A town on the hill-tops; a town of clubs, churches, and hotels, of luxury shops, of pretty villas set in lovely gardens bright with English flowers and shaded by great orchid-clad trees; of broad, well-kept roads—such is Darjeeling, seven thousand feet above the sea.
At first sight there is nothing Oriental about it except the Gurkha policemen on point duty or the laughing groups of fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked Lepcha women that go chattering by him. But on one side the steep hills are crowded with the confused jumble of houses in the native bazaar, built higgledy-piggledy one on top of the other and lining the narrow streets and lanes that are thronged all day by a bright-garbed medley of Eastern races—Sikkimese, Bhuttias, Hindus, Tibetans, Lepchas. Set in a beautiful glen are the lovely Botanical Gardens, which look down past slopes trimly planted with rows of tea-bushes into the deep valleys far below.
As Noreen was borne along in herdandyshe thought that she had never seen a more delightful spot. Everything and everyone attracted her attention—the scenery, the buildings, the varied folk that passed her on the road, from well set-up British soldiers in red coats and white helmets, smartly-dressed ladies in rickshas, Englishmen in breeches and gaiters riding sleek-coated ponies, to yellow-gowned lamas and Lepcha girls with massive silver necklaces and turquoise ornaments. She longed to turn her chair-coolies down the hill and begin at once the exploration of the attractive-looking native bazaar—until she reached the English shops with the newest fashions of female wear from London and Paris, set out behind their plate-glass windows. Here she forgot the bazaar and would willingly have lingered to look, but Ida'sdandykept steadily alongside hers and its occupant chattered incessantly of the many forth-coming social gaieties, until they turned into the courtyard of their hotel and stepped out of their chairs.
When Ida had shown her friend into the room reserved for her she said:
"Take off your hat, dear, and let me see how you look after all these years. Why, you've grown into quite a pretty girl. What a nice colour your hair is! Do you use anything for it? I don't remember its being as golden as all that at school."
The girl laughed and shook the sunlit waves of it down, for it had got untidy under her sun-hat.
"No, Ida darling, of course I don't use anything. The colour is quite natural, I assure you. Have you forgotten you used sometimes to call me Goldylocks at school?"
"Did I? I don't remember. I say, Noreen, you're a lucky girl to have made such a hit straight away with Captain Charlesworth. He's quite the rage with the women here."
"Is he? Why?" asked the girl carelessly, pinning up her hair.
"Why? My dear, he's the smartest man in a very smart regiment. Very well off; has lots of money and a beautiful place at home, I believe. Comes from an excellent family. And then he's so handsome. Don't you think so?"
"Yes; he's rather good-looking. But he struck me as being somewhat foppish."
"Oh, he's always beautifully dressed, if that's what you mean. You saw that, even when he had just come off a train journey. He's a beautiful dancer. I'm so glad he asked me for a couple of dances at the L.G.'s ball. I'll see he doesn't forget them. I'll keep him up to his word, though Bertie won't like it. He's fearfully jealous of me, but I don't care."
"Bertie? Who is—? I thought that your husband's name was William?" said Noreen wonderingly.
Ida burst into a peal of laughter.
"Good gracious, child! I'm not talking of my husband. Bill's hundreds of miles away, thank goodness! I wouldn't mind if he were thousands. No; I'm speaking of Captain Bain, a great friend of mine from the Bombay side. He's stationed in Poona, which is quite a jolly place in the Season, though of course not a patch on this. But he got leave and came here because I did."
"Oh, yes, I see," replied Noreen vaguely, puzzled by Ida's remark about her husband. She had seen the Civil Servant at the wedding and remembered him as a stolid, middle-aged, and apparently uninteresting individual. But the girl was still ignorant enough of life not to understand why a woman after two years of marriage should be thankful that her husband was far away from her and wish him farther.
"But I'm not going to let Bertie monopolise me up here," continued Mrs. Smith, taking off her hat and pulling and patting her hair before the mirror. "I like a change. I've come here to have a good time. I think I'll go in and cut you out with Captain Charlesworth. He's awfully attractive."
"You are quite welcome to him, dear," said the girl.
"Oh, wait until you see the fuss the other women make of him. He's a great catch; and all the mothers here with marriageable daughters and the spins themselves are ready to scratch each other's eyes out over him."
"Don't be uncharitable, Ida dearest."
"It's a fact, darling. But I warn you that he's not a marrying man. He has the reputation of being a terrible flirt. I don't think you'll hold him long. He's afraid of girls—afraid they'll try to catch him. He prefers married women. He knows we're safe."
Noreen said nothing, but began to open and unpack her trunks. In India, the land of servants, where a bachelor officer has seven or more, a lady has usually to do without a maid, for theayah, or native female domestic, is generally a failure in that capacity. In the hotels Indian "boys" replace the chambermaids of Europe.
Ida rattled on.
