'Finally, sirs,' came a high straining voice as Chris Davenant entered Hâfiz Ahmad's house, 'the educated youngster of India refuses to let his soaring aspirations remain cribbed, cabined, confined, in the cruel shackles of a political despotism without parallel in the whole history of civilisation!'
The peroration, though it seemed to afford the speaker much satisfaction, only induced that faint desultory clapping which in England is reserved for prize-days at school; that impersonal applause for the results of diligence which remembers that other pupils have yet to speak.
This was the case here, and Chris had barely wedged himself into a chair between a writing-table and a waste-paper basket before another orator was in full swing of adjective.
The row of bicycles in the verandah, and a knot of those green-box hired carriages outside on the road, had told Chris already that he had been right in calculating on an assemblage of young India; but this was a larger gathering than he had expected, and he remembered suddenly with a vague shame--since he was a prominent member of the organisation--that it must be the monthly meeting of the Society for Promoting the General Good of People. He had quite forgotten all about it; still here he was, and here was his audience for that roll of manuscript he held.
He glanced round the double room,--for both dining and drawing-room had been thrown open, rather to Miriam-bibi's relief, since she could now sit unreservedly in the screened verandah and play 'beggar my neighbour' with her foster-mother, who did duty as ayah--and recognised almost every one of note in young Nushapore.
Hâfiz Ahmad was in the chair, of course; a rather fat young man of the coarser Mohammedan type, with a short curly beard. Like many others in the room, he wore a scarlet fez; though why this distinctive bit of a Turk's costume should be grafted on aquasi-Englishquasi-Indian one is a mystery not to be beaten in incomprehensibility by any other minor problem of our Indian Empire.
Beside him was Lala Râm Nâth, the head, in Nushapore, of the only real political organisation in India; that is the Arya Somaj; an organisation all the more dangerously political because it denies the basis of politics, and appeals to that of religion.
He, Chris knew, would be the last to admit the position taken up in the roll of manuscript, namely, that it was suicidal on the part of the little leaven of educated natives to pose as the party of opposition, since that was, briefly, to array itself permanently, inevitably, against what none could deny was the party of progress; the party which had made this little leaven itself a possibility.
Râm Nâth, the breath of whose nostrils was adverse criticism to Government, who, in bewildering defiance of the laws which govern Indian life, had swallowed red-hot Radicalism wholesale, like a juggler swallowing a red-hot poker, was not likely to admit this at any time; still less now, when he was the champion of a wrongfully dispossessed Municipal Committee. Chris knew exactly what the Lala would say, and what the majority of the young men--there was not one over thirty-five in the room--would say also. And yet their faces were brimful of intelligence, of a certain eager earnestness. It could hardly be otherwise, since the mere fact of their being in that room proved them to be of those whose faculty and desire for acquiring knowledge was so far superior to that of the average man, that it had taken them, as it were, to a place apart. To be tempted of the devil perhaps; though, none the less, the fact bore witness to a certain nobility of type.
So it was all the more strange that when--the next speaker having finished in a calculated chaos of words--Govind, the dissipated editor, who had yawned his tacit approval of Dilarâm the dancer, rose to denounce some trivial iniquity in the ruling race, his middle-school English, and cheap abuse, was received with just the same desultory applause. It seemed to Chris, listening impatiently, as if the faculty of criticism had been lost in its abuse, as if the one thing needful was antagonismpur et simple.
The great event of all such meetings in Nushapore followed next--a paper by Râm Nâth. He spoke admirably, and if he wandered occasionally from the point, the vast scope of his subject, 'The Political, National, and Social aspect of Modern India,' must be held responsible for that!
An Englishman listening would, of course, have challenged his facts and denied his conclusions; but Chris did neither. He gave an unqualified assent to many and many a point. And yet when he listened to the assertion that 'the cup of our political evils is so full, the burden of our social inequalities so intolerable, and the tyranny of custom stands out so red and foul, that some militant uprising has become essential to national salvation, and armed resistance the only hope of amendment,' he wondered with a certain shame how many of the millions of India would find a personal grievance in social equality or political evil. And as for the tyranny of custom? What militant uprising was possible among willing slaves?
For all that he listened, not without an answering heartbeat, to the Lala's eloquence, as he skilfully fanned every burning question with a wind of words, and let the fretting fingers of subtle suggestion undermine the foundations of fact. He was specially bitter against the plague precautions, and his hints that there was more behind them than met the eye, aroused the only spontaneous applause of the evening. Yet once more, when the well-reasoned, admirably-delivered address was over, the audience listened with exactly the same receptive expression to the recitation, by its author, of a hymn for use in the approaching Congress in which delegates were told they should--
'To croaking fools their folly leave,Their canting puerile rant;To noble mission steadfast cleaveAnd sprouts devoutly plant.'
'To croaking fools their folly leave,
Their canting puerile rant;
To noble mission steadfast cleave
And sprouts devoutly plant.'
It was a very long hymn, and it alluded, amongst other items, to the 'blazing sun of Western lore,' to 'duty's trumpet call,' to 'England, dear home of every virtue, sweet nurse to Liberty,' and to 'India's crying woes.'--It secured a rather more hearty meed of applause than anything else, possibly because the audience--being above all things scholastic--appreciated the difficulty of making English verse!
So, with a resolution that the 'Good of People' must be encouraged at all costs, and a vote of thanks to Mr. Râm Nâth, the actual business of the meeting ended, but not the speechifying. Half a dozen minor men stood up with a surcharged look; but one, a tall young fellow with a charmingly gentle, emotional face, caught the chairman's eye first. He was a schoolmaster, and at his own expense brought out a monthly magazine which was, briefly, the most high-toned bit of printing that ever passed through a press. Bishops might have read it and confessed themselves edified.
'Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen,' he began, 'although formal recognition of our distinguished townsman's magnificent elocutionary effort has not been wanting, I wish to record my humble admiration, and to state my belief that his forecast of possible difficulties regarding plague precautions may amount to prophecy. Since, alas! our poor folk have been strangers to beneficent sanitations from birth, and are now, as another honourable speaker pointed out, in considerable states of ebullition. Yet, instead of applying salutary balms to these uneducated minds, I grieve to say that efforts are being made to increase terror; witness the golden paper falling from Heaven, as bolt from the blue, in the so-called Temple of Viseshwar. This trick of greedy Brahmins----'
Râm Nâth was on his feet in an instant, recognised champion of his faith.
'I beg to submit, Mr. Chairman, that these words are out of order. This society is pledged to neutrality, and "trick of greedy Brahmins" is calculated to wound pious feelings.'
'I second the protest,' put in another eager voice, 'and beg the objectionable phrase be withdrawn.'
A murmur of approval ran through the larger part of the audience, and Hâfiz Ahmad, with the scowl of the true idol-hater on his face, asked the speaker to withdraw the words; which he did, protesting that, as a member of the Brahmo Somaj, he had only spoken with a view to eternal and abstract truth. The paper, he continued, though possibly only the outcome of the quarrel which, his hearers must know, had been going on for some time between the priests of the two rival temples regarding the relative supremacy of Kâli-mâand her consort Shiv-jee----
Here the chairman himself called with alacrity, 'Order! Order! This meeting does not deal with such dogmatics,' and another and smaller murmur of assent followed.
The gentle-faced schoolmaster apologised again. There could be no doubt, at any rate, he said almost pathetically, that the uneducated mind was, as the poet said, liable to be tickled by straws, and so he conceived it to be his duty to draw the attention of the 'Society for Promoting the General Good of People' to this paper, which, he might add, he was going to pillory in his publication with scathing criticism. So, drawing a slip from his pocket, he began to read in the vernacular--
'I, Kali, will come. In my dark month I will come for blood. Woe to them who seek to stay me in the city, since I will have blood on my altar whether the hands of strange men stay Me, or smite Me. For I am Kali the Death-Mother of all men, whether they will it or no. Yea! I will come.'
The vague phrases, besprinkled with hollow-sounding mysterious Sanskrit words, brought a curious hush even to that assemblage, till Hâfiz Ahmad laughed arrogantly.
'Is that all,pandit-jee?' he asked; 'that bogey will do little.'
'As much, I venture to suggest,' put in Râm Nâth suavely, 'as the bogey of supposed invasion of domestic privacy for women.'
The Mohammedan, though he professed himself above such considerations, frowned. 'I demur. The caste prejudices will, in my opinion, be more difficult to place on common-sense footings.'
They had embarked on the fencing-match which, as often as not, ended discussion between these two recognised leaders of the two communities, Hindoo and Mohammedan, and the attention of the meeting had wandered after them, when a new voice brought it back. It was Chris Davenant's. Taller than most there, fairer, and of better birth than the generality of those who brave the dangers of foreign travel, he was the show man of young Nushapore for pure culture, as Râm Nâth was for ability; and as such he commanded attention.
'Gentlemen!' he said, 'it seems to me that this paper, whichpanditNarain Das has just read, will give our society an opportunity for practical work. It means nothing, or at most little, to any of us here. But none will deny it will mean much to many; to our friends--let us face the facts!--to our own families. And it is a dangerous paper, gentlemen! None know that better than we, who have passed from the influence of such words,'--here that faint desultory clapping became audible--'and it is just because we have so passed, that I ask this meeting what it is prepared to do in order to combat the possible, the probable effect of these mysterious threats?'
'Hear! hear!' came several voices. And then came silence; until thepanditsaid, in hurt tones--
'I have already told this meeting that I will publish in my monthly magazine, together with criticisms of the most scathing character----'
'And,' put in Râm Nâth, rising to the challenge in Chris Davenant's face, 'I venture to suggest, Mr. Chairman, that this meeting pass a resolution condemning----'
'And who will know what resolutions we pass, Mr. Secretary?' interrupted Chris, with a sudden passion which gave his face a look that was half hope, half wistful doubt; 'who will read your diatribes, Mr. Editor?We!We only, who pass the resolutions, who write the criticisms, who know already how to appraise that paper! Printed words, gentlemen, are no use to those who cannot read, resolutions are naught to those who never hear of them. But we have tongues; we can speak! We can, if we choose, throw the whole weight of our personal influence on the side of truth, even though that side be also the side of a government with which we have many a righteous feud.'
As he paused for breath, there was a murmur of approval for the eloquence, none for the thought it held. 'Gentlemen!' he went on, 'it is futile for any one here to deny that this paper aims at rousing religious opposition toanyprecautions whatever against the plague! Well! some of us here, myself among the number, hold that many of the precautions in the government programmeareobjectionable----'
'And more in the private instructions, if rumour says true,' put in Râm Nâth spitefully.
'I have listened to reasonable criticism, reasonable resentment, and I have agreed with it. But is there any one of us here who would throw all precautions to the winds?' went on Chris, passing by the interruption; 'is there any one who really believes that this golden paper fell from heaven? If there are, I let them pass. But for the rest of us, I call upon you not to write, not to resolve, but to speak; to speak to our wives, our mothers, our sisters--to the timid women whom such threats alarm; briefly to throw our whole personal influence on what we know to be the side of truth.'
There was an instant's silence; then Hâfiz Ahmad, as chairman, said perfunctorily: 'I am sure we are all completely at one with our honourable friend. Such manifest attempts at preposterous intimidation deserve the heartiest contempt of educated minds.'
'I second that proposition,' added Râm Nâth as head of his following. 'We are morally bound to give heartiest co-operation in the difficult task before government, in so far as is compatible with strict deference to the private religious feeling of all parties concerned. That is the groundwork of true liberty.'
