare me half an hour? I’m just off to the Court House. Come with me and we can have a chat as we drive there. The brougham will bring you back.”
The Judge linked his arm in Fairoake’s and drew him towards the front entrance where the brougham waited.
“You mustn’t keep me long, Wargrave,” said the Collector as he stepped inside the carriage. “I have much to do and must be back in camp to-night.”
“You’ll come and dine with us before you start?”
“I’m afraid I can’t. I must go over to Kondagiri and see the Assistant. From there I shall drive straight on to camp.”
“Sorry; it would have cheered up my wife. She’s got the wind up over this business and intends to run away to Bangalore as soon as possible.”
“The best thing Mrs. Wargrave can do. Will Miss Wargrave go too?”
“I’m sure that Victoria will wish to stay with me, and as I see nothing whatever to fear I shall leave her to do as she thinks best.”
The Court House was only a mile away. Wargrave went to the point at once, anxious to have his say before he arrived at his destination.
“I asked you to come and see me before you moved in this matter; I have a reason. I want as little fuss as possible made over this incident. In fact I should be glad to ignore the personal element in it altogether. Let it be called an accident, the deed of some careless boy, a stone flung with no evil intention behind it.”
“But I’m afraid it wasn’t that,” protested Fairoake.
“We will regard it as that,” said the Judge with his judicial tone. “After all, the blow was light, which it would not have been if there was intent to hurt.”
“Then why was it thrown?”
“We have had cases of the stoning of motor-cars by ignorant country-people who believe that there is a devil imprisoned inside the car to provide the motor power. The potsherd was thrown at the devil and not at the English lady.”
He spoke with authority, as though he had no intention of allowing it to be proved otherwise. Fairoake was his equal and not his subordinate. Each was the head of his respective department as far as the district was concerned. The Collector had no inclination to allow himself to be dictated to, or to be influenced against his own judgment.
“I don’t agree with the line you take. The people are getting out of hand. I think an example should be made. There is no doubt that it was malicious. The tile was thrown at the occupants of the car.”
“But why? What reason is there for malice?” asked Wargrave.
“The malice is bred of the Mohammedan sympathy with Dost Ali.”
The Judge made a gesture of impatience and disbelief.
“That’s all past and over. The judgment was given four months ago.”
“I am very much afraid that it is not over. The agitators have been making it the pivot of their seditious preachings. You must bear in mind that the tile was thrown after the crowd learned that the ladies belonged to your family. If the chauffeur is able to identify the man who threw it, we ought to bring it home to the scoundrel and punish him.”
Wargrave was not convinced. He was accustomed to form decisions, and he very rarely altered them.
“It will only irritate the people. It will do no good. The offence is not likely to be repeated, because the opportunity will not be given again.”
“Now, look here, Mr. Wargrave,” said Fairoake in serious protest. “Are we afraid of the people we rule, or are we not? You of all men ought to know that this is not a time for weakness where crime is concerned. You haven’t shown any yourself.”
“Crime, my dear fellow! This is not a crime. It’s a trivial misdemeanour.”
“You are advocating a course that will be misunderstood. It is a grave offence in the Indian eye for an inferior to insult a superior. To condone such a thing will be interpreted as a sign of cowardice.”
“It is such a trivial matter, and you are magnifying it. Besides, it is purely personal.”
“I don’t agree with you there. I regard it as an overt act of hostility to the Government you serve.”
“Let it pass and it will be forgotten,” pleaded the Judge, who did not want to quarrel with Fairoake over it. “Make a crime of it and you will only foster the discontent that is being roused by the propaganda of these pests of paid agitators.”
They were nearing their destination and the end of the discussion was in sight.
“I want you to leave it to me and trust me to do the best,” said Fairoake.
“Of course! of course! It’s your job, not mine. But I cannot have either my wife or daughter summoned as witnesses. Whatever you do must be done without their aid.”
“Certainly, I quite understand that.”
“You must make the Assistant Collector understand it too. I have a very high opinion of Anwar-u-din, and I am not afraid that he will do anything injudicious. He is one of the best.”
“He is an Indian,” remarked Fairoake with an entire absence of enthusiasm.
“Therefore the more to be commended and encouraged,” responded the Judge warmly.
He had heard of Anwar for some time past as one of the Indian covenanted officials who gave promise of being worthy of the trust reposed in him. Since he had had the opportunity of knowing him personally at the hotel in Madras, he had had this opinion confirmed.
“He is a nephew of Dost Ali,” remarked Fairoake, leaving Wargrave to infer what he chose.
“Isn’t it rather a far cry from the conviction at Arukahd of Dost Ali’s son for killing his syce to the throwing of a chance potsherd at a ‘devil carriage’ by the tanners of Kondagiri?”
“The lanes of Indian intrigue are very long and very tortuous. In my experience there is no telling where they may lead nor what they may end in.”
“Anyway, I refuse to connect Dost Ali and his family with the skin merchants of Kondagiri—a rough and turbulent set of men entirely taken up with their own affairs.”
Fairoake let the remark pass in silence. He was not there to combat the Judge’s opinions. The carriage pulled up under the wide portico of the Court House.
“Here we are. I must hurry. Don’t get out of the carriage. My man will take you straight back. Do your best to minimise instead of magnifying the case. It is really very trivial when you come to think of it,” concluded the Judge, whose eyes were accustomed to study serious crimes, and who held offences other than robbery and murder as of trifling importance.
On arrival at the house, Fairoake called up his car without going farther than the veranda. Neither Mrs Wargrave nor Victoria was visible. It was too early for callers; they were probably in their rooms, he thought. Moreover he was anxious to reach Kondagiri as soon as possible. He did not ask for either Mrs. or Miss Wargrave.
Had he returned to the drawing-room he would have found Victoria in the cool shadows waiting for him. With her strong sense of justice she was prepared to give him the opportunity to make amends for his hasty judgment by which he had put her unjustly in the wrong.
He had preferred to believe the story Mims told him rather than her own. The fact still rankled in her mind, and pride encouraged her to maintain her grievance against him. What did it matter if he credited her with having invited herself to breakfast with Anwar? She possessed the right to do so if she chose. She would have preferred, however, to have had it made quite clear; she hated leaving anyone under a false impression. It seemed like aiding and abetting a perversion of the truth. And Victoria loved the truth with all a well-born, well-bred Englishwoman’s instinct.
She made sure that he would stay to lunch and probably to dinner as well. Her father could not have failed to invite him. The invitation would come better from him than from her. While hesitating whether to swallow her pride and seek him in the veranda, or let him seek her out where he had left her, she heard the car move away, hooting as it passed out of the gateway. It could only be Brian’s. He was departing without giving himself or her a chance of coming to an understanding.
Tears of anger flooded her eyes. They took her by surprise. If he gave her offence; if his love was not strong enough to trust her; if he was really jealous of Anwar—then he had better go before he and she contracted any irrevocable ties. A man who could not bring happiness into a woman’s life was best left outside.
Meanwhile, if Victoria had only known it, Fairoake had by no means forgotten her. He was strongly tempted to stay, and had she been in the veranda when he drove up, she would have prevailed. He was too good a business man ever to allow personal interests to come before the claims of duty. What he had to say to Victoria would keep. Possibly he would be in a better frame of mind if it was deferred. At the present moment his paramount duty was to concentrate his undivided attention upon the case in hand.
The Judge intended to give him no support. He would neither prosecute nor allow any evidence to be taken if he could help it. The miscreants would probably go scot-free, and would brag in the bazaars about their mutinous behaviour.
Fairoake was in closer contact with the people than was the Judge. Although the trouble at Christmas was allayed, the unrest remained. It had come to his knowledge that the Mohammedans had made another overture to the Hindus, inviting them to sink their racial dissensions and join with them in the common cause against the alien power.
The case of Dost Ali’s son was brought forward as one of the grievances that called for retribution. The Collector had gauged the mutinous spirit accurately, and he was right in believing that the potsherd was thrown at the family of the Judge with a direct intention of insulting him through them.
Anwar-u-din was at home. The Collector’s visit did not take him by surprise. He welcomed his superior officer with friendly courtesy and appeared pleased to see him.
“You have come about this assault on Mrs. Wargrave, sir, of course,” he said at once. “But first let me hear if you can stay for lunch.”
Fairoake accepted the invitation. He had breakfasted early and was quite ready for some food. It was his original intention to lunch with the Wargraves, but having half quarrelled with Victoria he had decided that it would be best for him to keep away. Somehow Anwar’s genial attitude helped to soothe and mollify his ruffled temper.
“I was wondering if I should find you gone into camp. I am glad you are here. It will save me a long, extra drive,” said Fairoake.
“I have made preparations to go this evening after late dinner. Come into my sitting-room, sir; we can talk more privately there.”
He led the way into the room that adjoined his bedroom. It opened into the veranda where he had built his fernery. He gave his visitor a comfortable lounge and took the revolving chair at the big writing-table himself. Turning half round to face his superior officer, he gave his version of the incident.
“Fortunately the chauffeur kept his head all through, in all but one particular,” he said in conclusion. “He should not have given away the identity of the two ladies. It was an error of judgment. He thought to impress the crowd, quite forgetting the animosity which all the Moslems of the district are feeling just now towards Judge Wargrave.”
“The reason for this animosity is?” said Fairoake, although he needed no telling.
“Is the conviction of the son of the Sahib Dost Ali.”
“I was afraid that had something to do with it. To begin at the very beginning. You invited Miss Wargrave and her mother to breakfast——”
“Pardon me!” put in Anwar, interrupting him. “It was Mrs. Wargrave who wrote to me asking if she might pay me a visit. It was an honour. She proposed that she should drive over in the car that I lent to Miss Wargrave and bring her too. I was delighted.”
This was putting a slightly different complexion on the invitation. Mims had led Fairoake to believe that the initiative belonged to Victoria and not to herself.
Anwar continued his story, mentioning the fact that he had advised Mrs. Wargrave not to pass through the town, but to take the outer road that skirted the town.
“I knew, but I could not tell her, that the wandering agitators, who were so busy at Christmas, had begun their work again. They have been talking to the leather sellers as well as to the tanners in their villages. I wish Government would——” he checked himself.
“Give us a free hand? what?”
Anwar smiled; he did not reply. The thought crossed his mind that if he and his colleague were given the free hand Fairoake would have liked, they might not be agreed on their course of action. He did not speak, and his companion reverted to the case.
“Is your chauffeur able to identify the man who threw the tile?”
“I don’t think we can depend upon him. It will be best not to attempt to fix any offence on the individual. The man may plead that he had a feud with the chauffeur, and that the tile was intended for him and not for the family of the Judge.”
“Then what do you advise?”
“An inquiry and a threat of a small body of punitive police. It would mean an extra town rate and would be a kind of fine. A fine is a thing they thoroughly understand. The older men would see that the younger hot-heads did not repeat the offence.”
Lunch was announced, and quite a pleasant forty minutes was passed as Houssain and an assistant served the excellent English meal that Anwar habitually took.
“Are you going back to Arukahd, sir?” inquired Anwar as Fairoake’s car was summoned.
“No, I shall run straight to camp.”
“Did you hear whether Mrs. Wargrave had recovered from the blow and from her alarm?”
“Yes, she was not much hurt.”
“And Miss Wargrave? I hope she was not touched?”
Was there a change in his tone as he inquired after Victoria? Fairoake thought that he detected something of the kind. He replied shortly:
“I understood that she escaped injury.”
“I need not ask if she was frightened. I am sure she was not. She has plenty of courage.”
Why should Fairoake resent comment that took the form of compliment and was free from all criticism? Yet he did. He seemed as though he had not heard the remark.
“Is that a pure-bred spaniel over there?” he asked, indicating Rob. The dog was lying on a small charpoy in the veranda at a little distance from them.
Fairoake pulled out his cigarette case and began to light up, preparatory to getting into his car.
“A pedigree dog. I brought him out from England.”
“A good watch-dog! His attention is drawn to something he doesn’t like. I suppose you have the usual number of beggars wandering round here that we have at Arukahd.”
“I’m sorry Mrs. Wargrave had such a fright. If you should see her, please tell her how much I regret such an ending to a very happy visit.”
“I shall not be seeing her again. She is going to Bangalore in a few days.”
“Miss Wargrave as well as Mrs. Wargrave?”
Again Fairoake felt rubbed up the wrong way. He ignored the question and held out his hand in farewell. He mounted to his seat and the car shot forward, giving no chance of any further conversation.
Anwar looked after it, standing on the top step of the portico. He was thinking deeply, and the subject of his thoughts was Victoria. Mrs. Wargrave had hinted that her affections had been transferred, that she was breaking off her engagement with Rupert Shelford.
Shelford had passed by, had cancelled his visit to Arukahd and had gone on to Singapore and Japan. Anwar was not surprised, therefore, that so indifferent a lover had lost his hold on her. The point that puzzled him was the fact that Victoria only knew one person in India sufficiently well for her to be drawn towards him—not counting himself.
Was it possible that his little sister had turned a favourable eye on the man who had just left him? On Fairoake, who had the reputation of not being attractive to women nor attracted by them?
The blood coursed quickly through his veins as he followed his line of speculation. Perhaps it was as well that his thoughts were suddenly scattered by the loud barking of the spaniel.
“Rob! Rob!” he called. “Come here, sir! What do you mean by making all that noise?”
He spoke in English. The animal had not yet learned the language of the household, although he knew very well what the summons to dinner sounded like. Rob came at the call, wagging his tail, whining and growling alternately. Anwar clapped his hands and Houssain appeared.
“Tell the dog-boy to give Rob his dinner.”
The spaniel understood the order and followed Houssain to the back veranda where his food was served. As the dog walked away, he lifted his drooping ears and gave a parting growl at some invisible object which had aroused his displeasure.
Anwar was about to retire to his sitting-room, where he had letters to write and papers to sign. He was stopped by the appearance of a dishevelled figure. On the bare, unturbaned head was the dust of the carriage drive. The stained garments were torn and the face besmirched with tears. The man fell at the foot of the steps under the portico and grovelled in the sand in the throes of an overwhelming grief.
“Ben Oola!” cried Anwar in amazement. “What brings you here in such a condition?”
The answer was a wail of grief accompanied by the rocking of the body and flinging up of the arms. A fresh outbreak of tears that were real enough choked him.
“What is it? Speak! Does his honour your master live?”
“He lives, protector of the poor! But he dies of grief. His honour’s son, the young sahib, the tender boy they have sent to prison to herd with common criminals! the sun and moon of his father’s house! the light of his mother’s hareem!——”
“What of the young master? Speak!”
“He is dead, your Excellency! News came this morning by the wire that talks. He died last night in the hospital within the prison walls. Not content with taking him from us and shutting him up with Hindus of the lowest caste, they have poisoned him with strange food that he could not eat! These cursed English! May Shaitan take them and keep them in the lowest hell! Is it not well said in all the towns and villages of Arukahd kingdom that there will be no peace, no happiness till the descendant of the princes of Arukahd sits on the throne of his fathers and the infidels are driven into the sea?”
Two men also bearing signs of mourning appeared in the carriage drive beyond the portico.
“Who are those men? Do they belong to my honoured relative’s house,” asked Anwar, disturbed and troubled by the news. If this were true, the effect would be far-reaching in the district.
“They are the friends of this poor grief-stricken worm,” replied Ben Oola, beating his breast and gathering up another handful of dust to throw over his head. “They have joined me to mourn the loss of my beloved young master, the light of the house. With his death comes darkness and misery on us all. May Allah’s heaviest curses overtake those who have driven him to his death!”
“Where is your honoured master?”
“He has gone to Madras, where presently I am to follow him.”
By this time many of the members of Anwar’s household had been drawn to the veranda. Women servants peeped from latticed windows. Syces and gardeners crept round the outside of the house, half-concealing themselves from the master’s view, yet anxious to show their sympathy by joining in the chorus of grief.
Houssain, dignified and unmoved in his office of head of the Shahzada’s house, was the only one who ventured to approach.
“The news is bad, your honour?”
“The Sahib Dost Ali has lost his son. He died yesterday in Madras. May his soul rest with Allah! Take Ben Oola to the back of the house and give him refreshment. Then let him go his way. I will write to the Shahzada by post.”
Anwar turned away from the prostrate figures and went into his room. He could do nothing more. The blow to his uncle would be severe. It might kill him. The old man had already suffered much in seeing his son carried away to prison. It was unlikely that he would recover from the shock.
“They mean well, these Englishmen, but they don’t understand. The pack for the ass, the yoke for the bull, the shafts for the horse, the saddle for the Arab. It has killed the boy to remove him from his father’s house. To have placed him under arrest, to have banished him and his family for a period would have been the proper punishment for a prince’s son. Will they ever learn? And they mean so well!”
He seated himself at the table and took up his pen to sign the papers lying there. It required an effort to concentrate his attention on the matter that must be read through before endorsing.
Houssain entered, and stood behind his chair waiting for permission to speak.
“What is it?” said Anwar without looking up from the paper lying before him.
“Is it known to your honour who are the men Ben Oola has brought with him?” he asked in a low voice.
“He said they were his friends. I took them to be people of Ben Oola’s own family.”
“It is but right that your Excellency should know that they are not his relatives. They are the two men who at Christmas preached in Arukahd. Lately they have been speaking to the skin merchants in their villages and in Kondagiri and Arukahd town.”
There was a short silence, during which Anwar’s pen was held suspended; his eyes no longer followed the words on the paper.
“What do they preach now?”
“That these misfortunes would not happen if your honour sat on the throne of his fathers in the kingdom of Arukahd.”
“Dangerous talk, Houssain,” said Anwar after a slight pause.
“Not in these days, say the men.”
“How so?”
“Fear rules the hearts of those who rule us, and fear lets traitors live.”