"Of course, Bertie's awfully useful. A tame cat—and he's a well-trained one—is a handy thing to have about you, especially up here. You need someone to take you to races and gymkhanas and to fill up blanks on your programme at dances, as well as getting your ricksha ordandyfor you when they're over."
Noreen laughed, amused at the frankness of the statement.
"And where is the redoubtable Captain Bain, dear?"
"You'll see him soon. I let him off today until it's time for him to call to take us to the Amusement Club. He was anxious to see you. He wanted to come with me to the station, but I said he'd only be in the way. I knew Miguel would be much more useful in getting your luggage. Bertie's so slow. Still, he's rather a dear. Remember, he's my property. You mustn't poach."
Noreen laughed again and said:
"If he admires you, dear, I'm sure no one could take him from you."
"My dear girl, you never can trust any man," said her friend seriously. Then, glancing at herself in the mirror, she continued modestly:
"I know I'm not bad-looking, and lots of men do admire me. Bertie says I'm a ripper."
She certainly was decidedly pretty, though of a type of beauty that would fade early. Vain and empty-headed, she was, nevertheless, popular with the class of men who are content with a shallow, silly woman with whom it is easy to flirt. They described her as "good fun and not a bit strait-laced." Noreen knew nothing of this side of her friend, for she had not seen her since her marriage, and honestly thought her beautiful and fascinating.
Ida picked up her hat and parasol and said:
"Now I'll leave you to get straight, darling child, and come back to you later on."
She looked into the glass again and went on:
"It's so nice to have you here. A woman alone is rather out of it, especially if she comes from the other side of India and doesn't know Calcutta people. Now it'll be all right when there are two of us. The cats can't say horrid things about me and Bertie—though it's only the old frumps that can't get a man who do. Iamglad you've come. We'll have such fun."
Captain Bain, a dapper little man, designed by Nature to be the "tame cat" of some married woman, was punctual when the time came to take the two ladies to the Amusement Club. Noreen had very dubiously donned her smartest frock which, having just been taken out of a trunk after a long journey, seemed very crushed, creased, and dowdy compared with the freshness and daintiness of Ida'stoilette.Men as a rule understand nothing of the agonies endured by a woman who must face the unfriendly stares of other women in a gown that she feels will invite pitiless criticism.
But for the moment the girl forgot her worries as they turned out of the hotel gate and reached the Chaurasta, the meeting of the "four-ways," nearly as busy a cross-roads as (and infinitely more beautiful than) Carfax at Oxford or the Quattro Canti in Palermo. To the east the hill of Jalapahar towered a thousand feet above Darjeeling, crowned with bungalows and barracks. To the north the ground fell as sharply; and a thousand feet below Darjeeling lay Lebong, set out on a flattened hilltop. On three sides of this military suburb the hill sloped steeply to the valleys below. But beyond them, tumbled mass upon mass, rose the great mountains barring the way to Sikkim and Tibet, towering to the clouds that hid the white summits of the Eternal Snows.
Bain walked his pony beside Noreen's chair and named the various points of the scenery around them. Then, when Noreen had inscribed her name in the Visitors' Book at Government House, they entered the Amusement Club.
Noreen was overcome with shyness at finding herself, after her months of isolation, among scores of white folk, all strangers to her. Ida unconcernedly led the way into the large hall which was used as a roller-skating rink, along one side of which were set out dozens of little tables around which sat ladies in smart frocks that made the girl more painfully conscious of what she considered to be the deficiencies of her own costume. She saw one or two of the women that had travelled up in the train that day stare at her and then lean forward and make some remark about her to their companions at the table. She was profoundly thankful when the ordeal was over and, in Ida's wake, she had got out of the rink. Conscious only of the critical glances of her own sex, she was not aware of the admiring looks cast at her by many men in the groups around the tables.
But later on in the evening she found herself seated at one of those same tables that an hour before had seemed to her a bench of stern judges. She formed one of a laughing, chattering group of Ida's acquaintances. More at ease now, the girl watched the people around her with interest. For a year she had seen no larger gathering of her own race than the weekly meetings at the planters' little club in the jungle, with the one exception of adurbarat Jalpaiguri.
Yet despite Ida's company she was feeling lonely and a little depressed, a stranger in a crowd, when she saw Captain Charlesworth enter the rink, accompanied by another man. Recent as had been their meeting, he seemed quite an old friend among all these unknown people about her, and she almost hoped that he would come and speak to her. He sauntered through the hall, bowing casually to many ladies, some of whom, the girl noticed, made rather obvious efforts to detain him. But he ignored them and looked around, as if in search of some particular person. Suddenly his eyes met Noreen's, and he promptly came straight to her table. He shook hands with Mrs. Smith and bowed to the other ladies in the group, introduced his companion, a new arrival to his battalion, and, securing a chair beside Noreen, plunged into a light and animated conversation with her. The girl could not help feeling a little pleased when she saw the looks of surprise and annoyance on the faces of some of the women at the other tables. But Charlesworth was not allowed to have it all his own way with her. Bain and an Indian Army officer named Melville also claimed her attention. The knowledge that we are appreciated tends to make most of us appear at our best, and Noreen soon forgot her shyness and loneliness and became her usual natural, bright self. Ida looked on indulgently and smiled at her patronisingly, as though Noreen's little personal triumph were due to her.