A fine scorn showed on Chris Davenant's face; he was about to speak whenpanditNarain Das turned to him with a wistful apology in his, and said: 'Without demurring to his general principle, I would remind our honourable friend, whose educational career is a credit to our town, that our influence, alas! is but a broken reed. Our position, in a society of ignorami, is anomalous, not to say precarious. And if we too freely kick against the pricks, we are in danger of losing what we have, which would be undesirable. As John Morley says in his valuable work on compromise----'
Chris turned on him almost savagely. 'There is no need to preach compromise,pandit-jee! We practise it. We do not let our opinions influence our own conduct, yet we expect them to influence the conduct of our rulers! We write these opinions. Oh, yes! we write them! Why? Because we know that only those read them who agree with us! But which of us will go from here to-day, and braving opposition, disregarding personal considerations, tell, even their own immediate families, that the Brahmins who wrote that paper are--aresplendide mendax!'
He could not help it! He was keenly alive to the legitimate fun made by the opponents of young India, out of its intolerable aptitude for unsuitable quotation, but he fell a victim to it sometimes himself. So, as he paused before his own words--a house, as it were, divided against itself--he lost his opportunity. For a dapper little gentleman who, by reason of a high appointment under government, was generally allowed to apply the closure to heated or unwelcome discussions, had risen, and caught the chairman's eye.
'What our honourable and esteemed townsman, Mr. Krishn Davenund, has just said, must receive consensus of universal opinion, since it is doubtless of supreme importance to national life. Priest-craft, supernaturalism,et hoc genus omne, are clearly traits of low civilisation, just as popular government, enlargement of franchise, and diffusion of evolutionary theories are significant of higher. Still, Rome was not built in a day. Nor is there use in raising the wind, if we can't ride the whirlwind, or control the storm. Therefore, in theinterim, pending wider liberty of speech, I propose that this meeting pass a unanimous resolution condemning such paltry attempts at cockering up superstitious feelings, and that the same be duly recorded in the minutes of our society.'
Before the relieved applause which greeted this diplomacy was over, the waste-paper basket beside Chris Davenant had received another contribution. His roll of manuscript, torn to shreds, lay in it, in obedience to a sudden, swift intuition that if he was ever to rise beyond the chaos of lofty aspirations, the strictly impersonal admiration for great deeds in his fellows, he must leave words behind.
So silent, alone, he walked home to his empty house, his empty life.
But others, though they passed homewards in batches still full of discussion, still drunk with words, were passing to environments which were, in a way, even more empty than his. So empty of the sentiments they had just been formulating, so much at variance with the ideals they had just professed, that the very imagination grows bewildered in the effort to reconcile the two.
Govind the editor, however, had less difficulty than most in accommodating his mental position to a stool stuck over the reeking gutter of a liquor shop, where he refreshed himself with a brandy-and-soda and an infamous cigar. He was in an evil temper, because the meeting, which he frequented chiefly because the speakers provided him with ideas wherewith to spice his own broadsheet, had been unusually discreet; so he would have to write his own sedition; unless he could pick up some scurrilous news instead.
'Nay, friend! I know naught to suit thy purpose,' replied the stout sergeant of police who frequented the same liquor shop, to whom he applied; 'save the finding of the Lady-sahib'sjewel-box.'
'And the pearls?' asked Govind, taking out a greasy stump of pencil.
'The pearls!' echoed the policeman scornfully, 'as if pearls were to be found by us! They can be hid in a body's very mouth, and then, if there be not another mouth with a tongue in it, there is silence! But the box is enough to keep the file of the case open, and the inspector content for a while.'
'How many are in the lock-up concerning it?' asked Govind, out of the fulness of his knowledge regarding police methods.
'Six,' yawned the sergeant. 'The coolie who found the box broken and empty, flung in the bushes by the Lat-sahib'shouse; he was setting the fireworks for the big spectacle to-morrow. He sold it to a pawnbroker. That makes two for us. Then a woman bought the velvet lining from a rag-merchant. That makes four. She gave it to Hashim, tailor, who works for theHuzoors, as a cap to her grandchild. And he, having doubts, informed us. So he makes five. Then the firework-maker's people were turbulent, therefore we arrested one of them to show diligence.'
'And there was naught in the box when it was found?' asked Govind. He was writing now on one of the smoothed-out squares of white waste-paper which lay in a pile beside the liquor seller, who used them for wiping the rims of the tumblers, out of deference to the caste prejudices of his customers against a general cloth.
'God knows!' yawned the policeman piously. 'The man saith not; but there were letters besides the trinkets and the pearls, and we may findthem, if not the others. Folk will not lose acowrie'sworth of waste-paper these hard times.'
'Ay!' assented the liquor seller, eyeing Govind askance. 'Mine had to be paid for, though some seem to think not. And paid high too, since the firework-makers were in the market for their squibs and crackers for to-morrow.'
A man lounging outside in the gutter laughed suddenly, viciously. 'They will find enough forthemanyhow, even if theyhavethe police at their tails!' he said, moving off with a defiantsalaamto the fat policeman.
'I would I had handcuffed a pair of them,' remarked the latter mildly. ''Twould have been one trouble, and 'tis well to save oneself what one can these hard times.'
'Trouble!' echoed a passer-by, shaking his head, 'there will be no saving of that in Nushapore. Jân-Ali-shân hath returned and brought the plague, so folk say.'
The liquor seller turned in quick interest to the sergeant of police.
'Dost know if he hath returned?' he asked; for the loafer was a customer who owed money, and must be got hold of while money was in his pockets.
For answer the policeman chucked away his cigar end, stumbled off the dais of the shop, and stood to attention, as a figure rounded the angle of the next crossway street, followed by a crowd of ragged half-naked urchins. It was Jân-Ali-shân himself, washed, shaved, spruce, in a second-hand suit ofkhakiuniform and a white helmet which he had redeemed from a pawnshop on the credit of his new appointment as foreman of works. Jân-Ali-shân, who, from sheer habit, had, on finding himself in the city with money in his pocket, gone straight for his old haunt. From the new resolutions, however, which with him always began with new work, he called for a 'gingerade plain' in a voice of authority, which made a little circle gather round him admiringly, as after humming a stave of 'Drink to me only with thine eyes,' while he was opening the bottle, he proceeded to pour its fizzing contents down his throat.