“Bid the men leave this house and leave Kondagiri. It is no place for them. The Collector sends for a body of Hindu police to stay in our town if there is further trouble. I would have news of where they go and what they say. See to it.”
Anwar continued to deal with his correspondence. When it was finished and he had dined, he ordered his car and left for camp.
Chapter XXVIII
Faithful to the friend whom he allowed to rule his destiny just now, Nood—to his acquaintances Lieutenant Needham—obeyed the summons sent by Mims. Nothing had been said by her of an invitation to one of her “lambs,” but when he appeared he received a warm welcome from the Judge. Wargrave recognised in him a wholesome diversion from the vague fears that had taken possession of his wife.
“You’re just the man we want, Needham. I’m out all day at the Court House, and my wife is having a very thin time of it. It’s good of you to come to the rescue, but what you’ll find to do here I don’t know. Dull place at the best of times for young people.”
“I thought we might get some riding, sir, so I brought up a horse.”
“Capital! Mims loves riding. Miss Wargrave prefers a motor.”
“Any pack here?” asked Nood.
“We used to have rather a good bobbery pack, but the country-people have been so disagreeable about it that it was thought best to drop the hunting. They began putting up barbed wire—said it was to keep the wild pigs and jungle sheep out of the sugar-cane. Here’s your room, Needham. We dine at eight; you’ve comfortable time to bathe and dress.”
The Judge turned away with a little sigh of relief. A week had passed since the expedition to Kondagiri. Everything had settled back into quietude as far as was known. The only person who had apparently not forgotten the incident was Mims.
Victoria could pity her, but she had no sympathy with nerves. She never suffered from nerves herself. The incident of the tile had startled her at the time, but she thought no more of it. She had definitely refused to go to Bangalore and had told her father that she wished to stay with him. He had expressed his gratification at her decision.
Mims accepted the refusal in silence and did not press the point. Little darts of jealousy hardened her eyes as she tried to balance in her mind the advantages and disadvantages to herself of leaving Victoria behind. She did not want her at Bangalore, that was certain. On the other hand, she would have preferred it if her husband had followed his usual custom when she left him to himself and had lived at the club. With Victoria in the house there would be no need for him to drop into bachelor ways. But Victoria at the head of her father’s house, though only for a short time, was a disturbing thought.
Another small matter that clouded the sky for Mims was her inability to secure the particular rooms she wanted at her favourite hotel at Bangalore. If it had not been for the delay thus caused, Mims would have been off at once and have summoned Nood to meet her there. Wargrave hoped that the visitor would give her something to divert her mind in finding amusement for him.
Victoria was not without her own troubles. She had had no communication from Fairoake since their interview when he had shown his disapproval of her visit to Anwar-u-din.
On his return to Arukahd from Madras, cutting short his Christmas leave, he had sent her a long letter in which he repeated all that he had said on the night of the ball. The letter was characteristic of the man. It was impetuous and passionate—such a love-letter as Victoria had never before received.
Then he went out into camp, where private correspondence had its difficulties. From sunrise to sunset he was occupied with the villagers. When the last petitioner crept away into the darkness of the night, the harassed Collector dropped into a chair, tired out. The only lights available in camp were hurricane lanterns. The night breezes blew fitfully; insects buzzed round the flames of the oil lamps, and the sleepiness induced by a long day in the open air deadened his senses.
Yet he had managed to send her a few lines now and then, which were very precious during this period of waiting for liberty to give herself to another man. Even those few lines were not forthcoming now. Was he too full of work? Was his district more disturbed than he had admitted? Was further trouble brewing? Or was he still too angry to write?
She had plenty of time to think things over, though she was not altogether idle. Mims, in a fit of jealous petulance, had handed over the housekeeping to her without any inquiry whether it would be acceptable. The routine of the big Indian establishment interested her, and she was not at all averse to undertaking it. She was very soon on an excellent footing with the cook and the butler. They welcomed her in the back veranda, where she indulged them in long deliberations on new dishes. Under her sanction fresh recipes were tried by a chef who had no desire to grow rusty in his craft. Afterwards the recipes were sold to other cooks less fortunate in their mistresses.
Victoria did not care for riding, nor was there any attraction in her father’s closed brougham. The pony cart enabled her to take drives in the afternoon and go to the club after sunset. She missed Anwar’s comfortable car.
The gardener with his three coolies made overtures when he found that her rule was established in the back veranda. If Missie could be induced to take an interest in the flowers it would mean seeds and plants, manures, renewed trellises and pergolas. Perhaps a couple more underlings, supplied like the others from his own family circle, might be introduced.
Occasionally Victoria was conscious of a vague regret that she had not taken up tennis and golf in her teens. Her life with Mrs. Barford never offered much opportunity. To play outdoor games in which her aunt could take no part would have seemed selfish and possibly a neglect of home duties.
Mims took no interest in either the house or the garden. She remained in her own room till lunch. If there happened to be an attraction she was quite capable of rising at dawn. She found it now with Nood as her guest. The two were in the saddle by six o’clock the morning after his arrival.
“Pity there’s no pack here,” he remarked as they started out into the cool grey mists. “Fine country for hunting.”
“Splendid; and we’ve got the real grey fox here, too. No need to trouble about the jacks.”
“Fox! Never seen one in India. Only hunted round Madras.”
“Would you like to see one?”
“Rather!”
“We’ll ride one up; we’re sure to flush one on the waste ground beyond the fields. We’ll cross the fields and go out towards the hills.”
“Rough riding! You won’t mind it?”
“I shall love it!” she cried as she left the road.
They took a bee-line over cultivated land, leaping or climbing over the raised bunds that controlled the irrigation. The peasants going to their work noted with darkening eyes the cross-country track where hoofs crushed the succulent young plants that had been patiently hand-planted under the tropical sun.
In former days nothing would have been thought of the manner in which the sahibs took their pleasure. If it cost the ryot anything, it was only part of the tribute due to the foreign ruler. But of late years the ryots had been taught to call in question old customs and give such incursions another name—the name of trespass.
Mims was a good rider. It was one of her accomplishments. Her husband had seen to it that she was well mounted.
They reached the open country towards the hills, grassy undulations with scrub and boulders scattered over it. The table-land of Mysore was not far away. There were few trees except those bordering the long winding road leading to the gold fields.
A fox got up from the flat surface of an embedded rock, where it had been sunning itself like a happy dog. Mims’s sharp eyes caught sight of it first. Again Nood bewailed the absence of hounds as they chased it towards the hills. Before long they lost sight of it and pulled up. It was time to be turning homeward, for the sun was riding up in a cloudless sky, dazzling and warm.
The nearest way back to cantonments was by making a short cut across the belt of cultivated ground which they had traversed a little higher up on their way out. Mims was searching for a place where the bund was firm and negotiable when she caught sight of a group of natives.
“Who are all those people?” she cried—her suspicions after her experience at Kondagiri were easily roused.
“Look like road coolies,” said Nood.
“They can’t be road coolies. They have long sticks and no baskets or marmottees.”
Mims pulled up her horse. The men shouted at her and pointed to the road which she had just left. It skirted the fields and led by a circuitous course to the cantonments.
“Seems as if they didn’t wish us to cross their fields,” remarked Nood.
“Why shouldn’t we cross? We shan’t do much harm, if any. It’s an awful long way round by road.”
She pressed her horse forward into the field, where it floundered in the soft soil. It was the signal for a howl of protest from the little crowd. They came running towards the two riders, flourishing their sticks. There was no doubt about their hostile intentions, and Mims was terrified. She was out of the field more quickly than she had entered it.
“Oh! Nood! I am frightened,” she cried over her shoulder as she galloped away.
He stopped behind with the intention of explaining that they meant no harm, and of offering a small sum as compensation, when he remembered that they were village people and would not understand his language. Nor would he be able to comprehend their vernacular.
Mims called back in an agonised voice entreating him to come on. Much against his will he followed. The men pursued the riders, shouting abuse at them. The leader was one of the agitators who had been stirring up the skin merchants. He happened to be at his evil work among the Hindu peasants before they went to their daily tasks when the riders appeared. He seized the opportunity of inciting the people to a violent demonstration. The excitement died down with the disappearance of the strangers, and the ryots passed on to their work.
Mims and her cavalier were a little late for breakfast. They explained the reason. When they had told their tale, Wargrave said quietly:
“I think you must avoid trespassing on cultivated ground for the future. Just now it is not politic.”
“But we used to ride all over those fields when we first came to Arukahd,” complained Mims.
“Don’t you remember that we gave up hunting because it could not be done without trespassing?”
“It’s very hard! I wasn’t hunting. I only wanted to show Nood a fox, a real live Indian fox!”
When Mims adopted the infantile attitude, Wargrave retired from the argument. He knew by experience that it was of no use reasoning with her. He gave it up and began to talk to his guest of the Indian fox and its habits. From the fox he went on to the history of the road, and told interesting stories of the march of the British troops as they passed north westward in the old days to conquer Mysore and the Mahrattas.
The Judge could not linger over his breakfast, much as he would have liked, for Nood was a good listener. He hurried away to the Court House where his daily work awaited him.
“Good-bye, for the present, my dears,” he said in the cheery way Victoria loved so much. “Amuse yourselves. We shall all meet again at dinner, if not sooner.”
Victoria left her seat, and went with him to the portico where the brougham waited. She could not help thinking how strong and steadfast he seemed to be. What a tower of strength for feeble nerves to find courage in! How could Mims think of leaving him and the beautiful home he had provided for her in a climate that for six months of the year was like the climate of Southern Europe!
It was an ill wind that brought no one any good, she reminded herself. In this case the benefit would be hers when Mims departed. She would have undivided possession of her father. The thought of it just now, when her heart was sore over Brian’s unaccountable silence, was very consoling.
Lunch was at two o’clock. Mims and Nood spent the morning smoking and lounging in the little room off the big drawing-room. She had appropriated it to her own use.
At half-past two Cassim appeared before Victoria, who was seated in a favourite corner of the big room near an open window. The scent of mignonette and tuberose lilies was wafted on the warm air.
Cassim had retained his place as her personal servant, and had fitted into the Judge’s Hindu household as he would have fitted into an English household. He had a supreme contempt for the Hindus and very little sympathy with the dark South Indian Moslems, who belonged to a different sect and a different race from his own. Cassim had his own room, prepared his own meals, and lived apart from the rest. In Houssain he had a friend who happened to be of the same sect as himself.
“What is it, Cassim?” asked Victoria, looking up from her work.
He handed her a note; it was from her father. Mr. Wargrave told her that he had just seen Mr. Haydon, the superintendent of police, who had asked him to warn his family not to go beyond the grounds until further notice. The people were excited over Hindu and Mohammedan festivals which were falling accidentally on the same day. It would be best to remain in the house. Would Victoria kindly tell Mims, without alarming her, that she had better not take out the motor this afternoon? Matters would settle down in a day or two; but just now there was a sudden epidemic of excitement and turbulence throughout the district.
“Is there any answer, madam?” asked Cassim.
“None; you can go,” she added, seeing that he waited.
“What is it, Cassim?”
“There is trouble in the town,” he said, coming nearer and lowering his voice.
“Who is giving trouble?”
“Everybody. It would be best if Madam went away by train this evening. There is the mail train to Madras.”
“I can’t leave my father; I have no wish to go to Madras.”
“It would be best, if only for a short time, madam.”
“I will think it over. Perhaps if his Honour the Judge says go, I will go. I will do as my father wishes.”
Cassim retired. He fully understood the necessity of obedience to parents. He was more or less of a fatalist, and he accepted his mistress’s decision without pressing his counsel upon her further.
Victoria went to Mims. She was lying down in her dressing-room. Her ayah stole away from the room as Victoria entered. As soon as Mims’s eyes fell upon her she sat up with a wail.
“Oh, dear! oh, dear! What shall we do? There’s trouble in the town. The ayah says that gangs of angry men are walking about with sticks in their hands. All the women have disappeared. They always hide when there is fighting and bobbery-making.”
“I have just had a note from dad saying that we had better give up all thoughts of going out after tea. He is coming straight back to us as soon as the court closes.”
“Oh! Ria! I’m frightened! I must get away at once. Call the ayah. She must pack for me. Oh, dear! what are the police about? Where’s Nood? Ayah! ayah!”
“My dear Mims! don’t be so silly! There is nothing for you to be panicky about. The people are excited over their feasts.”
“Drinking and eating bhang! Oh, I know! They get raving mad.”
Mims rolled her eyes round as if she expected to see wild men with sticks and stones springing out upon her from the furniture and curtains.
“Do be sensible——” began Victoria, preserving her patience and temper with difficulty.
“I can’t bear it! I’m so frightened! I want to scream!”
“You are not to scream. I shall shake you if you do. We have to keep quiet till dad comes back.”
The sudden assumption of authority on the part of Victoria, who habitually refrained from interference, checked the lapse into childish talk. Mims stared at her in surprise. Scrambling to her feet, she proceeded to arrange her dress with rapid fingers.
She left her room and ran downstairs to the little drawing-room, where she found Nood extended at full length on the sofa. He rose at once and looked from Mims to Victoria, who had followed.
“I’ve had a few lines from my father, Mr. Needham. He asks us to remain in the house this afternoon. It seems the people of the town are excited over some feast which is to begin at sunset.”
Nood had long ago given up all such schoolboy emotions as surprise or curiosity. His reply was toneless.
“Oh! Ah! exactly so.”
“Nood! you won’t forsake me? You won’t leave me, will you?” cried Mims, posing before him with clasped hands.
“No,” he replied stolidly.
“You will save me from these dreadful savage people who are going about with sticks?”
“I’ll—I’ll try.”
“Good boy! dear lamb! I knew I could trust you!” Nood blinked, but did not reply. He stared stonily at Victoria. She had often caught his expressionless eyes fixed upon her. A ghost of a smile flickered at the corners of her mouth as she met his gaze. She repressed it.
“The train to Bangalore comes in soon after sunset. I’ll go by that train. You shall take me, Nood. You will, won’t you?”
“Yes,” he answered unemotionally.
“Go and pack. We will leave the house after tea, and drive to the next station on the line so we shan’t have to pass through the town.”
“Father asks us not to leave the house,” said Victoria.
“I can’t stay here! I won’t stay here!” cried Mims, running off to her room upstairs with shrill cries for the ayah.
At four the tea bell rang. It was half an hour sooner than it had been ordered. Victoria presided, cool and collected. Her calm bearing should have inspired a regiment of nerve-racked women with confidence. Mims shivering with fear and excitement, could scarcely hold her cup to her lips.
“Butler!” called Mims presently.
The man came and stood attentive to receive his orders.
“I want my car, now at once.”
“Sorry, madam, the chauffeur is not here.”
She turned to Nood.
“You must go and get the car out,” she said.
“Madam! pardon!” interposed the butler. “One tyre is broken. The chauffeur has taken it off. Tomorrow he puts on another.”
Mims dropped into a chair, pale and trembling.
“Order the office brougham,” said Victoria. “It will not have left for the Court House just yet.”
“Brougham and horse never coming back from the Court House this morning,” said the butler.
“Why not?” demanded Victoria.
“Sometimes his honour keeps the carriage there.”
“Mims, will the pony and cart do?” asked Victoria, noting the increasing consternation of her stepmother. “You can’t take much luggage.”
“Anything will do!”
“Tell the syce to bring up the pony,” said Victoria to the butler.
“Syce not here, missie. Pony gone to have new shoes put on.”
Victoria turned to Nood, who had stood like a statue all through this revelation of inefficiency.
“I am afraid Mrs. Wargrave will have to put off her departure till to-morrow morning,” she said.
Mims sprang to her feet. She had recovered from the temporary paralysis into which she had been thrown by the butler’s announcements.
“I must go! I will go! No one shall hold me back. If I can’t be driven to the station I will walk. I will start now! this minute! I have time. Come, Nood! Come!”
The butler interposed.
“There are many bad men in the road by the gate. They wait and watch. It is best for all to stay quiet till the police drive them away.”
“You hear what the butler says, Mims,” said Victoria. “I don’t know what all this means, nor what it has to do with the feasts. We had better carry out father’s wishes, and remain quietly within the house. He will be home soon. I shall go to my room upstairs and wait there till I hear the brougham.”
Mims threw herself down on a couch and pressed her face into the cushion. Nood remained standing by the tea table. The butler slipped from the room, quickening his steps as soon as he was out of sight of Victoria. With leisurely steps she climbed the broad teakwood stairs and went to her room.
The sun was near the horizon, and already the large house with its deep verandas was sinking into the broad shadows of width and space. In half an hour the short tropical twilight would be gone, and house and compound would be enveloped in the darkness of night.
Victoria missed the usual evening breath of fresh air that she took either driving or walking. If it was only a walk, she confined her rambles to the garden, where the paths were less dusty than the roads. She was learning to love the garden with its regiments of pot plants.
Between three and five every gardener on the place was busy watering. It was pleasant to hear the rush of water along the little channels, as it filled the miniature cisterns with the sparkling flood from the well. The drooping heat-stricken foliage revived at the magic touch of the refreshing streams. The men poured the water from their earthen pots and distributed it over the plants in a fan-shaped spray from the palm of the hand. This evening she could hear no sound of falling water in the garden.
Her suite, dressing, bed and bath rooms, opened on to a veranda that faced the west.
Just before sunset she went out into the veranda. She strolled up and down by way of taking exercise. She glanced over the balustrade at the garden to look for the gardeners with their water-pots, but she could see none. She supposed that they, like the syces and the chauffeur, had gone to the feasts in the town.
The sun sank in a blaze of rich colour behind the hills and plateau lands. Purple shadows enveloped the landscape, turning the heavily foliaged trees to black masses and the high grounds to a warm madder-brown against the gold and orange of the sky.