Noreen slept soundly that night, and although she had meant to get up early and see Kinchinjunga and the snows when the sun rose, it was late when her hostess came to her room. After breakfast Ida took her out shopping. Only a woman can realise what a delight it was to the girl, after being divorced for a whole year from the sight of shops and the possibility of replenishing her wardrobe, or purchasing the thousand little necessities of the female toilet, to enter milliners' and dressmakers' shops where the latest, or very nearly the latest,modesof the day in hats and gowns were to be seen.
Charlesworth came to lunch in a smart riding-kit, looking particularly well-groomed and handsome. The girl was quite excited about the gymkhana, and plied him with innumerable questions as to what she would have to do. She learned that they were to enter for two affinity events. In one of these the lady was to tilt with a billiard-cue at three suspended rings, while the man, carrying a spear and a sword, took a tent-peg with the former, threw the lance away, cut off a Turk's head in wood with the sword, and then took another peg with the same weapon. The other competition was named the Gretna Green Stakes, and in it the pair were to ride hand in hand over three hurdles, dismount and sign their names in a book, then mount again and return hand in hand over the jumps to the winning-post.
The polo-ground at Lebong that afternoon presented an animated scene, filled with colour by the bright-hued garments of the thousands of native spectators surrounding it, the uniforms of the British soldiers in the crowd, and the frocks of the English ladies in the reserved enclosure, where in large white marquees the officers of Charlesworth's regiment acted as hosts to the European visitors. Down the precipitous road to it from Darjeeling came swarms of mixed Eastern races in picturesque garb, Gurkha soldiers in uniform, and British gunners from Jalapahar; and through the throngs Englishmen on ponies, anddandiesand rickshas carrying ladies in smart summer frocks, could scarcely make their way.
When Mrs. Smith's party reached the enclosure and shook hands with the wife of the Colonel of the Rifles, who was the senior hostess, Noreen was not troubled by the feeling of shyness that had assailed her at the Club on the previous evening. She had the comforting knowledge that her habit and boots from the best West End makers were beyond cavil. But she was too excited at the thought of the approaching contests to think much of her appearance. Charlesworth took her to see the pony that she was to ride, and, as she passed through the enclosure, she did not hear the admiring remarks of many of the men and, indeed, of some of the women. For in India even an ordinarily pretty girl will be thought beautiful, and Noreen was more than ordinarily pretty. Her mount she found to be a well-shaped, fourteen-two grey Arab, with the perfect manners of his race; and she instantly lost her heart to him as he rubbed his velvety muzzle against her cheek.
The gymkhana opened with men's competitions, the first event in which ladies were to take part, the Tilting and Tent-pegging, not occurring until nearly half-way down the programme. Noreen was awaiting it too anxiously to enjoy, as she otherwise would, the novel scene, the gaiety, the band in the enclosure, the well-dressed throngs of English folk, the gaudy colours of the crowds squatting round the polo-ground and wondering at the strange diversions of the sahib-logue. Charlesworth did well in the men's event, securing two first prizes and a third, and Noreen could not help admiring him in the saddle. He was a graceful as well as a good rider. Indeed, he was No. 2 in the regimental polo team, which was one of the best in India at the time.
When the moment for their competition came at last and he swung her up into her saddle, Noreen's heart beat violently and her bridle-hand shook. But when, after other couples had ridden the course, their names were called and a billiard-cue given her, the girl's nerves steadied at once and she was perfectly cool as she reined back her impatient pony at the starting-line. The signal was given, and she and her partner dashed down the course at a gallop. They did well, Charlesworth securing the two pegs and cutting the Turk's head, while his affinity carried off two rings and touched the third. No others had been as fortunate, and cheers from the soldiers and plaudits from the enclosure greeted their success. Noreen was encouraged, and a becoming colour flushed her face at the applause. The last couple to ride tied with them, the lady taking all the rings, her partner getting the Turk's head and one peg and touching the second. The tie was run off at once. Noreen, to her delight, found the three rings on her cue when she pulled up at the end of the course, although she hardly remembered taking them, while Charlesworth had made no mistake. Daunted by this result, their rivals lost their heads and missed everything in their second run.
Noreen, on her return to the enclosure, was again loudly cheered by the men, the applause of the ladies being noticeably fainter, possibly because they resented a new arrival's success. But the girl was too pleasantly surprised at her good luck to observe this, and responded gratefully to the congratulations showered on her. She was no longer too excited to notice her surroundings, and now was able to enjoy the scenery, the music, the gay crowds, the frocks, as well as her tea when Charlesworth escorted her to the Mess Tent.