The interest of the crowd seemed to amuse him, he sate down on the plinth and drew out a handful ofpicein lordly fashion.
'Two anna, over an' above,' he said, holding up the coins, 'and I don't want no change. So which of you noble earls,' here he turned to his following of lads, 'is goin' to fight for the balance? You understand?Lurro abhi, jut put, an' beburra burra pailwânfor two pice a 'ed (fight now immediately and be great heroes).'
The vile admixture of tongues seemed quite comprehensible to those acquainted with Jân-Ali-shân's methods, for two urchins stepped forward at once, and the rest joined with the other loungers to form a ring.
John Ellison, loafer, leant back against the wall at his ease.
'Now then,nap,'[6]he began, 'back to back fair and square. None o' yernigger blarney,[7]you young devil! Fightseeda,[8]or it ain't worth fightin' at all. And I won't 'ave no buttin' in the stummick. You'repailwâns m'henda nahin(heroes, not fighting rams).Sumjha?'
The boys professed to understand, and, having divested themselves of their last rag, stood like slim bronze statues in the sunlight.
'Are you ready?' asked Jân-Ali-shân with superb gravity. 'Thenchul(go), an' may the Lord 'ave mercy on your souls.'
They were locked in each other's grip in a second in true Western fashion.
'Shab-bash!' said the holder of the stakes with an approving nod 'That's wrestlin'. None o' yer slappin's an' buttin's and boo-in's.Shab-bash!boys.Shab-bash!'
The crowd grinned widely at the praise, and, as the combatants struggled and swayed, discussed their family history and took sides, after the manner of crowds all over the world. Quite a breath of anxiety ran through it as a fall came, but came sideways. There was no dust on the back yet!--there would not be!--yes! there would.
Aha! aha! therewas, surely!
There would have been, doubtless, for the uppermost boy's small brown hand had freed itself for a second from its grip and sought blindly on the ground for that recognised weapon in Indian wrestling, dust for the adversary's eyes, had not Jân-Ali-shân, seeing the action, sprung to his feet, stooped over the writhing figures, and seizing the top one by the scruff of its neck, held it up by one hand and shaken it as a terrier shakes a rat.
'None o' yer monkey tricks, none o' yerniggar blarneying, you young sneak,' he said roughly, as he dropped his whimpering prisoner from mid air, 'or I'll makemutti[9]of you.Bus!(enough). T'other Johnny'sjeetgia(won). Here, sonny! take yourdo paisa.'
The crowd, however, which had been betting freely on the event, hesitated; the supporters of the dust-thrower grumbled. They were headed by Govind, who began with great pomp--
'I would have you aware, sir, that use of dust is not non-regulation in our code; therefore the other boy is victor.
John Ellison looked at him condescendingly, and turned up the cuffs of his coat with unnecessary elaboration.
'Ain't it in your code,baboo?' he said, with equally elaborate civility, 'an' t'other chap 'as won, has he? I'm glad t'hear it. But this is my show, and, 'by the Lord 'oo made me! I'm goin' to run it myself. An' if any gentleman 'as a objection to make, let 'im make it now, or for ever after 'old 'is peace.'
The crowd made way for him hastily, as he drove a three-feet passage through it with his elbows; but as he walked jauntily down the bazaar, the boys fell in behind him and kept step, as he did, to the 'Wedding March,' which he whistled in reminiscent continuation of his last words. For they knew Jân-Ali-shân of old as one who, drunk or sober, always had a reward for fair fighting.
'What did theM'lechcha[10]say?' asked a grumbler who did not know English.
'That 'twas nothing to him what was our custom. It was his, and that settled it. It is their word! Well! let them say it! We will see, brothers, if it is true, will we not?' replied Govind viciously.
A murmur of approval ran through the bystanders, but an old dodderer with a white beard, who, in Eastern fashion, was dozing through his days, waiting for death, crouched up comfortably on a string bed set in the sun, said dreamily--
'Didst say it was Jân-Ali-shân? Yea! it was his word. I have heard him say it; and he keeps it, my sons! he keeps it!'
Govind turned on the speaker scornfully. 'Those were other times,baba, and another Jân-Ali-shân. The times have changed and men too----'
A thin musical laugh interrupted him. It came from Lateefa, the kite-maker, who was passing with his bundle of kites for sale.
'Lo!baboo-jee!' he said. 'I know naught of time but my poor portion of it, nor of man save my poor self! But I change not, and I am as others. We are like kites; the form changes not unless the maker chooses, and God, so say the Moulvies, changes not at all. He makes men on the old pattern ever; the rest is but dye and tinsel.'
So he passed on, tossing his bundle, and chanting the street-seller's cry--
'Your eyes use, and choose!Use your eyes and choose!'
'Your eyes use, and choose!Use your eyes and choose!'
'Tinkle, tinkle, ootel ish-star. Ha-a-vunder vart-oo-ar.''Tinkle, tinkle, ootel ish-star. Ha-a-vunder vart-oo-ar.''Tinkle, tinkle, ootel ish-star. Ha-a-vunder vart-oo-ar.'
The damnable iteration went on and on, the fiddles twangled and squeaked, the drum bangers banged, the nautch-girl sidled, and smirked, and shrilled.
'Tinkle, tinkle, ootel ish-star. Ha-a-vunder vart-oo-ar.'
Lesley Drummond, sitting in the front row of guests at the reception given by the nobles and landed proprietors of the Province to welcome Sir George Arbuthnot to his new office, shut her eyes at last in sheer despair of being able to reconcile the senses of hearing and sight; then opened them again to stare with unappeasable curiosity into the blaze of light, veiled by a fine film of misty smoke, in which all things seemed clear, yet dim.
It came from the prism-hung chandeliers which hid the low white-marble ceiling, from the wretched paraffin wall-lamps hung against the white-marble pillars, from the paper lanterns swinging from the scalloped white-marble arches. But it came most of all from the garden beyond the arches in which this white-marble summer-palace of a dynasty of dead kings stood, centring the formal walks and watercourses; for it was lit up in long close rows of soft twinkling lights stretching away into the purple shadows of the night, until, climbing to every line, every curve of the purple shadow of the distant city, they showed like new stars upon the purple shadow of the sky.