From the opposite direction came the faint sounds of tomtoms and horns. A haze of mist and wood smoke hung over the town. But for the distant drumming, the silence of the big house was unbroken. Outside, the voices of nature filled the garden—the sighing of the wind in the fronds of the palms, the awakening cry of the flying foxes, the caw of the rooks and the scream of the green parrots. A pied robin sang its sweet little song before going to roost in the branches of the scarlet hibiscus.
Victoria turned back into her room. The house was enveloped in the deep shadows which gather where the rooms are lofty and spacious. A lamp should have been lighted by this time on the writing-table in the dressing-room. The ayah had placed it ready, but she had not yet appeared to light it.
It did not matter, thought Victoria. The box of matches was left handy near it. She could light it herself if she needed it. The ayah had probably gone with the rest of the servants to see the processions connected with the feasts.
A hesitating step at the open doorway leading to the landing caught her ear. It was Nood’s.
“Miss Wargrave!”
The voice was low, as if the owner of it feared that he was intruding.
“Yes!” she replied, going to the door.
“It would be wise if you could get away. The house is deserted.”
She peered at him in the gathering darkness. She could just distinguish that he was dressed for riding—it was some kind of uniform.
“Will you come with me?” he asked in his usual level tones. He might have been requesting her to pass the salt.
“Where?” she inquired, puzzled by his question.
“Away from this house.”
“My father has directed us to stay here. I am not inclined to disobey him.”
“You will be alone.”
“I have the servants.”
“They have all gone.”
“Anyway, I suppose Cassim is here?”
“Gone too! All frightened. Trouble in the town to-night.”
“You and Mims will be here.”
He remained silent, uneasy and disturbed. His silence roused her suspicion.
“Mims is not thinking of leaving the house after Mr. Wargrave’s warning, is she?”
“She’s terribly alarmed. Wants to go at once. I couldn’t leave you alone.”
“How is she going?”
“I’ve saddled the two horses. If you could ride mine, I could lead it. Quite quiet.”
“I don’t mind being left. Dad will be home presently. I prefer to stay here,” said Victoria with decision.
“You’re splendid! most wonderful woman I’ve ever met. Can’t leave you, all the same.”
“Do you think that Mims can really get away safely on horseback?” she demanded, her concern being entirely for her father’s wife.
“No doubt about it. First-rate horsewoman.”
“I am not; I should be down as soon as you put me up. Go with Mims. See her into a safe place—the train if you can manage to strike it; you have money on you? Mr. Wargrave will be very grateful if you can assure him that his wife is in some place where she will not be alarmed.”
“And you?”
He stared at her in the duskiness till she began to wonder if he intended to carry her off by force.
“Never mind me; I’m all right.”
“Afraid?”
“Not a bit! Are you?” she asked with a touch of mischief in her query. But it did not stir him out of his stolid attitude.
“I! I’m never afraid.”
“Then take Mims to a place of safety, and come back to me. You will find me at dinner, probably, with father. The servants are sure to be here by then.”
“You’re splendid! splendid! Miss Wargrave,” was all he could find to say.
“Nood! Nood! Why don’t you come? I’m terrified at being left all alone!” called Mims up the stairs in an agonised voice.
“All right, Mims! He’s coming,” said Victoria, going out on to the landing and leaning over the banister. “It’s an excellent plan for you to ride off like this. You’re not in the least likely to be stopped.”
Victoria spoke in her natural voice, raising it to reach the foot of the stairs where Mims stood. Her tone reassured her stepmother. At the same time it gave Mims a slight twinge of conscience. She had done her best to persuade Nood to sneak away without telling Victoria of their intention. This he had flatly refused to do.
“You don’t mind being left?” asked Mims, a little ashamed of herself.
“Not a bit! Now, off you go, both of you,” she added as Needham showed an inclination to linger. “I’ll send on your luggage to-morrow, Mims.”
Victoria felt her hand suddenly grasped and then dropped.
“You’re splendid, perfectly splendid! Never met anyone like you. I’ll come back. Trust me!”
She smiled under cover of the darkness. The boy had his good points. He might be a bit of an ass in some respects, but the right stuff was there. It only wanted circumstances to call it forth. Just now he was undoubtedly a most welcome friend in need. To have been alone with her panic-stricken stepmother even for only an hour in that house of shadows would have been a trial.
She lighted the lamp and turned it low. Reading was out of the question; she could not have concentrated her attention on any serious occupation. In spite of her calm self-assurance, she was mentally disturbed at the strange happenings of the evening. She listened and heard the thud of hoofs over the grass.
A gang of men, invisible to the occupants of the house, had for some time past been watching at the gate. They were low-class Mohammedans, looking for the signal to loot the bungalows of the Europeans. They dared not begin their evil work until they were sure of support. They sat upon their heels in the gateway.
The grounds were surrounded by a mud wall about five feet high. A small opening behind the stables served as an exit for the servants of the establishment. It was guarded in like manner. The only exit for vehicles was the gateway.
The watchers were talking in subdued tones. Indians, accustomed as they are to a life in the open air, usually converse at the top of their voices, indifferent to the fact that they are overheard. This evening the conversation was being carried on in gruff whispers. A man had come stealing along in the black shadows cast by the great trees of the road. He stopped to tell his news. He had to answer many breathless questions; for the news he carried held them awed and silent. He vanished as he had come, slipping away into the darkness to relate his story elsewhere.
Suddenly into their midst rode two sowars. One carried a long bamboo cane, lance fashion, its end sharpened into a point. The other sowar flourished wildly a drawn sword. Its blade could be seen distinctly against the grey sky of the night.
The point of the lance caught a man seated on his heels in the road. It inflicted a flesh wound in his back and sent him rolling into the dust. He shrieked with surprise and pain, and writhed by the roadside.
The horse of the other rider, excited and almost unmanageable, caught the shoulders of another unwary individual. He had been standing with his chin resting on his hands, which were folded over the top of a stick. The blow cannoned him on to the wounded man. The warm blood flowing from the skin abrasion stained his coat. Believing that he was looking at his own life-blood and was wounded unto death, he added his yells to his companion’s and joined him in his writhings in the dust. The rest of the men scattered in terror of the iron-shod hoofs.
The sowars did not wait to inquire into the casualties. They galloped away and disappeared as suddenly as they had appeared. The routed watchers had not time even to count them. They were magnified immediately into a detachment of the Maharajah’s troops returning to the Province—fierce men who were excited with bhang—they would have cut them all to pieces if it had been fight enough for them to see. Nothing but the darkness saved them from a general massacre.
Victoria, listening to the sounds of the night, heard the hubbub at the gate. She started up and hurried out into the veranda. The shouts ceased as abruptly as they had begun, and the regular beat of hoofs along the road beyond the grounds told her that the fugitives had got away. She need have no more fears for the safety of her father’s wife.
She was conscious of a sense of relief at the thought of Mims’s absence. In her hysterical condition she might have been a real danger to their safety. Victoria reproached herself for being critical, but it was impossible to disguise the fact that Mims jarred upon her nerves horribly.
She looked at her watch. It was nearly seven. If her father had gone to the club from the Court House, as he sometimes did, it would be another hour before he came home. She settled herself on a long cane lounge. The breeze blew in at the open window; it brought the sweet scent of the plumeria tree, unfolding its twisted buds to the soft night air above a carpet of creamy wax blossoms, shed during the heat of the day.
The house was very quiet. The beating of tomtoms and blowing of horns in the distant town blended into one continuous sound. It was soothing in a way. Her eyes closed and she dropped off into a doze.
“Little sister! little sister!”
Was she dreaming or did Deen really call?
She sat up. A figure stood before her in Mohammedan dress; not in the full robes of state such as he had worn at the ball, but in the dress of a Moslem man of birth. He wore an embroidered cloth coat, gold belt with a sword attached, and a white muslin turban fastened with a small diamond brooch.
“Deen! what brings you here?”
She pushed up the lampshade so as to throw more light upon him and turned up the wick.
“There is trouble in the town. I have come to take you away.”
“I can’t leave the house without consulting my father. Has he come back?”
“No, not yet. He will not be able to return.”
Victoria was on her feet at once, her mind alert and her perceptions quickened.
“Something has happened to him. What?” she demanded sharply.
“He has been killed.”
There were no tears, no wailings, no signs of grief, only a great overwhelming concern.
“How—and where?” she asked, calm and self-possessed.
“It happened in the veranda of the Court House. He was waiting for the brougham, which had not arrived. A man ran up behind him and struck a knife into his heart.”
“And he is dead?”
“He died instantly.”
Anwar-u-din gazed at her in deep sympathy, but refrained from condoling. He knew her strength and endurance. He might have described her in Nood’s words as perfectly splendid, but that was not his way.
“Where is Mrs. Wargrave?” he asked.
“She left a couple of hours ago.”
“How did she get away?” he inquired in surprise. He was aware that the house was being watched by men who were only waiting for an opportunity to commit robbery with violence on any English person who came within their reach.
“Mr. Needham arranged the escape. You remember their fancy dress at the ball? they went away as mounted sowars.”
“I’m glad she got off safely.”
“Why do you say that?” she asked quickly. “There is no danger to us, is there?”
He did not answer her. She repeated her question.
“Yes; there is danger. Hostility has been shown towards your father and it may extend to the members of his family. When once animosity is roused one cannot tell where it will end.”
He did not tell her that his kinsman’s servant, Ben Oola, was suspected of being the instigator of the crime.
“What are the police about?”
“The affair is getting just a little beyond them. Mr. Haydon, the superintendent, has wired for assistance.”
“Are you threatened as well as ourselves?” she asked.
“No; on the contrary, they are asking me to join them. They say that I am their rightful ruler. They are mad to-night. It is impossible to reason with them.”
“Where are the ladies of the station?”
“At the police superintendent’s house. I saw him a short time ago. He asked me to take you to Kondagiri. I have my car here.”
Victoria remembered her visit to the Assistant Collector’s house and Fairoake’s anger.
“Can’t I join the ladies at Mr. Haydon’s?” she asked.
“We should be stopped on the road. As it is I shall have a difficulty. A watch is being kept for English fugitives. I can pass out of this compound all right, but I don’t know what we may find beyond it.”
“Let me put a few things together to take with me,” she said.
“I can give you fifteen minutes. Be as quick as you can, little sister.”
“Deen! you are keeping something back!” she said, lifting the lamp so that she could get a better view of his face. “What is it?”
He could not explain that Ben Oola meant mischief and would not stop at anything in carrying out his revenge. The agitators were behind him, doing their best to turn a personal vendetta into a national uprising. If Ben Oola and the big following with him chose to come to the Judge’s house, there was nothing to prevent incendiarism. Victoria’s fate might be the same as her father’s, or worse. Anwar, without police or troops, would be powerless to protect her.
“Budmashes are out to loot and burn. I shall be anxious until I have you safe in my house at Kondagiri.”
“But my father! my poor father!”
“His body has been carried to the police station.”
He left her. In haste she packed a couple of suitcases. At the foot of the stairs stood Anwar-u-din watching and listening. All was quiet. No sounds of an approaching crowd warned them to take flight. The people were staying to take their maddening inflammatory preparation of hemp.
In less than the time given her, Victoria had put together all that she needed. It did not enter her head that it might be some days before she returned. A figure stood at her elbow. It was Cassim. She glanced at him in surprise.
“You, Cassim! I was afraid you had deserted me like the rest?”
“I went to call his Excellency the Shahzada, Anwar-u-din, Prince of Arukahd. He would have punished me severely if I had allowed harm to befall your honour.”
She wondered at the title bestowed on the Assistant Collector, but asked no questions.
“These cases are ready; carry them to the car.”
“It is the Shahzada’s orders that your honour puts on this,” he said, shaking out the folds of a veil.
With a quick, experienced hand he threw it over her and drew down the edge till it hung below her waist. It completely hid her figure, and half-blinded her. She could distinguish the flame of the lamp and the outline of Cassim’s form. She felt helpless and encumbered. The veil was of gauze of some dark colour interwoven with threads of gold. A gold border served to weight it and keep it in position. She followed Cassim and went slowly downstairs, a hand extended to the rail of the banisters.
Anwar sprang up to meet her. He placed his hand on her arm and guided her through the dark hall, where no lamps had been lighted. At the portico stood a closed motor. In silence—he was still listening for warning sounds of approaching raiders—he helped her into the car, took his seat by her side and gave the order to go. Cassim sat by the chauffeur. No word was spoken. As the car moved away from the house into the open, Victoria put out a hand to lift the veil.
“Please, little sister, keep your veil down,” he said.
“I feel half suffocated,” she replied.
He touched a button and a suffused electric light shone above her head. She allowed the veil to remain in position. Through it she was just able to see the details of the car. It was different from that which Anwar had lent her. The windows were not glazed. Instead they were filled in with Venetians. Nothing was visible from outside of the occupants.
“I haven’t seen this car before,” she remarked under her veil.
“It is my mother’s,” he replied.
She was considering the situation into which she had been so strangely hurried. Suddenly illumination came.
“Deen! I am escaping in your mother’s veil and in your mother’s car?”
“As a lady of my household,” he added after a slight pause. “It was the only way.”
“A lady of his household!”
The words had been spoken with the single thought of saving one to whom he was not only personally attached, but was bound by ties of lasting gratitude. It was a legitimate disguise, and as far as he could judge, knowing to what lengths his fellow-countrymen could be led, it was the only way of escape.
That the people were being led by a master mind in addition to the influence of the agitators, he felt convinced. The master mind was Ben Oola’s. In the absence of Dost Ali—a mild, self-indulgent Moslem gentleman—he was devising a scheme of revenge which had begun with the murder of Wargrave.
The Oriental is an opportunist at all times. The tumult occasioned by the propaganda of the seditionwallahs, coupled with wild, exaggerated reports of uprisings among the Mohammedans on the west coast, gave Ben Oola the opportunity he needed. He turned the circumstances to account in the pursuit of a vendetta that was of personal and not of national consequence. He had indirectly brought about the Judge’s death by instigation, his tool being maddened by bhang, and was now directing his animosity against the murdered man’s family.
Mrs. Wargrave had taken time by the forelock. No scruples of duty or affection carried any weight when she was thoroughly alarmed. By her flight, which took place before her husband was murdered, she relieved Anwar of one anxiety, that of her safety. Under the circumstances he could have wished that Victoria had followed her example.
But he knew the steadfast courage of his old friend. Never would she have left her father while he lived. Now that her natural protector was dead and she was alone, it was for him, Anwar, to save the devoted daughter. He could only do so at this eleventh hour by passing her off as a gosha lady. The veil would be sufficient to hide the identity from the ordinary crowd, but would it deceive Ben Oola? However maddened the rioters might be, they would have the instincts of the followers of the Prophet; they would respect a member of a compatriot’s hareem.
“A lady of his hareem!”
Anwar glanced down at the silent figure by his side. He could not see the tears that filled her eyes as she thought of her gallant old father. A strange tumult was beginning to stir within his mind. He had never before seen Victoria in anything but English dress. Draped in the Mohammedan veil, her nationality was extinguished. It was no longer an Englishwoman who sat there, but a Mohammedan lady.
In just such a manner he might have been travelling with his mother—or his wife.
“His wife!”
The word seemed to ring in his ears and fill his whole being, sending the blood coursing through his veins. In just such a manner would a newly-married wife sit by his side, veiled and silent.
What a wife she would make, surpassing any woman that his own nation could give him! A companion, a counsellor, a noble mother for the sons of an Indian of royal blood like himself!
He caught his breath in a gasp of amazement as he dwelt upon the new vision. Its glamour filled his senses. Insuperable difficulties melted away. The path to happiness was filled with the fairy flowers of a vivid Eastern imagination.
Then came a cool breeze of reality, of warning. He turned away his eyes with an effort and drew himself into the corner of the roomy car. He became aware of a sudden temptation that lurked in his acute consciousness of the veil—the veil and all it meant for the Mohammedan. He feared its very touch lest he should be overmastered by his inherited instincts. How well he knew the turn and twist of the wrist in the expert handling of the gauze, by which it could be wrested from timid fingers seeking shyly to retain its sheltering folds.
The soft suffused light above caught the golden threads in the gauze and outlined the head in a gleam of precious metal. Victoria wore no hat. It might have been the head of “a member of his household.” The drapery fell closely about her shoulders. Every trace of the English dress beneath was hidden.
Mohammedan ladies wear English shoes and stockings and very often some kind of European frock of simple pattern under the veil. The disguise, therefore, was complete enough to deceive a crowd of excited men when bent more on loot and emancipation from foreign rule than on personal revenge. As far as Victoria was concerned he had adopted the right course in asking her to wear it.
But he had not reckoned on himself and the effect it might have on his own emotions.
Thus veiled, Mohammedan brides were brought to their husbands. Doors were closed upon them; the privacy was complete. At his will and in his own time the bridegroom thrust the veil aside and looked upon his bride for the first time. At his pleasure, with perhaps a smile of joyous anticipation and triumph, he took his first kiss.
Does dress matter to the human being? Is the king more of a king when robed in ermine and purple? Would the soldier look less valiant and martial without his uniform and arms? Would the theologian in the pulpit and the professor on the platform carry their audience along if they preached and lectured in their homely tweeds instead of their academic robes? Would the society woman draw all eyes as she received her guests in her brilliantly lighted drawing-room if the costumier had not touched her with the magic fingers of the expert?
Anwar had seen Victoria often in all kinds of English dress. His eyes had rested unmoved on her rounded arms, her white neck, her silk-clad ankles. Never had his blood been stirred in that cold Western climate by the sight of her white skin and rose-leaf complexion. She had always been his “little sister,” a kind friend, a boyhood’s companion.