In the Gretna Green Stakes she and her partner were not so fortunate. Over the second hurdle in the run home Charlesworth's pony blundered badly and he was forced to release his hold on the girl's hand. When the event came for which he had originally requested her to nominate him, she suggested that he should ask Mrs. Smith to do so instead. He was skilled enough in the ways of women not to demur, and he did as he was wanted so tactfully that Ida believed it to be his own idea. So, when the gymkhana ended and Noreen and her chaperone said good-bye, he felt that he had advanced a good deal in the girl's favour.
During the afternoon Noreen caught sight of Chunerbutty talking to a fat and sensual-looking native in white linen garments with a string of roughly-cut but very large diamonds round his neck and several obsequious satellites standing behind him. They were covertly watching her, but when, catching the engineer's eye, she bowed to him, the fat man leant forward and stared boldly at her. She guessed him to be the Rajah of Lalpuri, who had been pointed out to her once at the Lieutenant-Governor'sdurbarat Jalpaiguri.
That evening a note from Chunerbutty, telling her that his father was better though still in a precarious state, was left at her hotel. But the engineer did not call on her.
The ball on the Thursday night at Government House was all that Noreen anticipated it would be. Among the hundreds of guests there were a few Indian men of rank and a number of Parsis of both sexes—the women adding bright colours to the scene by the beautiful hues of theirsaris, as the silk shawls worn over their heads are called. During the evening Noreen saw Chunerbutty standing at the door of the ballroom with the fat man, who was now adorned with jewels and wearing a magnificent diamondaigrettein hispuggri,and gloating with a lustful gaze over the bared necks and bosoms of the English ladies. The native of India, where the females of all races veil their faces, looks on white women, who lavishly display their charms to the eyes of all beholders, as immodest and immoral. And he judges harshly the freedom—the sometimes extreme freedom—of intercourse between English wives and men who are not their husbands.
Later in the evening, when Noreen was sitting in the central lounge with Captain Bain during an interval, Chunerbutty approached her with the fat man. Coming up to her alone the engineer said:
"Miss Daleham, may I present His Highness the Rajah of Lalpuri to you?"
Noreen felt Captain Bain stiffen, but she replied courteously:
"Certainly, Mr. Chunerbutty."
The Rajah stepped forward, and on being introduced held out a fat and flabby hand to her, speaking in stiff and stilted English, for he did not use it with ease. He spoke only a few conventional sentences, but all the while Noreen felt an inward shiver of disgust. For his bloodshot eyes seemed to burn her bared flesh, as he devoured her naked shoulders and breast with a hot and lascivious stare. After replying politely but briefly to him she turned to the engineer and enquired after his father's health. The music beginning in the ball-room for the next dance gave her a welcome excuse for cutting the interview short, as Bain sprang up quickly and offered her his arm. Bowing she moved away with relief.
"I suppose that fellow in evening dress was the man from your garden, Miss Daleham?" asked Bain, as they entered the ballroom.
"Yes; that was Mr. Chunerbutty, who escorted me to Darjeeling," she answered.
"Well, if he's a friend of your brother, he ought to know better than to introduce that fat brute of a rajah to you."
"Oh, he is staying at the Rajah's house here, as his father, who is ill, is in His Highness's service."
"I don't care. That beast Lalpuri is a disreputable scoundrel. There are awful tales of his behaviour up here. It's a wonder that the L.G. doesn't order him out of the place."
"Really?"
"Yes; he's a disgraceful blackguard. None of the other Rajahs of the Presidency will have anything to do with him, I believe; and the two or three of them up here now who are really splendid fellows, refuse to acknowledge him. Everybody wonders why the Government of India allows him to remain on thegadi."
The Rajah had watched Noreen with a hungry stare as she walked towards the ballroom. When she was lost to sight in the crowd of dancers he turned to Chunerbutty and seized his arm with a grip that made the engineer wince.
"She is more beautiful than I thought," he muttered. "O you fools! You fools, who have failed me! But I shall get her yet."
He licked his dry lips and went on:
"Let us go! Let us go from here! I am parched. I want liquor. I want women."
And they returned to a night of revolting debauchery in the house that was honoured by being the temporary residence of His Highness the Rajah of Lalpuri, wearer of an order bestowed upon him by the Viceroy and ruler of the fate of millions of people by the grace and under the benign auspices of the Government of India.
The Lieutenant-Governor's ball was for Noreen but the beginning of a long series of social entertainments, of afternoon and evening dances, receptions, dinner and supper parties, concerts, and amateur theatrical performances that filled every date on the calendar of the Darjeeling Season. Only in winter sport resorts like St. Moritz and Mürren had she ever seen its like. But in Switzerland the visitors come from many lands and are generally strangers to each other, whereas in the Hills in India the summer residents of the villas and the guests at the big hotels are of the same race and class, come from the same stations in the Plains or know of each other by repute. For, with the exception of the comparatively few lawyers, planters, merchants, or railway folk, the names of all are set forth in the two Golden Books of the land, the Army List and the Civil Service List; and hostesses fly with relief to the blessed "Table of Precedence" contained in them, which tells whether the wife of Colonel This should go in to dinner before or after the spouse of Mr. That. The great god Snob is the supreme deity of Anglo-India.