The radiance of it, the brilliance of it, dazzled the eyes; the dimness, the misty dreaminess of it clouded the brain. She felt drugged, hypnotised out of realities, as she looked towards the dais where Sir George, the Star of his Order almost hidden by one of the huge tinsel garlands which had been thrown round the neck of the guests as they entered, sat in a gilt chair, his solitary figure outlined harshly, by reason of his dark political uniform, against the background of white-marble tracery. Thence she looked to the English ladies in gaydécolletésdresses who, with a sprinkling of black coats and red tunics, banked the dais on either side. So to the line of officials and soldiers edging the gangway below the dais. Finally, on to the hosts themselves who sate behind in rows. Rows on rows ablaze with colour and sparkle. Rows on rows imperturbable, passive, without a smile or a frown for the scene in which they bore so large a part.
So far, however, despite those great tinsel garlands which were so distracting a novelty upon black coats, scarlet tunics, anddécolletésdresses, a certain relevancy to the central idea, embodied in that solitary figure of an elderly Englishman raised above the rest, was not wanting in the details of the spectacle.
But what, thought Lesley, could be said of that group upon the square of red and green-flowered Brussels carpet spread immediately in front of the dais? Spread between the gilt sofa where she sat with Jerry between her and Lady Arbuthnot, and a similar gilt sofa on the other side occupied by the general's wife and her two daughters.
What an inconceivably unsuitable surrounding they made, five Englishwomen and a child, to those other five and a child? Two ragged drum bangers, two dissipated fiddle and guitar twangers, a dreamy-looking boy doing nothing, and the usual posturing dancer, stout as to figure, bunchy as to petticoats, with glued bandeaux of hair and a nasal quavering voice which paused only for furtive swallowings of the betel-nut she was chewing all too palpably!
'Tinkle, tinkle, ootel ish-star.' She trilled with an affable, opulent curve of hip and hand towards thesahib loguecollectively, for whose delectation she was singing 'Englis fassen'; an accomplishment she had learned from a girl who had been taught hymns in a mission school.
'Ha-a-vunder vart-oo-ar'--she simpered with a special coquettish flirt of her fingers and full petticoat for that respectable father of a family, Sir George, who, honest man, sat horribly conscious, still more horribly bored, yet patient, waiting for the master of the ceremonies to ask him if he had had enough.
Enough?
He looked past the pirouettings to that thin line of white faces, bored yet patient like his own, which fringed those rows on rows of impassive dark ones, and stifled his yawns duteously for the sake of the Empire. No such reasons of state, however, swayed Jerry, who, dapper and dainty in knee-breeches, silk stockings, ruffles, and a little garland of his own, sate fidgeting and yawning, yawning and fidgeting. As he looked across the pirouettings he could see his dearest Mr. Raymond dozing with dignity in a chair opposite, with a peculiarly magnificent garland festooned over him. It was bigger than anybody's but dad's, Jerry told himself, feeling a trifle aggrieved, and he wanted to ask why it was so large, when Mr. Raymond was sitting oh! ever so far back!
'Tinkle, tinkle, ootel ish-star!'
The drums banged, the fiddles squeaked, the dancer postured, and Jerry yawned with commendable monotony, till, suddenly, the little lad's patience gave way at the two hundred and fifty-sixth time of asking the question--'Ha-a-vunder vart-oo-ar.'
'Please!' he said, in his clear child's voice, 'it is the Star of India dad's wearin'. The Queen gave it him for doin' his duty.'
'Hush--hush, Jerry!' came breathlessly from his guardians, but the connection of ideas had been too palpable. A titter which broke from the ladies behind him made Nevill Lloyd--who as aide-de-camp flanked the dais, resplendent in his horse artillery uniform--absolutely choke in his effort to be dignified, and the joyous crow which resulted quite upset the general commanding. Then this chuckle from the right row of officialdom did for the Secretary-to-Government heading the left, so that his gurgle was the signal for a general roar of laughter to go echoing up into the arches; general so far only as the white faces were concerned. The dark ones of the hosts were immovable, keeping even their surprise to themselves.
'Some one ought, surely, to explain,' said Lesley with a half-puzzled frown, as, the laughter ending, a general stir of relieved chatter showed that the audience had seized on the interruption as an end.
'Explain, my dear?' echoed Sir George, when his wife took advantage of the stir to repeat Lesley's suggestion, and point out the dancing-girl standing sullen, uncertain, whispering to the drum and fiddle; 'I don't think it's worth it, and I don't see how it's to be done. Besides, they ought to have laughed too--they really ought! That crow of Lloyd's----'
'I'm awfully sorry, sir,' put in the offender, trying to be penitent through his smiles; 'I'll tell you what I'll do, Lady Arbuthnot. Raymond is bossing the supper for them from the club, and all that. He's president of the committee of entertainment, so I'll get him----'
Sir George frowned. 'We needn't trouble Mr. Raymond, Captain Lloyd. And as for the interruption, Grace, it rested with me to stop the nautch-girl at any time, and they saw we were amused. That is really all they want.'
'Just so, sir,' assented the Secretary-to-Government, a trifle ashamed of his lapse from strict etiquette. 'And she had been at it nearly the proper time. Only five minutes short of the half-hour we gave them. And you can use those, sir--as the fireworks will barely be ready--in having some of the notables up for a talk. That will set the business more than right.'
It seemed so, indeed, judging by the radiant faces of the favoured few, and the hopeful interest of the many, who crowded round, grateful for a word, even, from some lesser light.
So from its Eastern formality the scene changed to Western ways. The crowd of well-dressed women became interspersed with red coats and political uniforms, a buzz of voices and laughter replaced the silence broken only by the shrillings and twanglings.