Suddenly all was changed. Her whole figure was hidden. Even the eyes no longer met his with their steady, friendly gaze, holding him to the highest ideals. The lips curving into a kindly smile were no longer visible, making appeals to his best instincts. The intellectuality that looked out of her eyes and the counsels that fell from her lips were gone. Nothing but the womanhood remained. It predominated every other mental quality and reigned supreme. It appealed with terrific force to his manhood.
His thoughts were abruptly dispersed by the stopping of the motor. The brakes were applied sharply and both the occupants of the car were jerked forward. The road from Wargrave’s house to Kondagiri passed outside the town of Arukahd. There was no necessity to drive through the streets. Anwar had hoped that they would escape unnoticed. It was his intention to see Victoria safe in his own house and to place her under the charge of Houssain and Cassim, both of whom he could rely upon. Afterwards it might be necessary, if Fairoake did not appear on the scene, to return to Arukahd and do his best to persuade the people to abandon all thought of violence, to return to their homes quietly before they rendered themselves liable for any criminal or political offence that might bring them into trouble with the police.
At the stoppage of the motor-car Anwar turned the handle of the door from within. He stepped out quickly, closing the door immediately behind him.
His appearance was hailed with loud cries of a friendly nature from a large concourse of people.
“Hail! Prince of Arukahd! Our Nabob! Salaam! O great one! O Excellency! Shahzada! We give you our homage! We make you our king and our ruler!”
“I am your ruler already!” he cried in a loud voice. “I rule in the name of the British Circar. I am the Assistant Collector of Arukahd.”
The shouting became louder and he could not make himself heard. A Moslem with a white beard, a person of authority, came forward and made a low obeisance. Others followed his example.
Out of the midst of the crowd a familiar figure forced his way. It was Ben Oola. Anwar turned to him with relief.
“Ben Oola! speak! What is the meaning of this stoppage?”
“The Moslems and Hindus of Arukahd, hearing of the success of the Moplahs on the west coast, have joined in a rising against the English. They are proclaiming your Highness as their Nabob.”
“This is madness, sheer madness!” exclaimed Anwar angrily. He was extremely anxious to get on, to remove Victoria out of reach of the excited crowds, who were not in their senses nor responsible for their actions.
“If it is madness, it is that of a downtrodden nation. Your Highness is wanted in the town.”
“My work is in Kondagiri, not in Arukahd, and I am on my way home. Allow the chauffeur to drive on.”
He placed his hand on the door as though he would have opened it to return to his seat. Ben Oola came closer and stood in the full light of the motor lamps. He was not under the influence of drugs. There was an evil expression in his eyes. He had all his wits about him, and his mind was concentrated on the carrying out of his scheme of revenge, begun with the death of Victoria’s father.
“Your Highness!” Anwar noticed that he was according him a title to which he had no claim. “Your Highness is travelling in your lady mother’s car. She is in Hyderabad. Is it permitted to ask who travels with your Excellency?”
“We do not answer questions about members of our family. You should know that, Ben Oola.”
Anwar resented the curious mixture of servility and impertinence shown in the man’s words and manner.
“It is not necessary to repeat the question,” said Ben Oola. Then, turning to the crowd, he continued in a loud voice which all could hear: “The lady in the car is the daughter of the man who has been the cause of the death of my young master, the Sahib Dost Ali’s son. May Allah keep him in safety!”
At the mention of the Judge, expressions of hate were heard. The loaded sticks were shaken threateningly and the crowd swayed towards the car as though preparing for attack.
Fortunately Victoria could not understand what was said. She comprehended from the sound of the angry voices that the car was being held up by a number of people who were excited about something. Anwar, she gathered, was doing his best to pacify them and persuade them to allow the car to proceed. For a short space silence ensued. Then a murmur arose.
“The Judge’s daughter! the Judge’s daughter! Bring her out! Let us see her!”
“It is a mistake,” cried Anwar-u-din. “The lady is my sister.”
Ben Oola leaned towards him with a wicked leer.
“Your Highness forgets that Allah did not vouchsafe a daughter to your honoured father,” Ben Oola continued, his voice increasing in volume with his wrath. “It is a mistake to harbour the brood of the snake. We will take the progeny of the old viper and let her look upon her father, the murderer of the Sahib Dost Ali’s son. It would be a pleasant sight for a loving daughter’s eyes,” he concluded scornfully.
Cassim slipped from his seat by the driver and came close to Anwar, whose fingers were grasping the hilt of his sheathed sword. Victoria’s servant held up his hand to the crowd as a signal that he wanted to say something.
“Speak! speak!” they shouted.
“Followers of the Prophet! the lady inside the car is the wife, the honoured wife of his Highness the Nabob Anwar-u-din, Prince of Arukahd. May Allah preserve him! He conveys her to his house at Kondagiri. She has but now arrived by train. Do I not know, seeing that I am her servant?”
The announcement was received with surprise. More than half the people present believed the statement. Daughter of the English Judge or not, if she had married the new Nabob, he had a right to possess her and do as he pleased with her. They fell back slightly and would have allowed the car to proceed had not Ben Oola interfered.
“His honoured wife! Aha! let it be so! But since we were not invited to the wedding, let us be assured that she is in truth his wife.” He turned to Anwar. “Highness, be so good as to tell us if the lady inside the car is indeed your wife?”
Cassim moved impatiently and glanced at Anwar. He knew the danger of delay. At any moment a spark might ignite the inflammatory material of which the assembly was composed. Then deeds of violence would be done which were not intended by the individual. The actions of a mob are apart from the actions of the individual.
Anwar-u-din was not ignorant of the increasing danger of the moment. Almost against his will he answered in the affirmative.
“She is—my—wife.”
Ben Oola called to the old man with the beard who had acted as leader of the crowd until he had appeared.
“Moolvi, sahib, come forward. Bear witness, honoured moolvi, that the lady inside the car is his Highness’s wife. He has just now declared her to be so.”
The old man pressed forward curious, but suspicious.
“Is it truly a woman inside? and not one of those cursed Englishmen?” he asked.
For answer Ben Oola grasped the handle of the door. Anwar’s answer to this was to draw his sword and place himself on one side of the door. Cassim took up a position on the other side, but he was unarmed. Neither of Victoria’s defenders would have had a chance of helping her if the throng of people had chosen to drag her out of the car. She was completely at the mercy of the rabble, and the rabble were guided by Ben Oola.
“Gosha! gosha!” cried Cassim. It was the familiar call to the women of the hareem to veil themselves on the approach of a stranger. He was aware that such a call—never used to an infidel—belonged peculiarly to the hareems of the Mohammedans, and it was calculated to convey more to the assembly than any verbal assurance could have effected. It meant definitely that whoever the lady might be, she belonged now to the Assistant Collector. She was his property and no one else’s.
Slowly the door was opened, and by the light overhead the veiled figure was revealed. She sat motionless in the corner of the car; her head was bent in the true form of submission a wife should show to her husband.
The crowd was satisfied and would have been content to leave their Nabob in quiet possession of his own property. Ben Oola, however, was far from being satisfied. He was determined that there should be no mistake made over what had just passed. That the Judge’s daughter should enter the hareem of a Mohammedan was a disgrace from which she would never recover.
“We are witnesses that the lady is your Highness’s wife by the moorta ceremony which has just taken place. May your Excellency find pleasure in her,” said Ben Oola with a malevolent grin as he held the door open in invitation to Anwar to enter. “Take your seat, most noble Prince. Since there is no father to make a gift and no mother to give consent, the lady must be content with the moorta ceremony.”
Anwar, with a furious glance at the man who had thus trapped him into a marriage, took his seat. The door was closed. Cassim resumed his place by the driver, and they moved slowly on, escorted by a great crowd chiefly composed of Mohammedans.
There was a devilish smile on Ben Oola’s face as he joined the moolvi. The man had deliberately planted suggestion in Anwar-u-din’s mind. That it would bear fruit he firmly believed. The temptation was one that was not likely in his opinion to be resisted. The girl’s father had paid with his life. The Englishwoman would pay with her honour.
At Arukahd stands the old summer palace of the Nabobs. Built nearly a thousand years ago, it has seen several dynasties and been the home of many rulers. Some were martial and warlike, coming as conquerors; some were indolent and self-indulgent, some feeble and easily put to flight.
The palace is in ruins to-day, but so well did the old masons build, fitting stone to stone without the aid of mortar, that pillars and walls still stand with noble flights of steps bordered with balustrades. The last occupants of the palace of any consequence were the Nabobs, whose descendant was the Assistant Collector of Arukahd.
Anwar-u-din took his seat by Victoria in silence. The door was closed sharply and the car moved on in obedience to an order given by Ben Oola. The direction taken was not that which led to Kondagiri.
The seed sown by Ben Oola was only just beginning to germinate in Anwar’s mind. As his eyes rested on the figure by his side, he was not thinking of himself but of her. What would she have to say to all that had just occurred? What would be her opinion on the price that had been paid to purchase her life? Would she understand the dire necessity for his action?
There had been no alternative. He was driven into a desperate corner from which escape was impossible. Unless he could claim her as his property, he could not retain possession of her person.
And only by claiming her as his own by the highest of all rites could he establish his right to protect and guard her from other men.
To have attempted opposition by force to the will of the crowd would have been madness. He had no force behind him. Had he been at Kondagiri, he might have drawn upon the police force there for a body of Moslem constables, who would have given him their support; but here in Arukahd the Collector was paramount and the Assistant Collector was more or less of a stranger. He actually had with him only one person on whom he could rely, and that was Cassim.
Cassim was not an old servant. He had been only a few weeks in Victoria’s service. During that time he had served his mistress well and shown himself to be devoted to her interests. At the crisis that had occurred, when Anwar-u-din hesitated to claim Miss Wargrave as his wife, Cassim, seeing the danger, had taken the initiative. He had promptly declared that they were husband and wife. It was on Cassim that Anwar had to depend if anything unforeseen should compel him to leave Victoria.
No one knew the people he was dealing with better than himself. There was a point up to which they could be led and persuaded to listen to reason. Beyond that point they could be as unmanageable as one of their own mountain rivers in flood.
If they had not listened to disloyal speeches, if they had not been plied with concoctions of hemp and datura, Anwar could have controlled them and have persuaded them to allow the English girl to proceed to his house. But in their present condition they were in no humour to listen to reason, or to be led by any others than those who had roused their passions. He had felt powerless in the face of the fact that they were in a reckless temper, capable of the wildest acts of violence and a menace to law and order.
They were quite likely to show him hostility if he displeased them. He was serving the British Government and administering British laws. He was known to be friendly with the English. By just one turn of fortune’s wheel, he might be identified with his masters and share their fate. But he was not thinking of himself; he was thinking of the veiled woman by his side. On him depended her safety. If in some fit of insanity one of the drugged fanatics now yelling around the car should suddenly run amok and thrust a knife in his heart, she would be left at the mercy of the crowd. It was horrible to think of the fate that might overtake her under such circumstances. He must keep all his senses about him and use his diplomacy if he was to preserve her life and bring her safely out of the danger into which she had been so abruptly plunged. Until assistance came he must be careful to conciliate and allay the irritation that had been fomented as much as was in his power.
“Deen!” said Victoria’s voice under the veil. “Can you tell me what is happening?”
“The crowd has taken possession of the car. We are being escorted!”
“Where?” she asked, with no trace of alarm or nervousness.
“I don’t exactly know.”
“Did the people recognise me?”
“They gave a shrewd guess at your identity.”
“I suppose they wanted to kill me as they killed my father.”
“That was their first intention,” he replied, thinking of Ben Oola’s malevolence.
“I thought as much! If they had a grievance against my father they would have the same against his daughter. I was prepared for something of the sort. Why didn’t they murder me as they murdered him?”
How brave she was and how coolly she faced danger!
“I was able to dissuade them.”
“You knew that they intended to kill me?”
“They were not all of the same mind.”
“They may yet carry out their original intentions?”
“No, not now. You are safe and the danger is past.”
“Then I owe you my life?” she said, trying to read his face through her veil.
“Maybe you are right,” he replied.
“What did you say and do to induce them to spare me?”
He did not answer. Sometime or other she would have to know the truth. Just now his ears were filled with cries that resounded on all sides of the car.
Apparently the crowd was increasing. He heard himself hailed as “Prince” and “Nabob.” He caught words addressed to him personally, begging him to listen to the prayer of his people; to rule them in his own name and not in the name of the foreigner. Curses and execrations were directed against the infidels who had banished the rightful sovereigns. They prayed him to help them to drive the infidels into the sea.
It was not the words but the spirit that was behind them that made an appeal to his own spirit. It was beginning to affect him. It joined hands with the spirit that underlay Ben Oola’s insidious suggestion. If he put out his hand to grasp the woman, why should he not seize the offered sceptre as well? The psychology of the multitude was affecting him—was dominating his reason, as it dominated him months ago on his drive from Maidenhead. The fever of unreasoning impulse was creeping over him and prompting him to wild actions that in his sober senses he would have rejected with scorn as insane.
“Deen! tell me!” said Victoria, raising her voice. The veil seemed to stifle speech. “Tell me, Deen, how you managed to save me.”
“I claimed you as my wife,” he replied like a man in a dream.
“But they know that I am not your wife,” protested Victoria in some surprise.
“They believed that you were, and in that belief lay your safety and mine.”
“I don’t understand. If you deceived them now, they must learn later that you and I are not married. Then they will be more angry than ever.”
There was a short silence. Her voice recalled him to his senses temporarily. Should he leave matters to develop? Or would it be best to come to an understanding at once? What sort of an understanding would it be? Victoria was not like a woman of his own race, to be put off with half truths and subterfuges. If he wished to retain any influence with her he must be open and straightforward.
What it would all lead to ultimately he did not stop to think. It was a strange entanglement, and the more he considered it the more confusing it appeared. His pulses were beginning to race uncomfortably. His self-control was lessening.
“I would rather not be a party to any deception,” she added as he did not speak.
“There is no deception in this matter. It is perfectly true; we are married,” he said.
“And when, may I ask, did the ceremony take place?” she inquired, a note of incredulous scorn creeping into her voice.
The question touched his sensitive mind, suggesting as it did offended pride on her part. He had his own share of pride which did not allow him to forget his dignity. The thought that she harboured a suspicion that he had taken advantage of her made him anxious to justify himself. It was not excuses that he wished to offer, but a reason that would be unanswerable.
“The ceremony that has made us husband and wife was forced upon us when the car was stopped. I was given no time for consideration, no alternative——”
She interrupted him.
“I took no part in it,” she said. “A woman cannot be married without responding and pledging herself to keep the vows she is making.”
“With us it is different. The consent of the lady is not required. It is only necessary for the man to declare before witnesses that she is his wife and the ceremony is complete and binding upon the husband. It is called the moorta rite.”
Victoria lifted the edge of the veil and her eyes met his. Wonder and incredulity shone in their depths. Again he felt that he was called upon to justify himself.
“The moolvi, the old man with the white beard, and another man who was with him constituted themselves witnesses of our marriage. They would swear that we were husband and wife according to the Mohammedan rites if they were called into a court of law.”
She was not convinced, and he knew it; and in her astonishment and annoyance at what she was beginning to think was an insult, she had lost sight of the imperative necessity for the action.
“Victoria!” He felt that he must make the appeal from his true standpoint and not as an adopted brother, a part he had not been able to sustain at the critical moment. “Victoria! Do you realise what it all meant? It saved your life. If I had not established my right and my claim, you would have been torn from me and cut to pieces—perhaps worse!”
Still she did not speak. Her breath came in gasps; not in fear and panic at her nearness to a violent death, but in bewilderment at the—to her—astounding claim he was making. She stared at him in amazement, still only half believing his story. He laid his hand upon the arm that was under the veil. She felt the grip of his fingers through the gauze. His voice lost its steadiness as he continued:
“Victoria! you are my wife according to my laws; my beloved wife. Allah has given you to me; a gift fit for the Angel Raphael himself! I kiss the hem of your veil! I worship you! I will give you a lifetime’s service and devotion!”
He lifted the hem of her veil to his lips with a strange mixture of courtliness and humility. The action did not alarm her. There was a strain of romance in her nature to which it appealed. It set her pulses beating with a curious sense of pride and triumph. What a princely lover he made! If Brian was impetuous and Rupert phlegmatic, here was one whose noble devotion raised his wooing into an Arabian Nights’ romance.
If only it were not for that invidious bar of birth, who could tell how such wooing might end?
The car stopped suddenly. Victoria let the veil slip down till it covered her. Anwar, recalled to the fact of their being the captives of the crowd, had his thoughts suddenly diverted and centred upon the problematical action of their captors. He could hear shouts and calls for his appearance which he dared not disregard.
Opening the door he sprang out quickly and closed it behind him. It was the signal for a great uproar of greeting. It thrilled him, stirring some dormant hereditary instincts that he was not aware he possessed.
His eye scanned the crowd narrowly. The scowls and menacing looks that had met him at first were exchanged for the broad grins that greet a favourite prince. Even Ben Oola had lost his malevolent expression. His revenge had been accomplished. The Judge was dead, and his daughter would become the property of a man of his own race; who would doubtless, according to custom with these moorta marriages, throw her aside when he tired of her and return to a woman of his own nationality.
The temper of the people had changed. With the realisation of this fact a weight was lifted from the mind of Anwar-u-din. Whatever they might have in store for him and his companion, it was not violence and murder just now.
The car had been halted before the steps of the old palace. The ruins stood up black against the starlit sky. Torches and flares, carried without any order or marshalling, deepened the shadows and made patches of illumination, revealing groups of excited men.
It was a weird scene, with an unrehearsed effect which had in it a strange mixture of tragedy and comedy. The people were without any prominent leaders. The agitators who had succeeded in raising them into open rebellion had no intention of being caught red-handed. Their work was done, and it was time that they moved on to a fresh field of labour.