Many hill-stations are the Hot Weather headquarters of some important Government official, such as the Governor of the Presidency or the Lieutenant-Governor or Chief Commissioner of the Province. These are great personages indeed in India. They have military guards before their doors. The Union Jack waves by command above their august heads. They have Indian Cavalry soldiers to trot before their wives' carriages when these good ladies drive down to bargain in the native bazaar. But to the hill visitors their chief reason for existing is that their position demands the giving of official entertainments to which all of the proper class (who duly inscribe their names in the red-bound, gold-lettered book in the hall of Government House) have a prescriptive right to be invited.
Noreen revelled in the gaieties. Her frank-hearted enjoyment was like a child's, and made every man who knew her anxious to add to it. She could not possibly ride all the ponies offered to her nor accept half the invitations that she got. Even among the women she was popular, for none but a match-making mother or a jealous spinster could resist her.
Proposals of marriage were not showered on her, as persons ignorant of Anglo-Indian life fondly believe to be the lot of every English girl there. While a dowerless maiden still has a much better chance of securing a husband in a land where maidens are few and bachelors are many, yet the day has long gone by when every spinster who had drawn a blank in England could be shipped off to India with the certainty of finding a spouse there. Frequent leave and fast steamers have altered that. When a man can go home in a fortnight every year or second year he is not as anxious to snatch at the first maiden who appears in his station as his predecessor who lived in India in the days when a voyage to England took six months. And men in the East are as a rule not anxious to marry. A wife out there is a handicap at every turn. She adds enormously to his expenses, and her society too often lends more brightness to the existence of his fellows than his own. Children are ruinous luxuries. Bachelor life in Mess or club is too pleasant, sport that a single man can enjoy more readily than a married one too attractive, rupees too few for what Kipling terms "the wild ass of the desert" to be willing to put his head into the halter readily.
Yet men do marry in India—one wonders why!—and a girl there has so many opportunities of meeting the opposite sex every day, and so little rivalry, that her chances in the matrimonial market are infinitely better than at home. In stations in the Plains there are usually four or five men to every woman in its limited society, and the proportion of bachelors to spinsters is far greater. Sometimes in a military cantonment with five or six batteries and regiments in it, which, with departmental officers, may furnish a total of eighty to a hundred unmarried men from subalterns to colonels, there may be only one or two unwedded girls. The lower ranks are worse off for English spinster society; for the private soldier there is none.
Noreen's two most constant attendants were Charlesworth and Melville. The Indian Army officer's devotion and earnestness were patent to the world, but the Rifleman's intentions were a problem and a source of dispute among the women, who in Indian stations not less than other places watch the progress of every love-affair with the eyes of hawks. It was doubtful if Charlesworth himself knew what he wanted. He was a man who loved his liberty and his right to make love to each and every woman who caught his fancy. Noreen's casual liking for him but her frank indifference to him in any other capacity than that of a pleasant companion with whom to ride, dance, or play tennis, piqued him, but not sufficiently to make him risk losing his cherished freedom.
Chunerbutty left Darjeeling after a week's stay. Parry, having become sufficiently sober to enquire after him and learn of his absence, demanded his instant return in a telegram so profanely worded that it shocked even the Barwahi post-officebabu.The engineer called on Noreen to say good-bye, and offered to be the bearer of a message to her brother. He kept up to the end the fable of his sick father.
He could not tell her the real reason of his coming to Darjeeling. The truth was that he had learned that the Rajah had inspired the attempt by the Bhuttias to carry off Noreen and wanted to see and upbraid him for his deceit and treachery to their agreement. There had been a furious quarrel when the two accomplices met. The Rajah taunted the other with his lack of success with Noreen and the failure of his plan to persuade her to marry him. Chunerbutty retorted that he had not been allowed sufficient time to win the favour of an English girl, who, unlike Indian maidens, was free to choose her own husband. And he threatened to inform the Government if any further attempt against her were made without his knowledge and approval. But the quarrel did not last long. Each scoundrel needed the help of the other. Still, Chunerbutty judged it safer to remove himself from the Rajah's house and find a lodging elsewhere, lest any deplorable accident might occur to him under his patron's roof.
After the engineer's departure Noreen seldom saw the Rajah, and then only at official entertainments, to which his position gained him invitations. He spoke to her once or twice at these receptions, but as a rule she contrived to elude him.
So far she had got on very well with Mrs. Smith. Their wills had never clashed, for the girl unselfishly gave in to her friend whenever the latter demanded it, which was often enough. Ida's ways were certainly not Noreen's, and the latter sometimes felt tempted to disapprove of her excessive familiarity with Captain Bain and one or two others. But the next moment she took herself severely to task for being censorious of the elder woman, who must surely know better how to behave towards men than a young unmarried girl who had been buried so long in the jungle. And Ida did not guess why sometimes her repentant little friend's caresses were so fervent and her desire to please her so manifest, and ascribed it all to her own sweetness of nature.