The change was a peculiarly welcome one to Mrs. Chris Davenant, who, having, of course, been seated in strict accordance with her husband's rank, right at the back among the commercial set, had been growing sulky over her chance of getting into better society. She had not, for the last two days, snubbed Mr. Lucanaster persistently, in order that she and half a dozen tailors summoned hastily should have time to turn out a gown worthy of Paris, simply for the purpose of havinghimcompliment her on the result. She flew at higher game, and the movement of the crowd brought her the quarry.
'Married a native, did she?' commented a big man in political uniform with a row of medals, who was in from an out-station for the show, and had asked who the wearer of the flame-coloured satin was; flame-colour with ruby sparklings on the curves of hip and bosom out of which the fair white shoulders rose barely. 'Well! I, personally, don't find the husband in it, if the wife's pretty! Introduce me, will you, or get some one else to do it who knows her, if you don't.'
The man to whom he spoke looked round helplessly, and, his eye falling on Jack Raymond, he appealed to him. People in Nushapore had a trick of applying to the secretary of the club for odd jobs.
'Ask Lucanaster,' said Jack Raymond grimly, 'he knows her awfully well, and I don't.'
And thereinafter he watched this seething of the kid in its mother's milk with an almost fiendish amusement. It relieved him, for one thing, of the necessity for speaking to Mrs. Chris himself. But as he passed the group which was every instant growing larger round the flame-coloured satin, he said a word to Chris who was standing listlessly on the outside of it.
'Seeing a lot of old friends, I expect.'
Chris Davenant's flush made him curse the careless remark, and at the same moment some one came hurriedly up behind him and laid a hand on his arm. It was a tall old man with a dash and a swing about him still; gorgeous still, though his brocades were worn and old, and with great ropes of pearls wound round him, and a straight bar of grey moustache on his keen brown face, matching the grey heron's plume in his low turban. Briefly, a Rajpoot nobleman of the old style.
'Ai!counsellor of the old,' he said, affectionate confidence struggling with vexation in his face, 'give me some of thy wisdom once more.'
'Hullo, Rana-sahib! what's up? something gone wrong with the fireworks?' asked Jack Raymond, turning at once. His tone was friendliness itself. And no wonder. Many a time had he, hard rider as he was, wondered at the old Thakoor of Dhurmkote's dash and pluck after boar. Many a time had they sate up inmachânsafter tiger together, and many a time had Jack--wiser for the reckless, proud old sinner than he was for himself--urged him to retrench, to keep from the usurers. In vain. The old man, head of his clan, would only say, 'Not so,sahib. If the son had lived, perhaps. But the tiger took advantage of his youth. So let me live and die as my fathers lived and died.' And then he would launch out into further extravagance, as fine a specimen of the native gentleman before we meddled with the mould, as could be found in the length and breadth of the land.
'Wrong with my fireworks?' he echoed indignantly. 'There is nothing wrong with them, though the others stinted me, from the beginning, out of jealousy! Yet I had fooled them. But now, because folk laughed at God knows what, they want them earlier. It is jealousy again. It is to ruin my reputation asconnoisseur. I, who have spent lacs on fireworks. I, who to prove what I could do with the miserable pittance assigned to me, have paid Meena Buksh, firework-maker, five thousand rupees extra--I had but two allowed me,Huzoor--out of mine own pocket, or rather out of Salig Râm the usurer's, since I reft it from him with threats--he owns land, see you, as well as money----'
Here the old man, who had been carried away thus far by his grievance, became aware that Jack Raymond's companion was not, as he had deemed, some young Englishman who would either not care to listen or would not understand if he did; and in any case would not make mischief out of the confidence. For Chris Davenant, hemmed in a corner beyond escape, had been unable to repress a smile at the old chieftain's method of proving his good management and economy.
'Let me introduce my friend, Mr. Krishn Davenund, Rana-sahib,' said Jack Raymond hastily, noticing the old man's haughty stare. 'I think you knew his father,PanditSri Pershâd, judge of the Small Cause Court.'
Considering that the magistrate in question, being more or less in feudal relations with the Thakoors of Dhurmkote, had strained many a point in favour of their extravagance, the acquaintance was indisputable; yet the Rana-sahib's salaamwas of the curtest compatible with courtesy to the introducer, and he drew Jack Raymond aside to continue in a lower voice--
'They want me to be ready in ten minutes, and that means ruin; for some fool set fire to a bit of my best set piece, and 'twill take twenty to repair.'
'But why not begin with something else?' suggested his hearer.
The Thakoor's face was a study in triumph and disappointment. 'Because it is a welcome to the Lât-sahib, and a welcome must come first. And it is new also--a welcome in roman candles and sulphur stars; my reputation is in it.'
'Then why not show it as it is, and explain the accident?'
The Thakoor looked uncertain. 'That might be. How would it look, think you,sahib, "God," then a blank--for that is where the damage comes in--"our new Lieutenant-Governor"? Would it be understanded, think you? Would it look well--in Roman candles and sulphur stars?'
'God blank--that is where the damage lies,' repeated Jack Raymond thoughtfully, and then he laughed. He had to recover himself, however, hastily at the old man's bewildered face, and say gravely, 'I don't think itwouldlook very well, Rana-sahib, especially in Roman candles and sulphur stars.' Here another laugh obtruded itself, and he added as a cover to it, 'But I can tell you what Icando for you--refreshments. I knowtheyare ready. I'll go off now and get the "roastbeef" sounded.'
The old chieftain stood looking after him as he went off enthusiastically.
'May the gods keep him! that is a man,' he said aloud to himself. 'If all thesahibswere as he, a friend----'
'India would be the happier. She needs such friends,' said Chris Davenant suddenly. He had been trying to make up his mind ever since the meeting at Hâfiz Ahmad's house, to take some decided step towards organising a real party of progress. To do this in a way that would ensure confidence with both the Government and the people, it was necessary to secure some men of real influence; and the Thakoor was one. His word went far, both West and East; and fate had placed him within earshot. So Chris had spoken; his heart, to tell truth, in his mouth, as the old man turned scowling.
