MRS. RAYMOND.
“I am just going to leap into the dark.”—Rabelais.
Wehad come home from India on three months’ furlough, taking return tickets, and, after the manner of Anglo-Indians, stayed to the very last moment of our leave; in fact, if the cab that conveyed us across Paris, from the Gare-de-l’Ouest to the Gare-de-Lyons, had broken down—a not impossible contingency, for ourcocherwas drunk—we would have missed not merely our train, but our steamer, and Charles would have had to forfeit I don’t know how much pay, and go to the bottom of his grade.
Charles is in the Civil Service; we are middle-aged people without any family, and are comfortably off, and think very little of running home.We were just in time to get our luggage weighed, swallow some soup, and climb into the carriage ere it started. We rattled through France all night; next afternoon we were at Turin; that same evening, cramped with two days’ sitting in the train, and nearly black with dust, we found ourselves in Genoa. “No time to go to the hotel,” was the unwelcome intelligence; “we must go on board at once.” Our steamer lay off in the harbour, and sailed in two hours.
“Just touch and go,” grumbled Charles; “never saw such a shave. All your fault, Louisa.”
Charles was put out. He wanted to have a tub and his dinner; and, moreover, he hated to be fussed and driven about by porters, being accustomed to the grand leisure of an important Indian official. I never argue with Charles when he is hungry, therefore I scrambled out of the boat in silence, and went to my own cabin—secured months previously. I wondered if any of our friends had turned up? Colonel and Mrs. Hatton were goingback in our steamer, Mrs. Clapp, and young Brownlow of the Secretariat, who had come home with us. We would be a nice little party, and all sit at the same table. When I was dressed I went up on deck; it looked crowded, and I was immediately accosted by half a dozen Indian friends, and soon engaged in exchanging items of news. It was a bright starlight night, and Genoa looked lovely, rising from her harbour, but it was unpleasantly chilly. I was afraid of my neuralgia, and presently beat a retreat downstairs, and seated myself at a central table with my gold eye-glasses and blotter, and began to write a letter. As I sat there alone, listening to the tramping overhead—the sailors weighing anchor—I heard a saloon door clap, and some one came over and took a seat directly opposite me, with the evident intention of sharing the saloon inkstand. I am rather near-sighted, and peered across the table over my spectacles, and saw a strikingly handsome man, who was deliberately opening his writing-case. Dark, withregular features, black hair and moustache, and slender hands. He looked at me searchingly. His eyes were the keenest I ever saw; rather narrow, but piercing as cold steel. We both wrote away industriously for some time in dread silence, and then he addressed me with some little civility about the ink. He had a well-bred voice, and a slightly foreign accent. We discussed the dust of the journey, the beauty of the night—for I am not of the usual order of ancient British matrons, and when I am spoken to politely, I reply in kind. This gentleman was more than polite; he was absolutely fascinating. From Genoa we drifted to India, but he and I had never been in the same parts, and, after all, we had not much in common beyond Bombay.
“You know India well?” he inquired insinuatingly.
“I cannot say that,” I rejoined; “but I have been in India for many years. I know it superficially, and from the European standpoint.”