The coming of the Rains did not check the gaiety of the dwellers on the mountain-tops, though torrential downpours had to be faced on black nights in shrouded rickshas and drippingdandies, though incessant lightning lit up the road to the club or theatre, and the thunder made it difficult to hear the music of the band in the ballroom. Noreen missed nothing of the revels. But in all the whirl of gaiety and pleasure in which her days were passed her thoughts turned more and more to the great forest lying thousands of feet below her, and the man who passed his lonely days therein.
Little news of him came to her. He never wrote, and her brother seldom mentioned him in his letters; for during Parker's absence on two months' privilege leave from Ranga Duar Dermot did not quit it often and very rarely visited the planters' club or the bungalows of any of its members. And Noreen wanted news of him. Much as she saw of other men now—many of them attractive and some of whom she frankly liked—none had effaced Dermot's image or displaced him from the shrine that she had built for him in her inmost heart. Mingled with her love was hero-worship. She dared not hope that he could ever be interested in or care for any one as shallow-minded as she. She could not picture him descending from the pedestal on which she had placed him to raise so ordinary a girl to his heart. She could not fancy him in the light, frothy life of Darjeeling. She judged him too serious to care for frivolities, and it inspired her with a little awe of him and a fear that he would despise her as a feather-brained, silly woman if he saw how she enjoyed the amusements of the hill-station. But she felt that she would gladly exchange the gaieties and cool climate of Darjeeling for the torments of the Terai again, if only it would bring him to her side. For sometimes the longing to see him grew almost unbearable.
As the days went by the power of the gay life of the Hills to satisfy her grew less, while the ache in her heart for her absent friend increased. If only she could hear from him she thought she could bear the separation better. From her brother she learned by chance that he was alone in Ranga Duar, the only news that she had had of him for a long time. The Rains had burst, and she pictured the loneliness of the one European in the solitary outpost, cut off from his kind, with no one of his race to speak to, deprived of the most ordinary requirements, necessities, of civilisation, without a doctor within hundreds of miles.
At that thought her heart seemed to stop beating. Without a doctor! He might be ill, dying, for all she knew, with no one of his colour to tend him, no loving hand to hold a cup to his fevered lips. Even in the short time that she had been in India she had heard of many tragedies of isolation, of sick and lonely Englishmen with none but ignorant, careless native servants to look after them in their illness, no doctor to alleviate their sufferings, until pain and delirium drove them to look for relief and oblivion down the barrel of a too-ready pistol.
Thus the girl tortured herself, as a loving woman will do, by imagining all the most terrible things happening to the man of her heart. She feared no longer the perils of the forest for him. She felt that he was master of man or beast in it. But fever lays low the strongest. It might be that while she was dancing he was lying ill, dying, perhaps dead. And she would not know. The dreadful idea occurred to her after her return from a ball at which she had been universally admired and much sought after. But, as she sat wrapped in her blue silk dressing-gown, her feet thrust into satin slippers of the same colour, her pretty hair about her shoulders, instead of recalling the triumphs of the evening, the compliments of her partners, and the unspoken envy of other girls, her thoughts flew to one solitary man in a little bungalow, cloud-enfolded and comfortless, in a lonely outpost. The sudden dread of his being ill chilled her blood and so terrified her that, if the hour had not made it impossible, she would have gone out at once and telegraphed to him to ask if all were well.
Yet the next instant her face grew scarlet at the thought. She sat for a long time motionless, thinking hard. Then the idea occurred to her of writing to him, writing a chatty, almost impersonal letter, such as one friend could send to another without fear of her motives being misunderstood. She had too high an opinion of Dermot to think that he would deem her forward, yet it cost her much to be the first to write. But her anxiety conquered pride. And she wrote the letter that Dermot read in his bungalow in Ranga Duar while the storm shook the hills.
The girl counted the days, the hours, until she could hope for an answer. Would he reply at once, she wondered. She knew that, even shut up in his little station, he had much work to occupy him. He could not spare time, perhaps, for a letter to a silly girl. And the thought of all that she had put in hers to him made her face burn, for it seemed so vapid and frivolous that he was sure to despise her.
On the fourth day after she had written to Dermot she was engaged to ride in the afternoon with Captain Charlesworth. But in the morning a note came to her from him regretting his inability to keep the appointment, as the Divisional General had arrived in Darjeeling and intended to inspect the Rifles after lunch. Noreen was not sorry, for she was going to a dance that evening and did not wish to tire herself before it.