But something in the young one's face, perhaps a look of his dead father, perhaps its own inherent goodness, made the Thakoor, instead of ignoring the remark, say curtly--
'I see it not. What friends does India need?'
Then Chris pulled himself together for speech, and the old man listened, first contemptuously, then with tolerance.
'Thou speakest well,' he said, nodding approval. 'And as thou sayest, the people need leaders, notbaboos. Come to my house some day, and----'
'Have you my shawl, Chris?' said a woman's voice, interrupting the invitation. 'Oh, I don't want it now, not till the fireworks, but you can bring it then, to the supper-room.' So, satisfied at having shown her husband that ifhewere talking to pearls and brocade,shehad annexed a uniform and medals; satisfied also at having shown both the uniform and the brocade in what good company they were, Mrs. Chris Davenant passed on, all white arms and back, edged perfunctorily with flames and rubies.
'Who--who is thatmem?' asked the old Rajpoot swiftly, for one of the white arms had, incredible to say, nudged Chris's black one, to attract his attention.
Chris gave back the stare defiantly. 'That is my wife, Thakoor-sahib.'
The old chieftain stood bewildered for a moment; then he gave a scornful laugh.
'Men of thy sort are no friends to India,baboo-jee,' he said. So, with a twirl of the straight grey moustache, he strode away, leaving Chris more lonely than ever.
So absolutely alone, that the sheer physical pain of his loneliness drove him on towards the sound of laughter and voices, the popping of champagne corks, which came from the marble-screened verandah where the refreshment-tables stood.
It was full of English people only, since this part of the entertainment was left by the hosts in alien hands; but through the marble lace-work filling up the arches, the softly radiant lines of light, climbing upwards to the stars could be seen, and the hum of the multitude waiting beyond the garden to see the fireworks was audible.
'Have you all you want, Miss Drummond?' said Jack Raymond as he passed. He looked well, she thought, and wore his garland with a difference. Jerry had hold of it in a second, detaining him--
'Oh! I say! please, what a whopper!' he exclaimed. 'Why did they give it you?'
'For doing my duty, of course,' he laughed. 'I say, young man, you upset the apple-cart, didn't you?'
Lesley looked her regret. 'It was awful! And so much worse not to explain. It was so rude. I don't wonder the people dislike us.'
Jack Raymond's face took a curiously obstinate look. 'Perhaps you would like to explain--there is the Thakoor of Dhurmkote; he is more like an Englishman in his mind than any native I know. Shall I introduce him, and let you get it off your conscience?'
A minute after the little group--Jack Raymond explaining, the old Rajpoot listening, Lesley waiting for the laugh to come, and Jerry watching puzzled, doubtful how far the joke would be against him--gave Grace Arbuthnot, in her solitude of honour, a pang of envy. It was dull always talking to the proper people! And Jack Raymond need not keep aloof from her so pointedly. It was so foolish. As if it were possible----
In a sort of denial, she just touched the gold lappets of Sir George's coat--the faintest, lightest finger-touch--as he stood talking to the general; but he turned at once.
'Do you want anything, dear?'
She flushed, and laughed; a pretty flush, a pretty laugh, chiefly at her own impulsiveness.
'Nothing, dear, absolutely nothing,' she said, and he smiled back at her. None the less, she still watched the group enviously.
But Lesley, for her part, was beginning to wish she had not joined it; for the discovery of her own mistakes was never a pleasant process to the young lady, and something in the old Thakoor's face warned her she was out of her depth.
'Ap ne suchh furmaya. Ap ne be shakk suchh furmaya,' came the courteous old voice, as Jack Raymond's ceased, and the courteous old face bent in grave approval over the child's.
'Please! what does he say?' asked Jerry, sober as a judge.
Jack Raymond had not a smile either, though he looked hard at Lesley. 'He says, translated literally, that "You caused the truth to be told; without doubt you caused it to be told."'
Jerry heaved a huge sigh of relief, and looked up into the old face, his childish one full of confidence.
'In course I did. I knew it was the Star of India, 'cos mum told me. An' I don't know why the grown-ups laughed; but he didn't--he's a nice old man, an' I like him.'
So, to the old chieftain's inexpressible delight, he tucked his hand into the Rajpoot's, and said, 'Thank you, sir!'
'You and I are out of it, Miss Drummond,' remarked Jack Raymond, as, after permission asked and granted, the Thakoor went off, proud as Punch, to show thechota sahib, who had only spoken the truth, to the rest of the committee.
That 'you and I' lingered somehow pleasantly in the girl's memory, so that when she returned to Lady Arbuthnot's side, and the latter (somewhat to her own surprise) felt impelled to make some remark on the conversation she had noticed, Lesley replied carelessly--
'Yes! I think I like him better than I did; he isn't half bad.'
Grace Arbuthnot felt suddenly as if she could have boxed the speaker's ears. Not half bad! And, except in position, and one or two things which did not, could not, show in mere acquaintance, Jack Raymond had changed very little since the days when he had been her ideal of all a man should be. What was more, that ideal of hers had not changed at all! Yet here was this girl thinking him not half bad!
The advent of the general's wife, however, full--as usual--of fears about everything, created a diversion. Was not Lady Arbuthnot afraid of catching cold in going out to watch fireworks? To be sure, she was wearing a high dress, which was perhaps more suitable. But, anyhow, was she not afraid of getting it spoilt with the oil and the dirt? And if she was not, did not the underlying doubt as to the general safety of the position disturb her? Supposing it was only a plot to get the whole European community together, unarmed, and blow them up? After the mutiny anything was possible.
'My husband shall take you in charge,' interrupted Grace, 'and as he has to be escorted everywhere by the biggest swells, you, will be quite safe, for they would hardly blow themselves up!'
She spoke politely enough, but as she passed out to the terrace, she said aside to Lesley, 'What a fool that woman is! yet she is not much worse than half the others. If anything could make us lose our hold on India, it will be the women--as it was in the mutiny.'
Jerry, who had come back, was holding his mother's hand, and looked up all eyes and ears.