I fished clumsily, and in vain, to discover whathe was. An officer? no, he was not like one. A civilian? a traveller? but he parried all my queries with an ease and politeness that was actually amusing. How clever he was! I felt myself a mere child in his hands. In a few moments, he had extracted from me my husband’s position, residence, length of service, prospects. I believe that, if he had chosen to ask, I would have told him the amount of our ages, income, and savings. He was soveryagreeable, and so exceptionally interested in me and my affairs, that I was led away to forget that I was now a stout elderly woman of forty-five, and, alas! no longer the station belle I once had been. Presently brisk voices and steps were heard descending the companion-ladder. Enter Charles, looking blue with cold, but in an excellent temper. I saw it in his eye. He has met Buffer, the Sudder Judge, of Kuloo, a first-rate whist-player—whist is Charles’s passion—and they are going to have a split whisky peg between them, as they discuss assessment of land—Charles’s hobby. Mrs. Sharpe, an oldneighbour of mine, a plain but clever little woman, and known as “Becky,” sidled into a place beside me, and took a good long look at my opposite neighbour. The tables were filling fast, and people were calling for lemonade and soda-water, for it was after nine o’clock. In the lamplight I recognized a good many familiar faces. The Brownes of Dodeypore; the Goodwins of Punea; Major Caraway of the Pioneers (with a bride). How smart every one looked, especially the young girls, and young married women! What a change it makes in some of my friends, a run home! Where is the old jacket, the joke of the station? Where is Mrs. Mills’ celebrated black hat? I would hardly recognize her. She wears a fringe; she has had something done to her teeth; she has quite a pretty figure! Who would believe she was the dowdy creature I saw at Cheetapore last July? Besides these well-known faces, are many strange ones—globe-trotters, Americans, French, and English, going out to stay with friends, or to do the cold weather in India.Those who sit at our table are no doubt impressed by our intimacy and jargon. Mrs. Sharpe always interlards her conversation with Hindostani, and speaks of her children at school as my “butchas;” “and as to going home again for only three months, as you, Mrs. Paulet” (to me), “persuaded me into doing, ‘cubbi-nay, cubbi-nay, cubbi-nay,’”—i.e.“never, never, never again.”
The dark stranger opposite looked amused, and then she said, “Whatdoyou think! I hear there is a native prince on board, enormously wealthy, and travelling with part of his Zenana, and all his jewels!”
The dark stranger still kept his eyes on her, but the expression of amusement died out of his face, and he suddenly resumed his writing.
“Who told you so?” I asked.
“My maid,” she answered triumphantly. “You know I am taking one out; I really found that I could not exist without a European servant.”
“You will have to do so, all the same,” I rejoined,“for if she is at all good-looking, and under fifty, she is bound to marry a soldier.”
“Oh, Dobbs would not look at a soldier!” retorted her mistress indignantly; “she ismuchtoo grand!”
“Wait till you see,” I replied. “I have had two, and they were two too many; so particular about their meals, always complaining of native servants and of want of society, insisting on going to sergeants’ balls, and finally wheedling me out of a wedding breakfast. No, give me an honest elderly ayah, with no family, and followers.”
“Who wears tight calico trousers, and smokes a huka,” she sneered.
“And welcome to both, my dear, as long asInever see them,” I answered, as I rose and said good night.
The next morning I went on deck before breakfast; there was a faint fresh breeze, but the sky and water were both blue, the latter as smooth as a lake. We were passing quite close to the beautiful coast of Italy, and meeting various fishing-boats,and small coasting steamers. As I turned to search for my deck-chair, I was saluted by the stranger, as I mentally called him.
And now, in the full broad daylight, instead of the dim swinging lamps, I saw, with the eye of an old Qui Hye, that he was undoubtedly a native of India. Yes, although possibly fairer-skinned than thousands of the inhabitants of the shores we were passing, he was an Asiatic, without question; very handsome also, without doubt, with perfectly chiselled features, and a broader chest and shoulders, and a finer physique than one generally sees.
“A lovely morning; may I bring your chair under the awning?” he inquired, in a most deferential manner.
“Yes, and a lovely scene,” I responded, as I seated myself.
“It is. I am very fond of Italy; are not you?”
“I am sure I should be, if I knew it well, but all my travelling has been in India. When myhusband retires we hope to see something of Europe.”
“I have what is called ‘done’ Europe—France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain.”
“And to what country do you give the palm?”
“For country, Italy; as a city, Paris. London is too foggy, too straggling.”
“Then you will enjoy a winter in India.”
“Yes, it is three years since I was there.” He pronounced hisw’s asv’s, the only way in which you could have discovered that he was a foreigner.
“How well you speak English!” I remarked.
“Then you have detected that I am not an Englishman,” he said, with evident surprise.
“Yes.”
“Of what country do you think I am a native?”
“Asia—possibly India, or Persia,” I ventured.
“Why?—why not a Spaniard, an Italian, a South American, or a Greek?”