Distracted and little in the mood for gaiety as she felt that night, yet when she entered the large ballroom of the Amusement Club she could not help laughing at the quaint and original decorations for the occasion. For the entertainment was one of the great features of the Season, the Bachelors' Ball, and the walls were blazoned with the insignia of the Tribe of the Wild Ass. Everywhere was painted its coat-of-arms—a bottle, slippers, and a pipe crossed with a latch-key, all in proper heraldic guise. Captain Melville, who was a leading member of the ball committee and who was her particular host that night, spirited her away from the crowd of partner-seeking men at the doorway and took her on a tour of the room to see and admire the scheme of decoration. She was laughing at one original ornamentation when a well-known voice behind her said:
"May I hope for a dance tonight, Miss Daleham?"
The girl started and turned round incredulously, feeling that her ears had deceived her. To her astonishment Dermot stood before her. For a few seconds she could not trust herself to reply. She felt that she had grown pale. At last she said, and her voice sounded strange in her own ears:
"Major Dermot! Is it possible? I—I thought you—"
She could not finish the sentence. But neither man observed her emotion, for Melville had suddenly seized Dermot's hand and was shaking it warmly. They had been on service together once and had not met since. The next moment, a committee man being urgently wanted, Melville was called away and left Dermot and the girl together.
"I suppose you thought me shut up in my mountain home," the man said, "and probably wondered why I had not answered your very interesting letter. It was so kind of you in all your gaiety here to think of me in my loneliness."
Noreen had quite recovered from her surprise and smiled brightly at him.
"Yes, I believed you to be in Ranga Duar," she said. "How is it you are here?"
"An unexpected summons reached me at the same time as your letter. Four days ago I had no idea that I should be coming here."
"How could you bear to leave your beloved jungle and that dear Badshah? I know you dislike hill-stations," said the girl, laughing and tremulously happy. The world seemed a much brighter place than it did five minutes before.
"My beloved jungle has no charm for me at this season," he said. "But Badshah—ah, that was another matter. I have seldom felt parting with a human friend as much as I did leaving him. The dear old fellow seemed to know that I was going away from him. But I was very pleased to come here to see how you were enjoying yourself in this gay spot. I was glad to know that you were out of the Terai during the Rains."
So he had wanted to see her again. Noreen blushed, but Dermot did not observe her heightened colour, for he had taken her programme out of her hand in his usual quiet, masterful manner and was scrutinising it.
"You haven't said yet if I may have a dance," he continued. "But I know that on an occasion like this I must lose no time if I want one."
"Oh, do you dance?" she asked in surprise. Somehow she had never associated him with ballrooms and social frivolities.
Dermot laughed.
"You forget that I was on the Staff in Simla. I shouldn't have been kept there a day if I hadn't been able to dance. What may I have?"
Noreen felt tempted to bid him take all her programme.
"Well, I'm engaged for several. They are all written down. Take any of the others you like," she said demurely, but her heart was beating fast at the thought of dancing with him.
"H'm; I see that all the first ones are booked. May I—oh, I see you have the supper dances free. May I take you in to supper?"
"Yes, do, please. We haven't met for so long, and I have heaps to tell you," the girl said. "We can talk ever so much better at the supper-table than in an interval."
"Thank you. I'll take the supper dances then."
"Wouldn't you care for any others?" she asked timidly. What would he think of her? Yet she didn't care. He was with her again, and she wanted to see all she could of him.
"I should indeed. May I have this—and this?"
"With pleasure. Is that enough?"
"I'll be greedy. After all, the men up here have had dances from you all the Season, and I have never danced with you yet. I'll take these, too, if you can spare them."
She looked at him earnestly.
"I owe you more than a few dances can pay," she said simply.
"Thank you, little friend," he said, and a happy feeling thrilled her at his words. He had not forgotten her, then. He used to call her that sometimes in Ranga Duar. She was still his little friend. What a delightful place the world was after all!
As he pencilled his initials on her programme a horde of dance-hungry men swooped down on Noreen and almost pushed him aside. He bowed and strolled away to watch the dancing. He had no desire to obtain other partners and was content to watch his little friend of the forest, who seemed to have suddenly become a very lovely woman. She seemed very gay and happy, he thought. He noticed that she danced oftenest with Melville and a tall, fair man whom he did not know.
Never had the early part of a ball seemed to Noreen to drag so much as this one did. She felt that her partners must find her very stupid indeed, for she paid no attention to what they said and answered at random.
At last almost in a trance of happiness she found herself gliding round the room with Dermot's arm about her. The band was playing a dreamy waltz, and her partner danced perfectly. Neither of them spoke. Noreen could not; she felt that all she wanted was to float, on air it seemed, held close to Dermot's breast. She gave a sigh when the dance ended. In the interval she did not want to talk; it was enough to look at his face, to hear his voice. She hated her next partner when he came to claim her.
But she had two more dances with Dermot before the band struck up "The Roast Beef of Old England," and the ballroom emptied. At supper he contrived to secure a small table at which they were alone; so they were able to talk without constraint. She began to wonder how she had ever thought him grave and stern or felt in awe of him. For in the gay atmosphere his Irish nature was uppermost; he was as light-hearted as a boy, and his conversation was almost frivolous.
During supper Noreen saw Ida watching her across the room, and later on, when the dancing began again, her friend cornered her.