Ben Oola was equally anxious to be off. There was the funeral of his young master to attend to. He would occupy a prominent position as confidential retainer and head of his master’s household. It would not suit his interests to have his name associated with any rebellion. He flattered himself that he had so arranged for the murder at the Court House as not to be implicated himself. A night mail train stopped at the station. He might catch it if he slipped away.
Anwar stood on the steps of his ancestors’ palace with a sense of exaltation that was new to him. Memories of traditions crowded into his brain. He had heard them from his childhood—how the Nabobs came to the palace with their elephants and horses; how they feasted and revelled; how the brides of his fathers had been brought to their grooms, with the sounds of drum and pipes and horns, in cloth of gold and raiment of silver. In those days soldiers, courtiers, attendants, servants and slaves in brilliant uniforms thronged the corridors, courtyards and verandas.
Up above, where now the sun and moon and stars looked down on roofless walls, was once the royal hareem. Gone were the painted ceilings, the marble-latticed galleries, the venetian-shuttered windows, the screens and purdahs that hid beautiful women from bold predatory eyes. This was no place in the present day for a man to bring his bride. He turned back to the car. It was clear that he must separate from Victoria; stay with the people who were clamouring for him, and send her to a safer refuge. No place could be safer than his own house. He beckoned Cassim to his side.
“Take the sahiba to my house. Let rooms upstairs be prepared. Order what is required for her comfort. You as her servant will know. She must have food and rest.”
To the chauffeur he said: “Let nothing stop you. Go at once before the people have remembered who is inside the car. My office car should be waiting at the Kutcherry.”
“It is there, Huzzoor.”
“Tell Houssain to have food ready for me when I return.”
Cassim was in his place. The motor glided away, and Anwar-u-din turned back into the old ruin to find his way to what was once the durbar hall.
The moolvi had been joined by other elderly men. They were quiet, and from their expressions it might have been thought that they were already burdened with the cares of the state. They understood the seriousness of the position which they were creating. The first step had been taken; the first act of violence committed. They were burning their boats behind them; they were in open rebellion.
The younger men had not given themselves time for reflection. Their brains were inflamed with drugs—not drink—drugs which were far more maddening than any alcohol that could be procured. They were clamouring to renounce their allegiance to the British Government, and they were crazy to render homage and take the oath of allegiance to the new leader whom they had chosen.
Anwar-u-din walked slowly towards the raised part of the durbar hall at the farther end. An old gilt chair, upholstered in faded red velvet, had been brought from the Court House and placed on the rough, uncarpeted platform. The old men salaamed low, as Anwar came up, and indicated this improvised throne. He took it but rising again immediately, he faced the throng that was filling the huge building from end to end.
The torches swayed, diffusing smoke and yellow light. Bamboo sticks, carried in place of the glittering weapons of past days, were flourished aloft. Inarticulate exclamations greeted him as he stood there, his hand on his sword, a truly kingly figure in its calm dignity.
“I am ready; what would you have, O! my people?” he cried.
It was the signal for another outburst of acclamation. One of the old men came forward and raised his hand for a hearing. He proclaimed the Prince Anwar-u-din, son of so and so, mentioning a string of his ancestors by name, Nabob of Arukahd.
The words were caught up; the proclamation passed from lip to lip till it reached the multitude assembled outside in the palace yard, for whom no room could be found in the hall.
However much Anwar-u-din had wished to resist the rush of events, he would have found it impossible to do so. He was not in a position to resist anything that the populace might do. He ran a risk of allowing himself to be compromised, but he could not help it; it would not be his fault. He was carried along on the waves of circumstance, and he must do his best to hold the rioters; to keep them in check; to stop them from breaking out into deeds of violence; to prevent them, if possible, from looting the town, burning the houses of the Europeans and desecrating the temples. He had no following to back him, no military force behind him. He had nothing to depend on but his personal influence and the tradition about his birth and antecedents. In this he found a strange sense of power. The cloak of the Assistant Collector slipped away from his shoulders and in its place was the mantle of inherited sovereignty.
As he listened to the acclamations of his fanatical people, the instincts of the hereditary prince—so long deprived of his kingdom—came welling up into his brain. The exaltation that had already touched his imagination invested the scenes of the night with a dangerous reality. Was it only a diplomatic game of pretend, a temporising until he had support?
His subjects were claiming him for their own. As he seated himself on the chair of state that they had so hastily provided, it became the throne of royalty. Some old men advanced with the obeisance made to a sovereign and did homage. They spoke using the words of courtiers. They would raise an army for him. They would make him one of India’s greatest rulers. His kingdom should stretch from Madras to the boundary of the Maharajah’s Province. He should equal in wealth and splendour the Nizam himself, and be the second great Mohammedan ruler in India.
His ears were filled with the adulations of his people. The desire to be to them all that they proclaimed him to be, seized upon his spirit with terrific force. Just as he had yielded to the impulse of the moment on the Maidenhead road, and had allowed himself to be carried away on the wings of a transcendent emotion, so now he abandoned himself to the storm which enveloped him.
His dream as a boy had been to become a ruler under the shield of the British Government over the people of his ancestors’ kingdom.
The dream was being fulfilled in a manner exceeding his wildest flights of imagination.
He was listening to the proclamation of his accession to the throne of his fathers.
The car containing Victoria arrived at Kondagiri between eight and nine o’clock. The driver avoided the town. The roads were quiet, and nothing more occurred to impede its smooth running.
Once Victoria pulled the check-string and ordered a halt. The car stopped in obedience to the signal and Cassim alighted. He opened the door.
“Madam wishes to speak?”
“Can you take me back to the Judge’s house?”
“The order has been given by his Honour the Assistant Collector to drive Madam to his house at Kondagiri.”
“But if I give another order?”
“Is it known to Madam that budmashes watch at the gate of the Judge’s compound? To-night they will burn the house down.”
“Is there no place where I could go and remain in safety till to-morrow morning?”
A feeling of loneliness was overtaking her. She was suddenly aware of a sense of being forsaken. She wanted to join some English friends and find the companionship of Englishwomen.
“None, madam,” replied Cassim mechanically.
“Where are all the English people? Are they not in their houses in the cantonments?”
“They have run away to the police superintendent, whose house is guarded by police.”
She remembered that Deen had said something to that effect.
“Take me there. I will give the chauffeur a good present if he will drive me safely to the superintendent’s house.”
“I will ask if it can be done, madam,” he said, closing the door.
There was a short consultation, carried on hurriedly and in low tones. Cassim returned to the door.
“The driver says that the road to the superintendent’s house is in the hands of the people. They are very angry, as Madam has seen. They would stop the car and beat the chauffeur if they found that he was helping an English lady to run away. His honour would not be there to explain that Madam was of his household. The people are very angry and very bad,” he concluded in a tone that carried conviction.
“Couldn’t we pass through them quickly before they were able to stop us?”
Victoria was feeling rather desperate, and Cassim’s allusion to the claim for her to be one of the Assistant Collector’s household was disturbing.
“There are too many budmashes about. The driver is frightened. He says that his honour will dismiss him if he does not obey orders. He is a poor man with a family and what can he do?”
A night owl screamed in a tree close by. In the distance a man shouted. He may have been a villager, or a watcher in the fields, or a traveller exchanging a few words with another. The Indian peasant, talking in the open air, speaks at the top of his voice in a tone that sounds raucous and hostile. Victoria heard the voice. The spot where she had stopped the car was lonely. If by any unlucky chance they were attacked by a party of fanatics, maddened with drugs, there was no one to protect her. Even an encounter with an ordinary road dacoit might end in violence as well as robbery. Cassim began to show signs of uneasiness.
“Madam will be quite safe at his honour’s house,” he pleaded.
Cassim was more anxious than his mistress to find himself in a haven of safety. He and Houssain had no liking for the Mohammedans of the south, and trusted them no farther than they could see them. In their opinion they were not even true followers of the Prophet, being the descendants of Hindus who had had Mohammedanism forced upon them.
Victoria was obliged to make up her mind quickly. Would she indeed be safe in her old friend’s house?
From murder; yes, undoubtedly.
But a new and unexpected source of trouble had been developed by a curious chain of circumstances which neither she nor Anwar-u-din had anticipated. The events had had a marked effect on him, revealing a side to his character of which she had hitherto had no suspicion. To what lengths it might ultimately lead him she could not tell. She did not like to own to herself that she had become suddenly afraid of Deen, but she was ready to admit that he had appeared in a new light when he adopted the part of lover.
“Drive on to the Assistant Collector’s house,” she ordered, realising that she had no alternative but to proceed, whatever the future might have in store for her. Cassim was in his seat with a celerity that showed a relieved mind. The car swung forward, and in a short space of time it turned in at the open gateway.
Victoria was still wearing the veil in which she had made her escape. With feverish haste she disentangled herself from its folds, and hung it like a wrap over her arm. She intended keeping it. Who could tell how soon she might want it again? She would put it among her own personal property. If nothing else, it would serve with its strange associations as a memento of a curious episode in her life.
The door of the car was opened and she stepped out, glad to be once more in a well-lighted house. She had already resolved on her line of action. She intended to take a high hand and put a bold face on the situation. Servants and master should find that she could assert herself. She was there as a guest and not as a refugee. She sought the hospitality of the Assistant Collector, and now that all danger to life was passed, she was no longer under the obligation of asking for his protection.
Cassim, carrying her handbag, was directing one of the servants of the house to take her luggage upstairs. Her quick, intuitive perception prompted her to object.
“Stop!” she cried in a voice that startled him and made the rest pause in their occupation. “Not that way, please. I am going to use the visitor’s room downstairs. Have my luggage brought here, Cassim!”
She led the way quickly to the room opening off the drawing-room which on her former visit had been pointed out by Mims as the guest chamber. Cassim glanced at Houssain with a lift of the eyebrow, but all the same he obeyed. At the same time his expression intimated that he would take no responsibility for what his mistress did. If any change was to be effected they must wait till the master’s return to see it carried out.
“Bring me some hot water,” said Victoria as she prepared to close the door upon them. “I shall be ready for dinner in ten minutes. I will dine by myself, and will not wait for his honour.”
All this was not at all in accordance with the order given by the master. Cassim had been told that food was to be served to the lady on the upper story. He ventured on a word of protest. It would not be to his advantage to anger the Shahzada. It was within his Excellency’s power to turn him out of the house, out of the servants’ quarters and provide the lady, with whom he had gone through the moorta ceremony, with servants from the establishment.
“His honour’s family use the rooms upstairs——” he began.
“His honour’s family has nothing to do with me,” responded Victoria, raising her voice so that the listening Houssain might catch the words. “The ladies are away at Hyderabad, I have been told. I am not one of them. It was necessary that the crowd who stopped the car should be led to believe differently. Let all his honour’s servants understand clearly that I am Miss Wargrave, the daughter of his Honour the Judge of Arukahd. There must be no mistake about it.”
She spoke slowly and clearly so that the words might reach all the listening ears that were bent to catch what was said, but although she seemed so self-possessed her heart beat wildly. She might impose her will on Deen’s servants, but could she impress their master as easily? She did not wait for a reply. She believed that she had established her position as a guest. It remained to be seen if he would allow her to occupy that position. She could not blind herself to the fact that she was entirely in his power, and moreover, as far as she could see, there was no way of escape if he chose to oppose her.
The suite of rooms set apart for guests contained the furniture and fittings usually found in a well-appointed European residence in India. The only need as far as she was concerned not supplied was an ayah. In the absence of the woman Victoria lighted the candles on the dressing-table. She placed the veil that she had worn in a drawer out of sight. It was with mixed feelings that she put it away. It had been a means of saving her life. On the other hand, what had been its effect on the man who had come to her rescue? Never, if she could help it, should he see her in it again. He must be taught to forget it; to forget that she had ever put it on.
Her eyes shone with unusual excitement. She was up against a crisis in her life. She would need all her presence of mind, all her wits and a strong, determined will to steer safely through it.
Deen, her old friend, the only semblance of a brother she had ever known, was in revolt. He was bound to her by no ties of blood. The bond was of childish origin and unrecognised by any but their two selves.
This evening the old bond had suddenly been in danger of rupture. Another was being forged which she had never contemplated. It threatened to destroy the balance of their hitherto happy relations, and Victoria was more than a little disturbed.
That the new tie of marriage really existed she did not for one instant believe. It was only a suggestion made on the spur of a moment full of danger to both of them. The excited, hostile crowd had to be persuaded that the Shahzada was doing something more than a friendly act in conveying her to a place of safety. He was exercising a right recognised by all races of the world—the right to protect a chosen wife.
The strange part of it all was the fact that she did not feel any anger against him for his presumption in suddenly assuming a new role. There was only a vague, indefinite fear, which arose from her ignorance of this unknown man. Since the time when he came to her assistance, dressed in his national dress, to save her from the horrors of mob violence, he had seemed invested with a different personality. He was no longer the friend of her youth and the European-clad Government official known as the Assistant Collector.
She had called him Deen; she had used the name more frequently than was necessary in an involuntary effort to identify the old companion with the new rescuer and protector.
The old companion had never posed otherwise than as an adopted brother. The new protector claimed a new right. It was extremely difficult to blend the two characters into one. They did not assimilate; they had nothing in common. The exiled boy in his loneliness appealed to her pity. The man who had suddenly assumed the rescuer and princely suitor appealed to her love. He touched a vein of romance in her nature.
Victoria was served with an excellent dinner. Houssain waited on her as if he were acting under his master’s eye. Cassim had begged to be allowed to go off duty. He had had a long and exhausting day since he left the Judge’s house in the afternoon on his self-appointed errand. When she had finished she rose from the table and turned to Houssain.
“When do you expect your master in?”
“It is not known when he returns, madam.”
“Are you keeping dinner for him?”
“Those are his honour’s orders.”
“I wish to see him after he has dined. You will tell him that I am in the drawing-room.”
A lamp was placed on a table; a comfortable chair was drawn up near it. Coffee was brought, which she drank immediately, standing at the table. She retired to her room. Sleep was out of the question. Her brain was excited and in a whirl. Deen might appear at any minute between now and dawn. At whatever hour he came he must find her awake and alert, even if it meant keeping vigil till daylight.
Up to the present time she had had no time to think of her father. Could he have been cruelly murdered in cold blood? It seemed incredible. No details had been given. She had had to content herself with the bare fact. This was one of the subjects she wished to question Deen about. He would probably have heard something of the manner in which her father met his death Had he suffered? Had he been maltreated before unconsciousness came? Deen had told her that his death was sudden. Was it so?
A rush of tears filled her eyes. She was taken by surprise; but she was glad they had come now instead of during her conversation with Deen. It would not be wise to allow him to sympathise, or to show her any pity until she had safely re-established their old relations. The tears did her good. They were soon mastered. She pulled herself together with her magnificent self-control, and concentrated her thoughts on the course of action she should adopt when she found herself face to face with Deen.
More still would depend on the character he assumed. If he were unreasonable—but Deen, her old friend, could not be otherwise than reasonable! All she wanted was to be given the opportunity to lay the matter before him in a plain, sensible light. She had sufficient confidence in herself to believe that her arguments would prevail.
She dressed herself carefully in a black evening dress, removing the touch of colour that had relieved its sombreness. The few gold ornaments that she was accustomed to wear were stowed away in her jewel case. A string of black beads round her neck completed her costume.
She was ready to meet Anwar-u-din whenever he came in, even if it necessitated sitting up to the small hours of the morning.
Returning to the drawing-room, she took the chair Houssain had placed for her. The coffee tray had been removed, and another cushion had been added to those already there. A footstool had also been provided, showing that her comfort had not been lost sight of. She had ample leisure now to think over recent events. There were many points that required elucidation. Had she understood the language of the people, she would have been left in no doubt as to the meaning of everything that had happened.
As it was, she comprehended something of the enthusiasm with which Deen had been greeted by the mob. Ben Oola was unknown to her, and fortunately she was ignorant of the part he had played in instigating the murder of her father. The proclamation by the people of Anwar-u-din as their chosen Nabob also escaped her comprehension.
The silent hours passed. Ten, eleven, twelve struck with their chiming quarters. By this time she was familiar with the sounds of an Indian night—the call of the marsh birds moving towards their feeding grounds in the swamps by the river; the cry of the flying foxes; the howl of jackals on the skirts of the town.
Wrapped in a chuddar, Houssain sat in the hall, a lighted lantern by his side. He was also awaiting the coming of the master of the house. He had heard the chauffeur’s story. It left him puzzled and troubled. The chauffeur was a Mohammedan who knew the marriage laws of the country as far as the Mussulmanic religion went. The moorta ceremony had undoubtedly been performed when Anwar-u-din acknowledged Victoria as his wife before important witnesses whose testimony would hold good in any court of law.
His Honour the Assistant Collector—Houssain attached little importance to the fact that he had been proclaimed Nabob of Arukahd by a rabble of South Indian Mohammedans—had been married to the English lady who was now awaiting his return. Was she not dressed in a guest-receiving frock? Although why she had chosen black under the circumstances he could not tell. Brides wore white, with ropes of pearls and necklaces of diamonds.
But the English were a topsy-turvy people. If white was the proper dress for a Mohammedan bride, probably black was correct for an English bride. Houssain dropped asleep in the middle of his speculations.
Victoria could hear the striking of the clock that stood on a table in the hall. She had a vivid recollection of the clock and its cheerful chimes. It was a gift from herself to Deen when he left England to take up his appointment in India. They had gone together to the Stores, and Deen had himself chosen it. It was like a clock that stood in Mrs. Barford’s hall on a table similar to the one now in his own house. The chimes were almost identical. It would carry with it, he said at the time, the memory of Victoria and Mrs. Barford, and the happy days he had spent under their roof.
