CHAPTER XVII.
One day, starting on a journey, I entered an apartment on the train in which there was a lady and gentleman. They were very reserved as all English people are.
I remember the remark of the great Dr. Johnson to his friend Boswell, “Sir, two men of any other nation who are thrown into a room together at a house where they are both visitors will immediately find some conversation. But two Englishmen will probably go each to a different window and remain in absolute silence.
“Sir, we do not understand the common rights of humanity.”
Apropos of this, I recall an account of a shipwreck when only two men, Englishmen of course, were saved, one clinging to the foremast and the other to the mainmast. One, as he was rescued was asked, “Who is that other man?” He replied, “I don’t know.” “But didn’t you speak to him?” “Speak to him!” he exclaimed. “How could I when we had not been introduced?”
I read my paper for awhile in silence. I am never alone when I have a good book or paper, and yet I felt like talking, as I sometimes do. Probably we all feel that way. Strange isn’t it?
I tried to think of something to break the silence between myself and my two silent fellow travelers, but failed entirely. Some miles were passed, and I thought of a good iced drink that my bearer had brought for me in my traveler’s ice box, and without a reflection, but from the impulse of my good nature, I suggested that perhaps they might take something. Had I been acquainted, I might have said in good Johnsonese, “Let us reciprocate,” but I was prudent and cautious. They accepted at once with thanks. This broke the ice between us, and I found them very pleasant company. It is said, no matter by whom, that if an Englishman is once introduced, or the ice is broken, he can be very affable. Probably this may be true.
It was so in this case so what matter elsewhere. We enjoyed our conversation so much that our journey passed quickly and we were scarcely aware that we were at theend of it. They gave me their cards, and said they were from Wazirabad. Wazirabad! How that name struck me! I quickly asked, “Did you know a Mr. and Mrs. Strangway, who lived there?” Both replied at once, “They were our most intimate friends!” I told them that the Strangways, years ago, had adopted a little sister of mine, and though I and another had written, we could never get a word from them or about her. They replied, that soon after the Strangways returned with the little girl they left for Europe taking her with them, and remained abroad for years, where she was educated. While absent, the Strangways from some cause or other were obliged to return to India, and soon after their arrival they both died suddenly from the cholera. “But what became of the daughter?” I impatiently asked. Replied the lady: “She was left without any means, and went as a governess to Bhagulpur.” At the mention of this name I sprang to my feet with a start. “Do you know to whom she went?” I asked.
The lady looked at her husband, and after a moment’s hesitation said, “Wasn’t it to the Shaws?” “Great Heavens! then I have seen her without knowing her,” I exclaimed. My heart thumped in its beating, and cold chills raced over me. They probably attributed this to my excitement, at suddenly hearing of my long-lost sister. And I, what did I think, or what didn’t I think? That villain of a magistrate leaving the station, and the sudden disappearance of the governess, my sister!
We shook hands, but I hardly knew when my newly made friends left me. Horror of horrors! To have been so near and yet not known her, and that cursed old Englishman talking about her as he did, and how could I think it, leading her astray! My sister! As long as she was somebody else’s sister, how little I cared, but now when she was my sister? How could I think of it? How endure it? I went to some hotel, I cared not where. I had no desire for dinner. I could not sleep or rest, but walked the floor. What a never ending night it was! The moments grew into hours, and the hours into days, before the morning broke. It seemed as if I was under the curse of Heaven. Born under a curse, with trouble enough alreadyto have broken my heart, when would it end? Would this be my lot until death released me? What maddening thoughts I had during that long never ending night! It seemed as if my heart would burst and my brain go mad in anger and despair. I forgot my business and took the first train for home, and the journey seemed eternal.
At last I reached home, so thoroughly exhausted that I felt and knew that I must rest and sleep or die. I ate some food without tasting it, and then yielding, I slept, for nature could endure no more. Ah! what would become of us if we could not sleep! What a hell of anguish and despair would we be in without it?
Yet I awoke as if from some terrible dream, of demons, fiends, with horrible forms and faces and some accursed men wrangling and fighting over a beautiful innocent childlike girl, with none to help her, neither God above, nor angels, nor women, or men. I awoke so terrified that I could not realize my own self. I felt that I was absent, gone away and had to come back to myself. It was some minutes of time before I recovered from that fearful state, and then I became calm, for I began to reason about the folly of wasting my strength when I might need it so much. I compelled myself by my will to be quiet, and partook of breakfast.