"I say, darling, who is the new man you've been dancing with such a lot tonight? You had supper with him, too. I've never seen him before. He's awfully good-looking."
"Oh, that is—I suppose you mean Major Dermot," replied the girl, feeling suddenly shy.
"Major Dermot? Who's he? What is—Oh, is it the wonderful hero from the Terai, the man you told me so much about when you came up?"
"Yes; he is the same."
"Really? How interesting! He's so distinguished-looking. When did he come up? Why didn't you tell me he was coming?"
"I didn't know it myself."
"I should love to meet him. Introduce him to me. Now, at once."
With a hurried apology to her own partner and Noreen's she dragged the girl off in search of the fresh man who had taken her fancy, and did not give up the chase until, with Melville's aid, Dermot was run to earth in the cardroom and introduced to her. Ida did not wait for him to ask her to dance but calmly ran her pencil through three names on the programme and bestowed the vacancies thus created on him in such a way that he could not refuse them. Dermot, however, did not grumble. She was Noreen's friend; if not the rose, she was near the rose.
Ida was not the only one who noticed how frequently the girl had danced with him. Charlesworth, disappointed at finding vacancies on her programme, for which he had hoped, already filled, commented on it and asked who the stranger was in a supercilious tone that made her furious and gained for him a well-merited snubbing.
Indifferent to criticism, kind or otherwise, Noreen gave herself up for the evening to the happiness of Dermot's presence, trying to trick herself into the belief that he was still only a dear friend to whom she owed an immense debt of gratitude for saving her life and her honour. Never had a ball seemed so enjoyable—not even her first. Never had she had a partner who suited her so well. Certainly he danced to perfection, but she knew that if he had been the worst dancer in the room she still would have preferred him to all others. And never had she hated the ending of an entertainment so much. But Dermot walked beside herdandyto the gate of her hotel, calmly displacing Charlesworth, much to the fury of the Rifleman, who had begun to consider this his prerogative.
Ida and she sat up for hours in her room discussing the ball and all its happenings, but the older woman's most constant topic was Dermot. It was a subject of which Noreen felt that she could never weary; and she drew her friend on to talk of him, if the conversation threatened to stray to anything less interesting. The girl was used to Ida's sudden fancies for men, for the married woman was both susceptible and fickle, and Noreen judged that this sudden predilection for Dermot would die as quickly as a hundred others before it. But this time she was wrong.
The Major was not to remain many days in Darjeeling, but Noreen hoped that he would give her much of his spare time while there. She was disappointed, however, to find that although he was frequently in her and Ida's company at the Amusement Club or elsewhere, he made no effort to compete with Charlesworth or Melville or any other man who sought to monopolise her, but drew back and allowed him to have a clear field while he himself seemed content to talk to Mrs. Smith. At first she was hurt. He was her friend, not Ida's. But he never sought to be alone with her, never asked her to ride with him, or do anything that would take her away from the others.
Then she grew piqued. If he did not value her society he should see that others did, and she suddenly grew more gracious to Charlesworth, who seemed to sense in Dermot a more dangerous rival than was Melville or any of the others and began to be more openly devoted and to put more meaning into his intentions.
One hateful night when she had been with Charlesworth to a private dance to which Ida had refused to go, dining instead with Dermot, who had no invitation to the affair, the blow fell. After her return to the hotel her treacherous friend had crept into her room, weeping and imploring her sympathy. Too late, she sobbed on Noreen's shoulder, she had found her soul-mate, the man destined for her through the past æons, the one man who could make her happy and whose existence she alone could complete. Why had she met Dermot too late? Why was she tied to a clod, mated to a clown? Why were two lives to be wrecked?
As Noreen listened amazed an icy hand seemed to clutch her shrinking heart. Was this true? Did Dermot really care for Ida? Could the man whom she had revered as a white-souled knight be base enough to make love to another man's wife?
Then the demon of jealousy poisoned her soul. She got the weeping Ida back to her bed, and sat in her own dark room until the dawn came, her brain in a whirl, her heart filled with a fierce hatred of Dermot. And when next day, his business finished, he had to leave Darjeeling, she made a point of absenting herself with Charlesworth from the hotel at the time when Dermot had arranged to come to say good-bye.
But long before the train in which he travelled down to the Plains was half-way to Siliguri, the girl lay on her bed, her face buried in her pillow, her body shaken with silent but convulsive sobs.
And Dermot stared out into the thick mist that shrouded the mountains and enfolded his downward-slipping train and wondered if his one-time little friend of the forest would be happy in the new life that, according to her bosom-friend and confidant, Mrs. Smith, would open to her as Charlesworth's wife as soon as she spoke the word that was trembling on her lips.
And he sighed unconsciously. Then he frowned as the distasteful memory recurred to him of the previous night, when a wanton woman, misled by vanity and his courteous manner, had shamelessly offered him what she termed her love and forced him to play the Joseph to a modern Mrs. Potiphar.