The chimes that marked the hour of twelve had barely died away when the hoot of a motor-car fell on Victoria’s ears. It could be none other than that which was bringing back Deen from Arukahd. She sat up in her chair and listened. The car entered the grounds and approached the house. It drew up under the portico.
She heard his step on the matting as he crossed the hall and went to his own room. He moved quickly as though in haste. Was it the haste of an eager lover, or of a tired man anxious to close his eyes in sleep?
Houssain, alert and attentive, followed his master to his room. The doors were closed, and the house once more was enveloped in the silence of the night.
After an interval of ten minutes the dressing-room door was opened, and she heard him call for dinner. Then came the familiar sounds of servants moving about with plates and dishes.
He was as quick over his food as over his toilet. A chair was pushed back, and an order was given to Houssain. Deen spoke in his own tongue to his servants. She would not have understood what he said even if she could have overheard.
Then steps approached the room where she sat. The moment had come when it should be proved if she were to be his welcome guest, or his unwilling prisoner.
Her heart beat painfully as she stood up and waited for his coming.
During the durbar in the hall at the palace, Anwar-u-din had plenty of time for reflection. Gradually the exaltation that had carried him through on the crest of a great wave of emotion, died down. Just as the flare of the lights and the glamour of the hall sank into misty darkness with the burning out of the torches, so the wild enthusiasm faded.
When he first took his seat, his vivid Oriental imagination furnished the hall with the magnificent fittings of two centuries ago. Fancy created a mental vision which could not be sustained. The grim reality of roofless walls and of a broken dais covered with a luxuriant crop of weeds, where once rich Persian carpets were spread, dispelled illusion.
The dream had been fascinating and alluring while it lasted. Anwar may have contemplated certain possibilities; but in his wildest moments he had never lost the power of discriminating between possibility and impossibility. The inward conviction remained deep in his breast that he could never be one of India’s reigning princes; never make a trio with the Maharajah on one hand and the Nizam on the other.
He was as chilled mentally with the fading of the dream as he was physically chilled by the night air. Anxiety filled his mind. His eyes swept over the vast crowd, mostly followers of the Prophet, assembled in the hall.
A great pity and affection for these foolish people, cruelly misguided and deceived by the sedition-mongers, filled his heart. The feeling took him by surprise. It was the inherited protective instinct of the ruler for the ruled. He must save them from the consequences of their own mad folly.
He remained seated on his improvised throne receiving the homage of his subjects, one after another, prolonging the ceremony as far as he could. His growing desire was to hold them back from violence and keep them under his personal influence as long as he could. A body of troops might arrive at any minute. When they appeared they must find order still prevailing. There was no offence in congregating in masses if order were preserved. If it was found that the cantonments were safe and the town had not been looted, the whole affair would dwindle down to a vague threat of insurrection, due to the evil work of the agitators. The blame would rest with the men who were instigating the disloyalty, and not with the people.
Whatever happened, he determined that he would not allow the crowd that had gathered round him to be associated with the murderer of Judge Wargrave. The Judge’s case must be isolated as the work of personal enmity on the part of ill-advised friends of Dost Ali. It was not to be turned into a political crime if he could prevent it.
To spin out the long hours he nominated his palace officers, and set them to work at once in their new appointments to marshal the people as they came up to make their obeisance to the new prince.
The course he was taking was not without its danger. There was a very thin division between reality and make-believe. If the police or troops appeared suddenly before he was prepared, and if the people rallied round him with a hostile demonstration towards the representatives of authority, he would himself be involved. He would be taken prisoner as their leader, and charged with open rebellion.
Fortunately the great game of pageantry and state appealed strongly to the crowd. There is nothing that the Oriental loves more than a theatrical display. In his flamboyant imagination it never drops to burlesque. While it lasts it is invested with the dignity and reality that impresses a mind which never loses its vein of childishness whatever its age may be.
The hours passed with terrible slowness to his quickened perceptions. His task became increasingly difficult. The young bloods began to show signs of impatience. They hinted that it was time for them to be led to the cantonments to begin a systematic round of pillage and incendiarism.
Anwar-u-din pleaded for daylight, representing the impossibility of carrying out operations of the kind in the dark without even a moon to help. He told them that the bungalows were deserted and undefended, and that they could choose their time to deal with them.
It was suggested that the town might be looted, beginning with the shops of the Hindu jewellers and silk merchants. He reminded them that the Hindus had joined hands with them. They must be regarded as friends, not as enemies. It had been agreed on the advice of the strangers that racial and religious disagreements should be forgotten, and that they should combine to overthrow the British Raj. The Hindu temples must also be left intact. They received this reminder in silence. In their hearts they were disappointed that their only prey would be the Europeans and they would have to share the plunder with their old hereditary foes, the Hindus.
How anxiously he listened for the distant whistle of the special train that would bring the troops!
Between ten and eleven o’clock a messenger arrived from the station-master to whom Anwar-u-din had sent a note of instructions. He brought word that the special had been signalled, and that the contingent might be expected to arrive in less than half an hour.
The crowd in the durbar hall opened to give the messenger access to the throne. He prostrated himself, and was commanded to rise and speak.
“Huzzoor, this poor worm comes to report that a big army of English soldiers with guns are coming to the town. More follow. The station-master says that they will shoot all who are found out of their houses during the night.”
A hubbub arose at once, and Anwar was conscious that the crucial moment had arrived. Could he retain his hold on the people sufficiently to influence them for their good? The young men called on their Nabob to lead them out to battle. The old men demanded arms first. Without arms and ammunition, they asked what could they do? Nothing!
Anwar-u-din rose to his feet, and lifted his hand for silence. His voice rang out in the old ruined hall, and his words came slowly and distinctly with convincing force:
“Followers of the Prophet! This is kismet! And against kismet who may prevail since it is Allah’s will? We have no arms. The men who even now are on their way here have arms of the latest pattern of the most deadly kind. Flying machines will follow, carrying bombs to destroy your houses and families. We cannot stand against them. Are we to be killed like a flock of goats at a Hindu feast? Let every man go quietly, this moment, without delay, to his own house. It is your Nabob’s command. Put out your lights. Hush the voices of the terrified women. Close your doors. If anyone knocks and asks who is there, make as though you were roused out of deep sleep. I will talk to the infidels and tell them that it is a mistake; that my people over whom I rule as Assistant Collector are all at home, quiet and peaceful.”
By the time he had come to the end of his short speech from the throne, the hall was half empty. The news of the approach of armed men had a sudden sobering effect on the company. The excitement caused by the drugs they had taken was dying down, and a reaction was setting in. A conviction was slowly but surely gripping their minds. The time was not ripe for driving the infidels into the sea.
Ben Oola had departed some time ago. On second thoughts he gave up the pleasures of a big funeral, and left his master to bury his own son without his assistance. He felt that it would be safer to lose himself for a season in Hyderabad or in some other large town in one of the Indian states.
The last hot-head stole away with a grunt of disappointment. Like the rest, he bowed to kismet with the fatalism of his creed. One man alone remained. This was the old white-haired moolvi who had been deputed to act as witness to the marriage. Someone before leaving had thrust into his hand a hurricane lantern.
The flaming torches were extinguished, and the hall was thrown into shadowy darkness. The only source of illumination was this lamp with its flickering light. Anwar-u-din turned his head and looked at the old Mohammedan. He was touched by this evidence of his fidelity.
“Moolvi, sahib, you have leave to depart,” he said.
His voice had an unconscious strain of melancholy in it which caught the old man’s ear. It was not that Anwar was disappointed. On the contrary, he was aware of an inward satisfaction at the promised peaceful ending of what at first promised to be a dangerous rising. His depression was the result of a vague regret at the disappearance of a vision that had held him entranced while it lasted—a vision that had haunted him from his earliest days as a dream.
With the knowledge that the troops were at hand, and that his poor infatuated subjects of the hour must find safety in instant flight to their houses, the dream and the vision vanished for ever.
“I stay with your Majesty,” replied the old man, using the highest form of honorific that could be bestowed upon a reigning sovereign. “My grandfather’s father remained by the side of the last Nabob of Arukahd till he was taken prisoner.”
“That is well; no harm shall come to you; you are not armed,” he replied, looking down upon the old man’s lantern, the only thing his ancient hands held.
Silence fell on the old palace. The bats returned to flit through the halls, and the owls came back with a soft-winged flutter to their nests in the broken masonry.
Anwar-u-din did not move. The officer in command was told of the gathering inside the walls of the palace. He brought his men to the spot at once to surround the insurgents and take their leaders. He found the Assistant Collector still seated on his throne of state in the old ruined palace of his forefathers, a single follower in attendance, white-bearded and venerable, too aged to be dangerous to the State or the individual.
Anwar-u-din rose from his throne of state.
“I am the Assistant Collector of the district,” he explained. “For some reason—I have not heard what it is—the Collector was prevented from coming. I have taken his place. I am very glad you are here, sir. The situation might have become critical by the morning.”
“We understood at head-quarters that the town was in the hands of the rioters.”
“That was partly the case at sunset; but I have persuaded the people to give up their design of looting the town and destroying the cantonments.”
“Then you’re a deuced clever fellow! that’s all I can say!” blurted out the officer. “Where are the rioters?”
“They’re safe in their houses by this time, I hope; and they can’t be called rioters any longer.”
“Was there a large crowd?”
“Several hundreds.”
“Great Scott! How on earth did you control them single-handed? Had you any police to help?”
Anwar-u-din smiled as he led the way out of the palace, the moolvi carrying the lantern.
“I didn’t want any police. I could do better by myself. I played their game, sir. Allowed them to proclaim me Nabob. I held a durbar and appointed my state officials. It kept them occupied until you came.”
“Won’t they be angry, and give more trouble when they find out that you have deceived them?”
“I think not. There was no deception. If the people could have furnished me with fifty thousand trained soldiers, properly armed, I might have met you in a very different manner. As it was, I saved them from the consequences of an ill-advised movement prompted by those cursed agitators. You find me not the leader of fifty thousand troops, but the Assistant Collector of Arukahd with his single attendant, anxious only for the welfare of the people entrusted to his care.”
“Where are the Europeans? Are they safe? I was told that the Judge was assassinated this afternoon.”
“It’s true, I’m sorry to say. It was murder. It was not a political crime. The police will have to deal with it. The Europeans are taking refuge with Mr. Haydon, the superintendent of police. He has a strong guard of police armed with rifles round his house.”
They arrived at the Kutcherry which was to serve as a temporary barracks for the men. After giving a few necessary orders, Anwar-u-din took leave of the officer commanding and sped homewards in his car. On his arrival at his house a note was put into his hand. It was from Fairoake, asking him to come out to the spot where he was in camp with as little delay as possible.
The person who appeared before Victoria in the drawing-room was not the Mohammedan gentleman by whose side she had sat veiled as a Mohammedan lady. Nor was he the quietly dressed Europeanised Indian she had known in England.
In a khaki riding suit with puttees and a bare head he was the Government official in his camp kit.
“Deen!” she cried as a mountain of anxiety was suddenly lifted from her shoulders at the sight of him. “Welcome back safe and sound! I have been worrying myself lest those wild-looking men who stopped us should pick a quarrel with you.”
“You also got home safely, little sister?
What a relief it was to hear the old term used again. He was standing, his hand on the back of a chair and his eyes resting on her with an expression she could not fathom.
“Yes; thanks to you, Deen!” Then she rushed hastily to another subject—one that was not only near to her heart, but safe. “I want so much to hear about my poor father’s death. Can you tell me the details?”
“I know very little. Houssain has heard that he was attacked by a man who was running amok.”
“A Hindu or a Mohammedan?”
“A Mohammedan. The murderer used a long knife that pierced the heart. He was killed instantly.”
“Then he did not suffer?”
“It must have been all over in a moment.”
“Where is his body?”
“Lying at the police station. He will be buried to-morrow.”
“To-morrow! so soon! Can’t I see him?”
“I am afraid not. Little sister, I’m sorry.”
“Thank you, Deen,” she replied softly. Then she added with a recovery of her self-possession: “Won’t you sit down? There are so many things I have to say.”
“I can only spare a few minutes,” he replied, but he took the chair all the same. She dropped back into her own seat.
“Did you leave the town quieter?” she asked. “When I saw those excited men crowding round you, I wondered if they intended to tear you to pieces. They looked quite capable of it.”
“The town has gone back to its usual state. A detachment of troops arrived. Their arrival was the signal for a dispersal. The rioters’ sticks were of no use against the rifles and machine-guns of the soldiers.”
He said nothing of the part he had played in saving the people from the effects of their folly; nor of the storm of emotion through which he himself had passed, with its wild flights of impossible aspirations and its deadly reaction to sober realities.
Yet he would have been glad to tell her all if it had been possible. It was not possible. In the first place he had but a short time at his disposal, and there were other matters of greater importance to them both which must be attended to.
“How did you know that I was in danger?” asked Victoria.
“Your man Cassim brought me the news. The servants of your house knew all about the trouble that was brewing. They had been told that their master’s life was threatened. They were the first to forsake you. Cassim hired a pony and cart and came straight out to me in camp, posting every seven or eight miles. If it hadn’t been for him——” he paused.
“And for your promptitude,” she put in quickly, “things might have been worse than they were.”
“Worse?” He looked up suddenly with a keen, searching glance.
“Well, Deen, weren’t you compelled to make a false declaration?”
“In what way?”
“You had to persuade those men that I was your wife. They would have dragged me out and murdered me. They looked it, especially that horrible stout man with the evil face.” He knew that she alluded to Ben Oola. “You saved me from my father’s fate by making them believe that I was your wife.”
“They would not let you go until they were assured that—that we were married.”
He spoke in a curious dogged manner that disturbed her.
“Married? married? never!” she cried, springing to her feet. “You were joking, Deen, when you called me your wife.”
He, too, had risen to his feet in the intensity of the moment—risen with combat in his face, the expression a man wears when he means to fight for his own.
“It was no joke, Victoria. The ceremony that was forced upon us was the moorta ceremony. By it you became my wife.”
He advanced towards her as though the primitive instincts were at work—the instinct to take and to keep. Allah had given her into his hands. It was fate; kismet; why should he dash the cup from his lips?
Her father was dead, her aunt gone, her engagement broken off, her stepmother fled. Every obstruction seemed to have been miraculously removed. It was the will of Allah.
He would have clasped her in his arms and crushed her to him. She was his! The veil, that conventional barrier between the men and the women of his race, was removed. The nuptial chamber was ready. It needed only to close the door on the outer world and the way to supreme happiness would be clear.
“No! no! no!” cried Victoria, dimly divining what was in his mind. “It cannot be! I am not your wife! I will never be your wife, call me what you will!”
Involuntarily she stepped back from him. It was the only sign she gave that her courage was shaken. In that tense moment her whole soul was lifted in prayer that she might be saved from the terrible danger that threatened her.
She was alone, without help. He was strong and had a staff of obedient servants behind him. She must be strong; she must not show any weakness. She halted in her retreat and stood her ground, facing him with an unflinching gaze.
“Deen! This is not the Deen of the old days!”
A note of appeal rang through her voice in that last call. It awoke within him all his better instincts. It was the voice of the little sister of his boyhood who had been so unfailingly good to him in that cold foreign land. She had given him the inestimable gift of her friendship at a time when his dreary, sunless exile was breaking his heart.
“Victoria!” he responded, and her quick ear detected the change from aggression to supplication. “Victoria, is the idea so very repulsive? What is there against the new relationship? Why should you not be my wife?”
“Birth! Race! Religion!” she gasped breathlessly.
He lifted his hands in protest. Did she not know of his birth, his official position, his family distinction and honour. Pride kept him silent.
“Victoria!” he said again in a voice of entreaty. His hands went out towards her, but he stayed his steps and did not attempt to approach nearer. “Is it so impossible? Oh, light of my heart! my love!” he pleaded. “I know now that I have loved you all my life, but you were as far beyond me as the stars above. It was only when you sat by my side with your dear face hidden beneath the bride’s veil that I realised you had come down to earth, my earth. And then it all seemed possible.”
He gazed at her with a great question in his eyes behind which was a dawning hope.
“It is not possible!”
The words rang out like a knell.
“Oh, why not? why not?” he cried.
She advanced a step towards him and—no longer in fear of him—a great pity illuminated her face.
“Deen! I would rather have been killed like my father, swift and sudden, than have brought this trouble into your life. I am not your wife; I can never be your wife.”
“I am your husband by the moorta rite, he said obstinately.
“The moorta rite is nothing to me. I am a Christian. You are a Mohammedan. Do the Mohammedans recognise marriage with an infidel?
He was silent. Mohammedans recognise no marriages except those contracted according to their law between the faithful. A woman may adopt the Moslem religion, or a man may be received into the Christian religion, but as Victoria and Anwar-u-din were, there could be no recognised marriage.
Ben Oola and his supporters knew this. They were not anxious to make a real marriage between the two. Their object was to tempt the one and humiliate the other. When the Mohammedan tired of the Englishwoman, were there not many ways known in the hareem, where magistrate and police inspector never penetrated, of removing members who had served their purpose and were no longer needed? As he did not speak, Victoria continued:
“Therefore the ceremony we went through counts for nothing except that it saved my life. Deen! I pray you be sensible, be reasonable. You called me little sister a few minutes ago. Don’t let the old tie be broken by attempting to make a new one that will be dishonourable to us both. No other than the old tie is possible between us. I am the little sister of your innocent youth. You are my well-beloved adopted brother.”
Her words penetrated and her appeal reached his heart. The old tie reasserted itself, and the new one that he would have forged weakened and died away.
One more dream, impossible of fulfilment, was shattered. One more rosy vision, not of power and state this time, but of love and happiness, was lost in the mists of the impossible. His head sank, and the arms so eagerly extended dropped to his side, empty and nerveless. His fingers closed on his palms as the truth of her words forced itself upon him.