The next thing was to find out the station of the commissioner. I thought first of Mr. Jasper. No, that would not do. I did not want him, now my best friend, to know my secret, my fears or my sorrows. We often prefer to hide such things from our best friends. I went to the magistrate, a stranger to me. I asked him as calmly as I could, the address of Mr. Smith, now commissioner somewhere, formerly magistrate and collector in our station, that I had some important business with him, and hadn’t I? He at once gave me the name of the place. I thanked him and left.
I took the first train for Jalalpur, the headquarters of the commissioner, where I arrived the next morning. Another fearful night. I cannot describe it, as the very remembrance of it now makes my old heart ache. I thought of those of whom I had read, going to the guillotine,the awful journey, and the dread of its end. What would be at the end of my journey? I shuddered at the thought of it, and felt as if I was going to my doom, to a hell of some kind, and something which I could not resist, compelled me to go on, go on.
The station was at length reached, and reason took possession of me, and I thought I heard a voice saying, “Be a man, Charles, be a man.” Ah! Mr. Percy, would to God you were here now to help me! The thought of his words braced me up. I had a bath at the station rooms, the colder the better, I thought, and then a breakfast by force of my will, and then out on my search.
If ever a criminal went limp to the scaffold I could sympathize with him that morning. Going along the road I met a government chuprassi, as shown by his clothes and badge, and I made inquiries of him, one of which was, if he knew of a young woman, an Eurasian, under the protection of the Commissioner Sahib? Protection! God forgive me for that lie! But how else could I ask? He looked me over, again and again, and hesitated. I waited. He then said, “Sahib, I am one of the Commissioner Sahib’s servants. If he knew I told you anything about this woman he would send me to Jehannam before the sun went down.” I replied that I had some news for her, that he should have no fear, and need only tell me the direction to her place. Before telling, he exacted a promise that I would never mention him in any way, or his head would have to say salaam to his shoulders.
I went on and came to the place. How much it reminded me of that small wretched court where my little mama once was. I hurried in through the narrow door or gate, as I did not wish to be seen by any one. There she sat on the veranda of a small house with a little boy at her knees. She was very much disturbed at my appearance. I saw at the first glance our mother’s large lustrous eyes. Why do we always speak of the eyes of a person? Is it because they are the windows of the soul through which we look as through windows into a house? I now saw the well remembered features of the face. I could not be mistaken. It was she, the long lost sister.
Though I recognized her, would she know me, as she was so young when we parted? That thought troubled me.
I did a great deal of thinking in that moment of silence. How fast we think at times!
I bowed and said, “Good morning. My name is Japhet, Charles Japhet. Are you Miss Strangway?” “Yes,” she replied. “Then you remember Mr. and Mrs. Strangway, of Wazirabad?” I asked. “Oh! yes, surely I do,” she quickly answered, with animation. “They adopted me, I was as their daughter, their only child, and how they loved me! O, if they had only lived, I would not have become what I am now.”
She bowed forward, her face in her hands, and sobbed bitterly. I could have cried, too, and why not? Quickly the thought came to me, “Don’t let your feelings run away with your sense, for you need all the sense you have got.” After she had recovered a little, I asked, “Do you remember where Mr. and Mrs. Strangway got you?” She thought a moment, and replied, “Not very clearly, all I remember, that there was a great big house, and a great number of girls, with nice white frocks; that a lady came one day, took me by the hand and led me away; that is all I recollect, and I suppose that this lady must have been Mrs. Strangway, for I was with her always afterward.” “So you remember the frocks; just like girls!” I couldn’t help saying. She smiled. It was that playful smile that I so well remembered, and which I was glad to see, even in her sad condition, and though my heart was breaking with sorrow and dread.
“But do you remember nothing about a little brother of yours?” I asked.
“Nothing but this,” she answered. “I remember a long, dusty road. One day the little boy, my brother, I think, went to climb a tree to get me a flower or some fruit, and a great big monkey up in the tree made faces and chattered at him, and when the little boy ran away from the tree the monkey chased him, and I was in a great fright for his sake. That is all I remember.”