“Yes, you might be a Greek, or an Armenian, but all the same I think you were born further East.” I had not been nineteen years in India for nothing!
“You are right,” he admitted with an indulgent smile. “My mother was a Persian, but I have been much in Europe. I was partly educated in England.”
I was scarcely listening to him; my attention was riveted on a lovely girl, who had just reached the top of the companion-ladder, and was looking timidly about. Suddenly she caught sight of my new acquaintance, and came towards us, with short hurried steps.
She appeared to be about twenty years of age, was slight, and of middle height, and wore an elaborately made white dress and a sailor hat, underneath which was the prettiest face I had ever seen. Her complexion was simply marvellous—pure milk and roses; her eyes, the colour of the sky, with long black lashes; her hair was really fair, with flaxen and golden shades through it. I could not take my eyes off her. As she came up to my companion, she said with an apologetic glance—
“You see, I found my way on deck myself.”
“Yes, so I see,” he answered, in a not particularly genial tone.
“The cabin was so stuffy, and I longed for a breath of the sea air,” she continued, with pleading eyes.
“Madam,” he said, suddenly turning to me, “may I introduce my wife—Mrs. Raymond?”
His wife? I was so taken aback, that for a second I was speechless with astonishment, and then I said, as I held out my hand—
“How do you do, Mrs. Raymond?Yourfirst trip to India, I suppose?”
“Yes,” she replied, with rather a tremor in her voice; “it is the first time I have ever been from home.”
“Ah, and I dare say you are a little homesick.”
“It is not so bad as being sea-sick,” remarked her husband, unsympathetically. “She has never experienced that yet.”
“Oh yes, once—long ago on the Clyde—I was awfully sick,” she protested.
Now that I came to look closely at Mrs. Raymond, and to hear her speak, I was aware that, although she was a strikingly beautiful girl, she was not quite a lady; something in her voice and her carriage was wanting. She held herself badly; her hands were large, though adorned by superb diamond rings. Yes, I, Louisa Paulet, who rather prided myself on my diamond rings, had not one that could compare with the least of those on this girl’s ugly fingers.
“Do you think it will be like this all the way?” she asked, nervously twisting these fingers.
“I hope so, for my own sake and yours; but at any rate, let us make the best of the present moment. There is the breakfast bell at last!”
As cheerful, hungry crowds came flocking to the different tables (where they had previously placed their visiting cards), I was rather surprised to see the Raymonds take seats almost opposite to me. He had been beforehand with Major and Mrs. Barker, of the Nizam’s horse, and the Barkers had to go among the Americans at table numbertwo—outcasts from the congenial society of their Anglo-Indian friends.
I considered Mr. Raymond’s manœuvre was rather pushing. Surely he might have seen that we had made up a party, and that he would bede trop. And all tables were alike to him—so I thought then. This was the humdrum married people’s table; number two was American and French; number three was surrounded by gay bachelors, grass widows, and brides and bridegrooms. There was more “go” about it than the other two put together. Why had not Mr. Raymond established himself there?
I received his advances with mustard, sugar, butter, and salt with marked coldness, and in my most freezing “Burra mem Sahib” manner. But who could be stiff with a pair of piteous forget-me-not blue eyes wistfully appealing to them? The Raymonds were a strikingly handsome couple; he with his dark resolute face, she with her wonderful fair beauty. She had already been noted, for many heads were bent forward, andglances sent in her direction, and whispered comments made. They both joined in conversation, he particularly, and showed himself to be a clever, agreeable, well-informed man. There was apparently no topic on which he had not formed an opinion—from the Irish question, and the new magazine rifle, down to the last style of dressing the hair. She did not talk much, and seemed perplexed at theménu, especially the “anti-pasto.” I saw her skin an olive and taste it, and make a face; she scraped her plate with her knife, and drank with her spoon in her cup. No, no, no, she was not a lady. I noticed that she looked behind her, and up and down the table rather furtively, and seemed transparently pleased to be one of such a large and lively community. Possibly she had never been in such good society in all her life.