'Do you think there will be one weally?' he asked, with quite a tremble of eagerness in his voice.
'No, Jerry, certainly not,' she replied quickly, vexed he should have heard; 'and if there were, there is no use in being frightened.'
His face flushed crimson. 'It--it isn'tthat,' he began, gripping her hand tighter, then paused; perhaps because at that moment a line of coloured fires swept in curves against the background of purple shadow to form the legend--'God bless our new Lieutenant-Governor.'
A hum of applause, not for the words, but the Roman candles and sulphur stars, rose from beyond the garden.
On the terrace, too, admiration was loud and the old Thakoor's delight was boundless. He was here, whispering Sir George that he had only been allowed two thousand rupees; there, apologising to the rest of the committee for imaginary shortcomings, or down in the smoke and noise below, urging the pyrotechnists to be quick, to spare no pains, to show theHuzoorswhat they could do.
'That will we!' muttered an underling as he stooped to his task; the letting off, like minute-guns, of the detonating maroons which the native loves.
And another man, as he bent to touch a fuse with his port-fire, gave a sinister laugh, and remarked under his breath that scarred necks could do without pearls!
So, in hot haste, the set pieces succeeded each other--the Catherine-wheels span, dropping coloured tears; the fire-fountains played; the great clouds of smoke, edged with many tinted reflections of the lights, drifted sideways, and beyond them the balloons sailed up one by one to form new constellations in the sky; but the curved rockets paused with a little sob of despair, and sank back, dropping the stars which they had hoped to set in high heaven.
And above the noise, the bustle, the popping of squibs and crackers, came the sound of an English military band and the minute-guns of the maroons.
Lesley Drummond on the lower terrace watching, listening, was conscious of a curiously new sense of enjoyment, almost exultation. Her life, the emotionally restricted life of the modern girl who, having freed herself from minor interests, has not yet found wider ones, had been, though she would never have admitted it, cold and grey. But to-night, for the first time, she realised that her nature held other possibilities. The dim darkness, the faint light, the mystery encompassing the mirth around her, even Jack Raymond's voice asking carelessly, as he passed, how she was getting on, made her feel dizzy with pleasure.
'We are having a splendid time,' she answered joyously. 'Aren't we, Jerry?'
But Jerry answered nothing. He was much too absorbed; his wide grey eyes were wider than ever, staring out at the fireworks.
'What is it, Jerry?' she asked curiously. 'What do you see?'
'Oh! nuffing yet,' answered the little lad; 'but if it was to come----'
As he spoke a sudden scream rose from a group of ladies close by. A man, running as for dear life to set and light a fresh row of fire-fountains, squibs, and crackers, had stumbled, tripped, fallen against the low parapet, and in his attempt to save himself had dropped some of the fireworks over on to the terrace. Nor was that all; the flaming, spouting gerb he carried in his left hand as a port fire, had swung round on them, and there they were in the middle of gauze and muslin--alight!
A knot of squibs was the first to explode, darting hither and thither wickedly, like snakes, amid the frills and flounces, amid the screams!
'Keep back! Keep back!' shouted the men; and some had their coats off in a second, while others held the ladies' filmy dresses back, beating the sparks off with their hands, or stamping them out with their feet.
But there was a round black something, with just a tiny glow sizzling slowly into it, which no one noticed as it lay alf hidden under a velvet gown; no one but Jerry----
The next instant he was standing with it in his hands, confused for the moment by the dense circle round him through which he saw no way for a small boy.
'Drop it, drop it!' shouted some one, and Lesley was beside him trying to snatch the detonator from him. But he dodged from her with an appealing cry.
'It's mine. It weally is my shell--it weally is!'
He dodged Nevill Lloyd also, who dashed at him yelling--'Drop it, you young fool'; and he might have gone on dodging others till that tiny glow sizzled in to the powder, if some one else, realising the situation and the few seconds' grace that remained, had not shouted--
'Hold tight, Jerry! Hold tight!'--and so, with that reassuring request had run to the child, caught him in his arms, and forced a way through the crowd to the parapet.
'Now, my lad, heave!' came the order.
And Jerry, who had held tight, heaved, since these were reasonable orders. Heaved not an instant too soon, however, for the round black thing was still so close when it changed to a flash, a flame, a roar, that it left Jack Raymond and the child wholly dazed and half blind, all singed and powder-grimed.
They were still standing so, bewildered, the man's face and the child's close together disguised by their very griminess into quaint likeness, when Grace Arbuthnot came up to them.
'He isn't hurt,' said Jack Raymond, quickly setting down the child, partly to prove his words, partly because he wished to dissociate himself from the situation as far as possible. The action, however, brought him closer to her eyes, and something in them, something in the faint perfume of heliotrope about her dress, the perfume he remembered so well, made him feel ashamed of his own thought.
'He is really not hurt,' he continued in a low voice for her ear alone. 'And he behaved--as I should have expected your son to behave.'
He had not meant to say so much, but something of the old confidence seemed to have returned to him with the old memory; and to her also, for she shook her head and said, almost with a smile--
'He is not a bit like me--he is far more like you.' She paused, startled at her own unconsidered words, and looked at him with a sudden shrinking in her face.
'Very,' he replied, catching up the boy again. 'We are both black sheep. Come along, my hero, and scrub some of the likeness off.'
But, as he carried Jerry away on his shoulder to the dressing-room, he told himself that she was right. The boywaslike him. Now that it had been suggested to him, he saw it clearly. Not in face, but in the nameless ways which show a likeness in the inward stuff that has gone, possibly, to make up a very dissimilar outside.
The explanation was simple, of course. It was a case of reversion. He himself had always been counted a typical Raymond, and Jerry, through his mother, had harked back to that distant, almost-forgotten ancestor. Something had made the current set that way once more; that was all.
But what something? Was it possible that the mind had this power as well as the body?
He swung the child to the attendant grimly, and bade him wash thechola sahib'sface, and be sure to take off all the black.
That likeness, at any rate, need not remain. The other left him curiously helpless, curiously ashamed.