There could be no real, no honourable marriage between them. She had not appealed in vain to the higher part of his nature. No! he degraded the woman who had been his best friend by offering her dishonour! The realisation of what it meant brought a sudden shame upon him.
“I must go, little sister,” he said in a low, broken voice.
“Back to camp?” she asked, only too ready to resume the old conditions and to forget the madness of the evening. She kept down the gladness, the thankfulness with which she heard him speak of going. She was sorry to part with him, but for his sake as well as hers it would be best that he should not be spending the next few hours so near her. To feel that he was eating his heart out in grief only a short distance away would have been hard to bear. In the warmth of her generous affection for the companion of her youth she would have been tempted to console and comfort. It would have undone all that she had just now accomplished.
“You are going to your camp to-night, Deen?” she asked again in her ordinary manner.
“Not to my camp, little sister. I have received a note from Mr. Fairoake. He wants me to go at once to him. He is out in his district.”
“He wants to hear all about the trouble that has happened at Arukahd and about my father’s death. By the by, why didn’t he come to your assistance?”
“He was on the point of starting when he was taken ill and travelling was impossible.”
Victoria gave him a startled glance.
“Ill? What’s the matter with him?” she asked, with a sudden change in her tone.
He did not reply immediately. His eyes rested on her with inquiry. He felt his pulse quicken as enlightenment came.
“Is it so much to you, little sister, whether he is well or ill?” he asked, feeling now that this was the man of her choice, and that no other would have a chance while Fairoake lived.
“Tell me the worst! Is he—is he—dead?”
“He has had an attack of what is called by his servants cholera. It often happens to a man when he wishes to go a journey to a place where his presence is not wanted.”
“Where is his camp?” she asked, not seeing what he meant.
“About thirty miles from here, on the other side of Arukahd.”
“Can I go to him?”
“I’m afraid it can’t be managed. I hope to take him to Arukahd some time to-morrow, if he can be moved.”
“Has he a doctor?”
“An Indian apothecary.”
“Any nurse?”
“He is entirely dependent on his servants; they are good of their kind.”
“Deen!” she pleaded, “let me come with you!”
She was asking what was not possible. There was no accommodation for a lady in camp. She would be terribly in the way, but he could not tell her this.
“I’m sorry, little sister. I must go alone. To-morrow morning early you will be able to return to your father’s house. You will find that the servants have come back. There will be much for you to do. The funeral of your father will take place to-morrow afternoon. If I can bring the Collector to his bungalow in Arukahd, I will come on to you and tell you how he is.”
She looked at him with shining, grateful eyes.
“Deen! how good you are! One of the best!”
He smiled rather bitterly. Was he one of the best? He knew his own weakness. Had he been staunch and true to himself and others during the last twenty-four hours? What if he had had fifty thousand armed men at his back when he was proclaimed Nabob? What if the moorta rites had been as binding on the Englishwoman as upon himself? He was but human, and the men of the East were ever prone to dream!
“One of the best!” The little sister had said it. In the old days in England, had she not pointed out the way to “make good,” the way to become “one of the best “?
“I will give the order for my mother’s car to take you to-morrow to Arukahd. Keep it and use it for the present. Good night, little sister.”
He held out his hand. She laid hers in it in perfect faith, with her confidence restored. He looked down at it as it rested in his palm like an arum lily on the delicate tan of the sun-warmed pomegranate fruit. He lifted it to his lips and placed on it a humble worshipping kiss.
Without another word he turned and left her. Allah was great! Allah was good! but Allah did not give such women to the faithful.
Now he understood, now he knew why she had broken with Rupert Shelford. Fairoake was the man.
It was a long drive to the Collector’s camp, occupying nearly three hours. Anwar-u-din was exhausted with fatigue, mental as well as physical. A reaction had set in. From a pinnacle of wild, unreasoning hope he had been cast into the depths of disappointment.
The Oriental professes to be a philosopher, but his is not the practical philosophy of the West. He is carried into the dazzling heights of fancy, never reached by the less emotional man of a temperate climate. At the time of his exaltation there is only a thin division between reality and imagination. He is deceived by the romance and the glamour of it all. His balance is upset; he lets himself go, and pays heavily afterwards for his dreams.
Drugs often assist in these dreams. Anwar-u-din was not addicted to drugs, however, nor, being a good Mohammedan, did he touch alcohol. It was well for Victoria that he was a total abstainer from both.
Fortunately sleep came to Anwar soon after he started, the heavy, dreamless but restful sleep of a weary man. He awoke with the stopping of the car in the camp. The great moons of the motor lighted up the spot. White tents were pitched in a tope of mango trees. In one tent was a light. It was Fairoake’s sleeping-tent.
A man in military uniform came out of it at the sound of the hooter. Anwar stepped down from the car and approached him.
“How is Mr. Fairoake?” he asked, dreading reply.
“Sleeping.”
“Allah be praised!” said Anwar reverently and with visible relief. “I scarcely dared to hope that I should find him alive. Will he pull through?”
“The apothecary says so. Wise man, that apothecary; Wants keeping up to the mark, though; sleepy beggar!”
Anwar was at a loss for a few moments to identify the stranger. The light was indifferent. Suddenly the ball at Madras came into his mind. It was Mrs. Wargrave’s friend, who had figured with her as an officer in the Imperial troops. He remembered that Victoria had mentioned her stepmother’s escape from Arukahd in the dress she had worn at the fancy-dress ball. It was Mr. Needham, called familiarly by Mrs. Wargrave Nood.
“Did you get Mrs. Wargrave away safely, Mr. Needham?” asked Anwar.
“Rather!”
“Was she very much alarmed?”
“You bet!”
“How did you manage it, sir?”
“Station two miles away; Bangalore train. Sent on horse as well.”
“And you?”
“Came back. Went to Court House to give the Judge message. Mad fellow; just run amok with long knife. Rode him down. Jabbed him with bamboo lance and pinned him till the police came up. Got him, by jingo! good sport, like pig-sticking.”
“Did you kill him?”
“Think not. Superintendent sent me here with his car to bring back Collector. Found him beastly bad with cholera. Fetched apothecary.” Then, breaking off his telegraphic communications, he fixed a steady eye on Anwar-u-din with a sudden gleam of keen inquiry in it. “Where’s Miss Wargrave?” he demanded.
“Safe at my house at Kondagiri.”
“Wouldn’t come with me. Plucky girl! splendid!”
He turned and went back to the tent as though exhausted with the effort of carrying on a long and coherent conversation. There was a movement inside and a servant came out. Anwar called to him and they spoke in the vernacular.
“What is the meaning of this illness?”
“It is not known, sahib.”
“Poison?”
“May be, Huzzoor; this poor worm cannot say.”
“Any servants missing?”
“A kitchen coolie taken on for a time has left the camp. But the apothecary calls it cholera.”
“If his honour lives it will stand at that,” commented the Assistant Collector. “When did the officer sahib arrive?”
“At sunset, Huzzoor. Ever since then the sahib has been attending his honour. He has never stopped in carrying out the apothecary’s directions. He will not eat; he smokes cigarettes and drinks strong coffee without milk.”
“Does the apothecary say that his Honour the Collector will recover?”
“If the sahib continues to attend him. He is awake and is taking food.”
“I will go and see his honour now.”
Anwar-u-din walked quietly into the tent. Nood was bending over the patient, one hand under the pillow to raise him, the other holding a cup which had contained chicken broth. He glanced up as he removed the empty cup and then smiled down at his charge.
“Friend to see you, sir,” he said.
“Who is that?” asked Fairoake.
His voice was becoming firmer. The pain was gone, and with it the evil symptoms that accompany such attacks. It had left him extremely weak. Although it had not lasted long, its severity, whether caused by poison or by the real disease itself, had been very great. The danger had been a collapse of the heart. Each half-hour that passed lessened the danger. Nothing, but the most vigilant care and assiduity in administering food and a certain amount of stimulant and drugs could pull the patient through.
An Indian servant with the best intentions in the world is too much of a fatalist if left to himself to grapple with a crisis. He cannot persevere in the face of fatigue and all the difficulties of providing the requirements of the sick-room.
With Needham in charge the camp staff did its best. He had had his experience in the march of the regiment to barracks, when some of the men went down with cholera on the route. He was indefatigable. If Fairoake recovered, he would owe his life to Nood.
“Who is there?” asked Fairoake again.
Anwar-u-din approached nearer. The dim light of the hurricane lamp standing on a camp table illuminated his khaki-clad figure and olive features.
“The Assistant Collector, sir.”
Fairoake’s eyes fastened upon him. A great question burned in their depths.
“Sit down,” said the Collector.
Nood lifted a chair and placed it close to the camp cot.
“Mustn’t talk too much, sir,” said the man who had constituted himself his nurse.
Anwar took the seat. It brought him within easier speaking distance of the patient.
“Everything quiet in the town?”
“Yes, sir,” replied Anwar with a cheerful gentleness that should have been reassuring. “No harm done to my—to our people; may Allah keep them in safety.”
“They gathered to make an insurrection, I was told; a demonstration against the British. I was asked by Mr. Haydon to go and disperse them.”
“As it happened, your presence was not needed, sir. They remained quite quiet after I joined them in the town.”
“Where did they assemble?”
“Within the walls of the old palace. On the arrival of a small detachment of troops they dispersed.”
“No violence? no opposition?”
“They had no leader to urge them into open rebellion. The agitators fled as soon as it was known that a murder had been committed. I suppose they thought that their work was done.”
“The Judge was murdered; Needham told me.”
“The murder was the result of a personal enmity. It was not political. Mr. Needham conveyed Mrs. Wargrave away before her husband was killed——”
“I know,” said Fairoake, interrupting him. “Miss Wargrave——?”
“She is safe. Mr. Needham told you probably that he could not persuade her to go with him when he was escorting Mrs. Wargrave. At that time Miss Wargrave knew nothing of her father’s danger.”
“How did she escape?”
“I will tell you all about it,” said Anwar, doing his best to allay the anxiety that was only exciting the patient and doing him harm. “Her servant, Cassim, a Mohammedan, came to me in camp and told me how she was situated. He knew the danger of her position. I was in camp. I hurried to the Judge’s house and found her quite alone. Every servant had forsaken her. They were Hindus and were terrified of the Mohammedans. At the gate was a party of budmashes watching her movements and waiting for any bit of mischief—robbery, assault, perhaps murder—that opportunity night offer.”
“Devils!” was Fairoake’s only comment.
“Miss Wargrave was not safe; I don’t think that she realised her danger, and I persuaded her to come with me. I drove to the town where the rioters were, and took over charge in your absence. Miss Wargrave went on by herself to Kondagiri.”
“To your house?”
“To my house—a safe refuge for the next twelve hours. She has Cassim with her. He is a good servant and can be trusted; one of the old sort, although he hasn’t been with her long.”
“How soon did the troops arrive?”
“They reached the palace between ten and eleven. After the people had dispersed I made provision for the accommodation of the detachment. Then I went back to Kondagiri, and on my arrival I received news of your illness. I changed, took a little food, and came off at once to you.”
Something in the eyes of the sick man made him continue:
“Miss Wargrave goes back to Arukahd this morning. I left orders that she was to have a car and start as soon as she chose. She will have gone probably by the time I get back to my house.”
He said nothing of the dramatic incident that happened on the way to the palace; of the marriage ceremony that was forced upon him—a marriage which, however true and valid in his eyes, was no marriage in hers. An intuitive feeling warned him that the incident was one which Victoria would prefer not to speak of. It was probable that it might remain a secret between them since it concerned no one but themselves.
There was silence for a short time. Fairoake’s eyes rested on his visitor. There was something he wanted to say.
“Anwar-u-din, I want to thank you. You have been the best of friends.”
He held out his hand, unable to say more. Anwar gripped it in silence. Nood, watchful for his patient’s welfare, touched Anwar on the arm.
“Enough talk; come outside.” There he dismissed Anwar. “You go home. To-morrow I shall bring Fairoake in to Arukahd.”
January is a glorious month in the Indian Peninsula. It begins with showers, the final spurts of rain that come in with the North-East monsoon. Tanks and rivers are full to overflowing with the downpour of the last two months of the year. Tropical nature is on tiptoe to burst into full flower and push on its generous crops of fruit and berry.
At dawn Victoria was awakened by the cuckoos and king-crows, parrots and barbets, thrushes and robins. Joyously they piped and whistled and screamed through the trees, tumbling in and out of the heavy foliage, or scuttering after each other over the long green grass.
There was no ayah to bring in the early morning tea. Cassim knocked at the door to ask where Madam wished to have it laid.
“Put it in the veranda. I shall be ready in fifteen minutes,” was the reply.
She was feeling refreshed. The night had been short but restful. Yesterday’s tragic doings seemed like a bad dream, but all through the memory, like a sharp wounding dart, was the remembrance of her father—her generous-hearted father with his joy in herself, his daughter, his only child. Although she could not hope to see him in his coffin, she would be able to attend the funeral. She would be alone except for her acquaintances who would rally round her after the way of English exiles.
Tears now and then filled her eyes as she dressed. It was difficult to appreciate her loss and all it would mean to herself. A sense of loneliness came over her. Brian had taken offence. Her father was dead. Mims had shamelessly deserted her. She herself had turned Rupert out of her life.
Anwar-u-din had remained a staunch friend, but there was a rift in the lute. She had seen a side of his character the existence of which she had had no suspicion. As a friend he was all that she could desire. She had discovered to her consternation that he had not been content to remain a friend only. He had wanted to be a lover—a lover and a husband! It was impossible. The invidious bar, forbidding and prohibitive, stood between them now and for ever.
As she came out of her room the sun appeared on the horizon. It sent broad sheets of golden light across the park-like compound, illuminating places which would be wrapped in deep shadow by midday.
Cassim had chosen a delightful spot for the table, on which he had placed the tray of tea, the toast, fresh butter and marmalade. Ferns and palms in pots were grouped round, making a bower of greenery inside the veranda. Outside, a rampant yellow rose laden with blossom scented the air in response to the warm touch of the sun. Cassim approached, bringing a dish of fruit.
“Did his honour return last night?” she asked.
“His honour has not come back, Madam.”
“When is he expected?”
“No one can say when his honour comes or goes.”
The answer was just what she anticipated. Deen had told her of his intention to take Fairoake back to Arukahd if he could be moved; if he were alive, she added mentally with a sinking of the heart. Cassim, she observed, was waiting. She gave him her attention.
“At what time will Madam have breakfast?”
She ordered it at nine and the car was to be ready at ten.
“Do you think that the servants have returned to the house at Arukahd?” she asked.
“Maybe so, Madam. They have many things locked up in their rooms there. They will come back.”
She finished her early tea; the beauty of the morning held her to the spot with a subtle sense of luxury induced by the balmy air, the sweet scent of the flowers, the shaded veranda and the beautiful foliage with which she seemed embowered. Her mental atmosphere was not as soothing to the senses as the physical. Thoughts crowded into her brain. The uncertainty of the future forced itself upon her.
What would Mims do now that she was widowed? Would she take it for granted that her stepdaughter would continue to live with her?
Victoria could not see herself the companion of such a restless pleasure-seeking butterfly. She decided that Mims must go her own way and leave Victoria to go hers.
What would that be? Her thoughts naturally flew to Brian. She recalled their last parting when he came to Arukahd to inquire into the Kondagiri incident. He had left her in a huff; she would not allow even to herself that it was anything more than a huff; he had given her no opportunity of explaining the part she had taken in visiting the Assistant Collector. She was still puzzled over his attitude and was inclined to be offended at his behaviour. It showed a want of trust. If he had no faith in her, it would be well for them both that she should pass out of his life altogether. Here was the opportunity; she must take it—it meant that she must return to England and begin a fresh life with new interests.
Then came the thought that in so doing she would have to shape that line without the inclusion of Brian. Her thoughts flew back to the night of the ball. There he had tempestuously demanded her love and she had given it. At the present time he was rejecting the gift as stormily as he had asked for it.
Was his conduct due to fickleness, to temper or to circumstances that were unknown to her and outside her life? Her warm heart took up the cudgels on his behalf, and made excuses for his unaccountable behaviour. Mims may have deceived him; he was worried by the unsettled state of the country; she smiled as she recalled his emphatic declaration that India was going to the dogs; and he was ill, very ill.
This last thought dispersed every shadow of annoyance. It opened the door of her heart. She loved him! How she loved him! She longed to feel his strong arms about her, to hear his voice and to lose herself in the dream of happiness which he, and he alone, could give her.
She must see him, she must force him to explain, to speak. She must listen patiently and without the little flames of anger arising from self-esteem.
It was impossible to write, to excuse herself in cold blood; to charge him if only by implication of unreasonable irritation. It would seem like accusing him of jealousy. She must wait for the opportunity of an interview.
“Will he live? Will he live?” whispered her anxious heart.
In the midst of a maze of perplexing thought the sound of a hooter announced the coming of a car. She sprang to her feet and hurried to the portico. Deen was coming! he was bringing news of some sort, and his presence in Fairoake’s camp was no longer necessary.
Through the gateway swung Anwar’s car. Was it empty? It could not be, for it passed the turning off to the garage and came straight on to the house. The door opened, and almost before it had stopped Deen sprang out. He ran up the steps, his hand extended in greeting, his eyes alight with pleasure.
“So glad to find you here; I was afraid you would have started for Arukahd.”
“What news?” she demanded.
“Good news, little sister. Fairoake is recovering; doing splendidly. I’ll tell you all about it.”
He called for Houssain and ordered coffee and toast, telling him to place it on the table which had held Victoria’s early tea.
“This is a surprise, Deen,” she said; her voice was not very steady. “I thought you were remaining in camp until he could be moved.”
“That was my intention, but it was not necessary; I was not needed.”
“What was the matter?”