How vividly I recalled that scene! How frightened Iwas as I saw that monster grinning at me, and how I ran with him after me, and another thing, that the little sister picked up a stick, and came to defend me, bravely shaking the stick at the vicious brute.
There was no more doubt, so I said, “I am your brother.” She sprang to her feet, exclaiming, “You my brother? You that little brother? Come in quickly!” For I had been standing outside. She threw her arms around my neck and kissed me. Why shouldn’t she? “You my brother? You my brother?” she repeated, as if it was impossible. “Yes, and you are my sister, my long lost sister!” I replied.
We sat for an hour or more. There was no fear of interruption, as no one came in the day time but an old woman servant, and she had gone to her home in the city, not to return until toward evening. There was no fear of that distinguished Christian gentleman, the Honorable Commissioner, coming, for his deeds were deeds of shame and darkness, for which he always chose the night. I thought this, but certainly did not say so.
She gave me an outline of her life, told how kind and loving her adopted parents were to her, how they left India and placed her in a school in France while they spent several years on the continent. They then took her to England, where they placed her in an excellent school, while they spent some years visiting relatives in America. Returning, they took a home in Scotland, often traveling, sight-seeing, mainly for her improvement, while she enjoyed all the luxuries she wished. Then the loss of property, the return to India, and the sudden death of those she loved, and who loved her as their own child, how she was then thrown upon the tender mercies of the world to earn her own living, of her going to the Shaws as a governess, and then she cried as if her heart would break. The pitiful story—ah, the pity of it—I knew that was yet to come. I sat in dread, cold with fear. “O, God, if this cup would only pass from me.”
She began again, with bated breath, how the commissioner came to her at the club grounds where she was with the children, how he met her as if by accident in the earlymorning when she was out with them, of his smiles and flatteries. That he told her of the death of his wife, and how lonely he was, to get her sympathy. Then of his asking her to marry him, and of her repeated refusals, of his persistency until she at length consented. Then he received promotion in a distant province. He promised that they would be married on the journey, and in his new home she would be his wife, so she went with him, but it was not convenient for him to stop on the way, for he had to be at his appointment on a certain date.
“So here I am,” she bitterly exclaimed. “He has promised a hundred times to marry me, and lied every time. What am I now? Not his wife, only his aurat, his woman.” She moaned.
It was the same old story, of lying, deceiving rakes to allure victims into their nets. I have often thought if there is no hell, one should be invented for such infernal villains. What shall I compare them to? I know of nothing but that they are incarnate devils, fiends in human shape. The tiger, the most ferocious of brutes, kills his prey, destroys them and puts an end to their suffering, but these human devils prolong the lives of their victims, by deception and lies, to gratify their damnable and insatiate lust. What were my feelings? I felt like cursing, and committing murder. I do not hesitate to say this, and before God too, who I think would not rebuke me.
She shed bitter tears while I stood by, thinking. At length I said: “I have come on purpose to take you away from this hell, and we will go at once.” “I am ready! Thank God, I am ready now!” she exclaimed.
I went out and called a gari and on returning, found she had put all she wanted in her bag, and taking her baby boy, we were soon on the way to the railway station. Before the train came in, she took a piece of paper and wrote, “Gone, to return no more, for you have lied to me,—Clara Strangway.” This was enclosed in an envelope and addressed to “H. J. Smith, Commissioner,” and dropped in the postal box.
We reached our home, and a new life for her commenced. We were happy in a brother and sister’s love and care, asmuch so as we could be, except for the thoughts of that cursed part in her last few years. No one asked questions, and we told none our secret. She passed in sight as my widowed sister. Was she not a widow, in a cursed widowhood?
Not long after, a young Eurasian gentleman of good family and business, became acquainted with her and proposed marriage. She told him the whole story, concealing nothing. They were married, and lead a happy life.
It seemed that I had lived a dozen lives in that short time. Life is a comedy to those who think, and a tragedy to those who feel. Mine surely was a tragedy, terribly real.
Thus ended another episode in my life, ended only in part, for it was burned into my memory to remain forever. What a blessing if there were some erasive to remove the foul stains from memory! But no, it cannot be; not God himself can do it. A blessing? No, a curse, for the good too might then be erased as well, and so we are to keep all, the good and also the evil, and forever.