“Cholera, a short but sharp attack, so the apothecary says.”
They had seated themselves, and as his eyes rested on her, he could not help thinking that she was a refreshing sight for a man to find on his return from the worries of his work.
“He will recover?”
“We hope so; we feel certain of it.”
“You and the apothecary.”
“And Mr. Needham.”
“Mr. Needham! What is he doing there?”
“He has constituted himself his nurse. If it hadn’t been for his devotion, the Collector would not have pulled through. He was indefatigable in persisting in the remedies. Mr. Fairoake owes his life to Mr. Needham.”
He explained, as he took his much-needed chota-hazri, how it happened that Needham found his way to the camp, how he was sent by the superintendent of police to bring the Collector to Arukahd, and how he found him desperately ill. Victoria asked many questions, and needed more than one assurance that Fairoake would recover.
“He will be vexed that he could not join you yesterday in putting down the trouble in the town,” she remarked.
Anwar repressed a queer smile as he replied:
“He may possibly regret his absence. Little sister, don’t think me conceited if I say that I was better able to manage the situation by myself than if he had been there.”
“You mean that he might have been more severe?”
“I won’t say that. He is one of the finest officers in our service, and one day he will probably be on the Council. He would have upheld the British Raj as in duty bound. He could not have humoured them as I did.” He turned the subject deliberately by again expressing his gratification of finding her there.
“We shall have breakfast together,” he said as he rose from his seat to go to his room.
At the sound of the breakfast gong he reappeared, wearing a morning suit of light tweed in which he seemed to be once more the Deen she knew in England. She was grateful to him for dropping back into the old relations with so much ease. It was a pleasant, leisurely meal, which neither of them felt inclined to hurry over. When at last it was finished, Victoria left the table to go to her room. It was time to put on her hat and prepare for her departure.
Deen accompanied her to the drawing-room, where he remained until she returned. The car came slowly round from the garage and drew up under the portico. As she entered the drawing-room, Houssain and Cassim quietly appeared. Side by side they stood, silent and observant.
Anwar advanced towards Victoria and took her hand. He recited something in Hindustani. The two servants placed the palms of their hands together and salaamed to Victoria. She had given Houssain a present of money. She supposed that this was his method of acknowledging the gift in presence of his master and of thanking her.
“Am I taking part in a ceremony of grateful farewell after your hospitality?” she asked as the servants left the room in obedience to a sign from their master.
“Yes; it’s just a matter of form, little sister; nothing more,” he said lightly as he walked with her towards the portico.
He did not tell her that he had just divorced her according to Mohammedan law. His unerring judgment led him to keep secret from her an act which was no compliment to her, but which he considered after due thought would be desirable and expedient. His marriage by the moorta ceremony was common property among the Mohammedans of the district. It was only due to her that she should be made a free woman in their sight.
Divorce with the Mohammedans is an easy matter, provided always that circumstances are favourable and the conditions fulfilled. These need not be dealt with here. The Mohammedan has a strange sense of duty towards humanity. He will not, if he can help it, inflict illegitimacy on any individual of his race; nor will he repudiate the claims of paternity.
There was nothing to prevent the divorce being effected between himself and Victoria, since, if a wife at all, she had only been a wife in name. He had but to declare before witnesses that he had divorced her, and the deed was done.
Victoria, her confidence restored, smiled at him in the old friendly fashion. She had no suspicion of what the so-called farewell ceremony meant. Had she known, she would have refused to participate in it. To submit to be divorced would have been tantamount to admitting the validity of the marriage, and this she would have opposed strenuously. Anwar was right to keep her in ignorance.
It was his intention to preserve the secret of the previous evening from the English community. It was sufficient for all her friends, including Fairoake, to know that her life had been saved by his removal of her from the Judge’s house. Fairoake, who had seen him in his camp, would be aware that he had practically lent her his house. He had carefully guarded against scandal and made it possible for her to accept his offer by effacing himself.
As to the details of his method of delivering her from the wrath of an angry crowd, that was a matter which concerned only Victoria and himself. He rightly divined that she would prefer to have the whole incident buried in oblivion and blotted out as if it had never occurred.
They stood together on the lower step of the portico. She had paused to thank him for all he had done. As his eyes rested upon her, it was possible that the shadow of a wild regret may have flashed through his mind. His was a temperament that would always be subject to the psychical storms of life.
Romance, idealism, the chance appeal of an ecstatic multitude, the rosy dream of love, might stir his soul at any moment into thoughts of passionate rebellion against a fate that denied the fulfilment of desire. England and Victoria had taught him that these emotions could be bitted and bridled and guided for good.
He helped her into the car, then laid his hand on the door as though he could not bring himself to shut her out of his sight and out of his life as he must do.
“Good-bye, Deen,” she cried. “I owe you my life. I shall be grateful for ever.”
“Allah keep you in safety, little sister, he said as he slowly and unwillingly drew away, allowing Cassim to close the door of the gosha car.
“It is the will of Allah,” he said reverently as his eyes followed the car down the drive. “He rules our destinies.” Then he added in the true spirit of resignation which is the inheritance of every follower of the Prophet: “Blessed be Allah and blessed be Mohammed his Prophet!”
Fairoake was better. It was ten days since Nood had brought him back into cantonments. Having taken a month’s leave, Needham was spending it in Arukahd as the Collector’s guest—a welcome guest as it turned out, for his host was not yet well enough to be left, and he was not sufficiently ill to require a nurse.
Mrs. Wargrave wrote and wired imperative demands to Nood for his presence at Bangalore. Nood answered by telegraph—he rarely wrote letters—and his reply was: “Can’t leave Fairoake.”
A little later, she returned to Arukahd and instantly appropriated all the time he had to spare away from his patient. She was wearing the latest thing in widow’s weeds and looking younger and more impish than ever.
If any kind friend offered sympathy and condolence, she wept. She had been attached to her husband in a fragile, delicate way. He had been very good to her, but he had never taken her seriously as a responsible individual. Victoria could not help feeling that Mims had never appreciated his full worth and therefore was incapable of feeling the loss as she herself felt it.
Victoria had only been a short time with him, but during that time she had learned his worth. Not only was she drawn towards him, but through him she felt the influence of the mother she had lost. By his aid she had had glimpses through a newly opened door into a fresh world, where she and her father might wander together among precious memories sacred to themselves alone. With his death the door had closed, and there was no one who could ever open it for her again.
Mims was preparing to vacate the house. The furniture would be taken at a valuation by the new man, who was at present putting up at the club. She intended to return to Bangalore. Afterwards, when the weather was warmer, she might go to a hill station. Although always ready to talk of her own plans, she never once asked Victoria what she proposed doing with herself when the time came to leave Arukahd.
Nood stood silently contemplating Fairoake. They were in the veranda into which Fairoake’s room opened. The house had no upper story; it was an ordinary up-country bungalow with a low, shady veranda extending beyond the pillars that supported the roof.
The fuchsia socks and tie so gaily worn when they could be repeated in his chosen companion’s dress were exchanged for black in deference to the note of mourning on Mims.
Nood rarely spoke unless he had something to say. On the other hand, he possessed the most observant eyes that ever were bestowed on man. Like all silent people, he made a good listener.
“Your leave gazetted, Fairoake,” he remarked in his telegraphic fashion as he handed the morning paper to him; he had opened it, glanced through it, and folded it conveniently for the use of the invalid.
“I don’t know what I am to do with myself,” grumbled Fairoake, allowing the paper to lie on his knee. “I don’t see why I should not have taken up my work again in a few days. I shall be all right soon.”
“Doctor said no.”
“Confound him! he doesn’t know how I feel.”
“Bangalore? good place.”
“Too gay for me; more in your line, Needham.”
“Madras? not bad on the whole.”
“Warm and steamy next month. What are you going to do with yourself for the rest of your leave? You’ve got nearly a fortnight left.”
“Bangalore.” After a pause, he added: “Mims’s orders.”
“Where will Miss Wargrave go? With her, I suppose,” he added, as Needham did not answer.
Fairoake busied himself with lighting a cigarette. He did not look up; he feigned an indifference he was far from feeling. He had not seen Victoria since his return. Too much of an invalid to go out except in the garden, he was not likely to meet her. He might have sent a message or given some sign that he would be glad to see her. Pride has much to answer for when lovers fall out.
“Has Miss Wargrave told you anything of her intended movements? Will she go back to England?” he asked presently, as Needham remained unresponsive.
“Don’t know; it depends.”
“Depends on what, you telegraphic ass?”
“On marriage.”
“Great Caesar’s socks! Is she going to marry Shelford after all? I thought it was definitely put off. He gave her the go-by, passing India without coming to see her. Afraid of insurrections and risings! He has sold his estate. He deserves to be scrapped without mercy.”
Nood pulled a chair forward and seated himself with his usual care of his clothes. He placed his elbows on his knees and brought his hands together. His movements were deliberate and slow. They matched his speech. He looked at Fairoake with a stolid, almost vacant expression that hid every scrap of feeling.
“It’s like this,” he began. “There’s three of us.”
“Three? What the devil do you mean?”
Nood counted on his fingers. He began with the first finger, which he took delicately between the finger and thumb of the other hand.
“First, Shelford.” He looked at Fairoake as if he anticipated comment. It came.
“He’s turned down,” was the reply without any hesitation.
“Secondly, me.” Again he waited for comment.
Fairoake sat up, startled.
“You! you idiot! What do you mean? Have you asked her to marry you?”
“I’m in process of asking.”
Fairoake burst into a laugh. It did Nood good to hear it. Anything was better than the cloud of depression which seemed to have settled down upon him. It rejoiced Nood’s heart when the convalescent lost his temper and became abusive.
“Explain yourself,” demanded Fairoake.
“Day we came back; called her splendid. Next day, magnificent. Yesterday, angelic. To-day, must tell her never liked anyone so much. To-morrow, must ask if she will marry me.”
Nood stopped, almost exhausted with his long communication. He heaved a deep sigh, and his round blue eyes fixed themselves on Fairoake like a great note of interrogation.
“Well? and what do you expect her to answer?” asked Fairoake with a suspicion of irritation in his voice.
“That depends.”
“Depends on what, you owl?”
“On the third person in the case.”
Here he took himself by the third finger and assumed, if possible, a still more wooden expression.
“Who is the third?” demanded Fairoake combatively and with a dangerous look. His thoughts ran instantly to the Assistant Collector. In vain his common sense fought against the fancies of a sick man.
“You,” was the quiet reply. “Gather that you have turned her down. That so?”
“The deuce I have! have I?” cried Fairoake, throwing the unread newspaper on to the floor with a vicious fling.
“So the odds are with me,” complacently remarked Nood as he rose to his feet, picked up the paper and restored it to its original position.
“Where are you going?” asked Fairoake, who, for all his fractiousness, hated losing sight of his companion for long.
“To lunch with Mims. Won’t wait till to-morrow. To-morrow’s Friday—bad day to start new stunts. I’ll butt in after lunch.”
“Better not!” grumbled Fairoake.
“Think so? Hope the splendid one won’t turn me down. Doesn’t seem like it when I’m with her.”
“What will Mims do if you break with her?”
“Pleased about it. Like to be my mother-in-law. Good sport!”
He began to stroll off, but stopped to deliver himself of a sudden thought:
“Glad the splendid one turned Shelford down. Very glad you turned the magnificent one down. Makes it all the easier for me. Any message?”
“No! damn you! get out!”
Nood slipped away from his irate friend, hiding a slow smile. His horse was ready. Presently Fairoake heard its hoofs on the carriage drive as he cantered off in the direction of the Wargraves’ house.
The Collector, left to himself, could not be called a happy man. He was thinking of Nood’s desertion and was feeling aggrieved. He could not have named the particular grievance that was irritating him, but things in general roused his discontent. It was the discontent of weakness. He was constitutionally a strong man, unaccustomed to illness, and therefore unable to reconcile himself to the feebleness that had followed on the attack.
Lunch was announced. He was quite well enough to get out of his chair and walk to the dining-room, where a carefully prepared meal, devised by Nood, was placed upon the table. Everything was remembered; all the same, nothing seemed right. He scolded his servants and behaved like the patient who is on the high road to recovery; described by the experienced nurse as “Cross as two sticks and doing very nicely, thanks.”
After lunch he moved into the front veranda to get away from the afternoon beams of the sun, which were creeping round to the side of the bungalow where he had spent the morning. He was alone. The servants, having cleared away lunch, took themselves off to their rooms, leaving a small boy on guard within hearing to summon them if they were wanted by the master. It was hoped that he would sleep, as they intended to do themselves. It would, in their opinion, be the very best thing for him.
The unfortunate invalid was in no humour to sleep. His thoughts were in a turmoil. He could not keep his cigarette alight, nor concentrate his attention on newspaper or book.
Needham’s statement that he had turned Victoria down, just as she had turned Rupert down, roused him into a state of irritable injured innocence. Confound the fellow for his cheek! What the devil did he mean? What grounds had he for saying such a thing? What did he know? What made him believe such an outrageous misrepresentation of facts?
He searched his memory for the details of his last meeting with Victoria. He was very angry, he remembered, at her having paid the Assistant Collector a visit and he had allowed her to see it. Then he recalled the fact that their interview had been interrupted. He had given her no opportunity of offering any explanation. He had blamed her for an action that he should have attributed to Mims. Instead of expressing regret at what he chose to consider an indiscretion or an attempt to excuse herself, she had claimed the right to go where she chose and see whomsoever she wished to see.
The voice of reason demanded to be heard. It said plainly that Miss Wargrave was a free agent, responsible only to her father for her actions. Rupert Shelford had been dismissed, and no right had been given to any man to control and criticise her doings. What a fool he was! What a beastly temper he had! He had deserved every mortal thing that he had got!
Only let him get well! Only give him the chance of going to her, of making his apologies and humbly asking her forgiveness! He craved for the opportunity of telling her how he loved her.
And while he was lying there helpless with his physical weakness, buffeted by the gusts of his own unmanageable temper, there was that fool! that ass, Needham, butting in; and, for all he could tell, carrying everything before him!
His eyes smarted; his fingers clenched over his palms as he tossed on his long-armed chair in abject misery.
A sound of horse’s hoofs in the portico made him look round. A visitor! Any visitor would be welcome, if only to distract his thoughts from his troubles.
He scarcely dared to believe his eyes as he recognised Victoria’s little hooded cart and pony. She was leaning towards the syce, giving him directions as she handed him the reins. He was to take the pony out of the cart. She would not need it till after tea.
She stepped out of the trap and stood with her back to the veranda, watching the man as he led the pony away. Then she turned, and came smiling up the steps. She wore white, with a black ribbon at her waist and round the white sun-hat.
He tried to scramble out of his chair and get on his feet, but he was still rather feeble on his legs and inclined to be slow in his movements. She divined his intention and hurried up to him. She placed her firm, steady hands on his shoulders and pressed him gently back on to his cushions.
“No! you are not to get up, Brian,” she said in a voice that deprived him for the time of all power of speech. The opportunity he had been so ardently longing for had come, and he was unable to take advantage of it. The apologies, the avowal of love remained unspoken on his dumb lips.
He clasped his trembling arms round her waist as she leaned over him. Then, sinking down on her knees by his side, he felt her arms creep round his shoulders and her hands upon his neck.
“You sent for me and I’ve come,” was her amazing announcement. “Nood said you wanted me.”
Still he kept silence, afraid to say a word lest he should lose control of himself. Her head bent till her cheek touched his.
“Brian! is Nood right? Do you want me? Do you really want me?”
For answer he clung the closer, and turned his head to find the lips that were whispering in his ear.
A little later she released herself. He was very unwilling to let her go. She propped him up with his cushions and brought a chair, which she placed as close to his as was possible before he was satisfied.
There were so many subjects to discuss; so much they had to tell each other. It was inevitable that they should eventually come to Anwar-u-din. Brian was the one to feel self-conscious and uncomfortable as Victoria mentioned his name. On her part, there was nothing to indicate self-reproach. She was quite ready to pacify and soothe if it was necessary. To that end she presently remarked:
“Dearest, I was so sorry that you were annoyed at my visit to Kondagiri.”
“I was a fool! I deserve to be kicked!”
“Deen saved my life the night poor father was killed. Have you heard the story?”
“He told me that he had fetched you away from the house,” he replied, his eyes resting upon her with some curiosity.
“I was forsaken and quite alone. He brought his mother’s closed car. I think he hoped that we should get away to Kondagiri safely without the knowledge of the rioters, but they discovered our intention. They were excited and angry and they held us up. I was wrapped in a veil. If I hadn’t been, I think they would have torn me from his side and murdered me in the road. They took us to the old palace and he claimed the right to preserve my life as—as his friend.”
He was watching her now with a concentrated attention. Anwar-u-din had only given him a bare, bald outline of the tragedy of that evening.
“I heard them call him Nabob as he stepped out of the car,” she continued. “He behaved like one. He took command of the people like a king. The chauffeur was ordered to drive me to his house at Kondagiri. Cassim was with me. We reached the house safely, but it was a dreadful night—poor father murdered, you so ill, and myself quite alone. Deen continued to play the part of Nabob till the troops came; he kept the people from breaking out into mischief; he saved the town from bloodshed. When it was all over he had news of your illness, and he went to you in camp at once, not knowing that Nood was looking after you. He came back to me the next morning and sent me to Arukahd.”
She omitted all mention of that strange ceremony which was forced upon them by Ben Oola. It was not necessary that Fairoake should be informed. It was sufficient that he should thoroughly understand how effectually his Assistant Collector had acted to preserve order and to save her life.
“Brian, we owe much to Deen. He has proved a staunch friend and a faithful servant of the Government,” said Victoria, as she poured out his tea later.
“One of the best!” was the reply. It came from the heart of a man who would make amends for ill-temper and impatience. “One of the best!”