Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel
let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission
Reports.
let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission
Reports.
Kipling - Poems
Some folk may remember
the years before lawn-tennis was born when we all played croquet. There
were seasons before that, if you will believe me, when even croquet
had not been invented, and archery--which was revived in England in
1844--was as great a pest as lawn-tennis is now. People talked learnedly
about "holding" and "loosing," "steles," "reflexed bows," "56-pound
bows," "backed" or "self-yew bows," as we talk about "rallies,"
"volleys," "smashes," "returns," and "16-ounce rackets. "
Miss Beighton shot divinely over ladies' distance--60 yards, that
is--and was acknowledged the best lady archer in Simla. Men called her
"Diana of Tara-Devi. "
Barr-Saggott paid her great attention; and, as I have said, the heart of
her mother was uplifted in consequence. Kitty Beighton took matters more
calmly. It was pleasant to be singled out by a Commissioner with letters
after his name, and to fill the hearts of other girls with bad feelings.
But there was no denying the fact that Barr-Saggott was phenomenally
ugly; and all his attempts to adorn himself only made him more
grotesque. He was not christened "The Langur"--which means gray ape--for
nothing. It was pleasant, Kitty thought, to have him at her feet, but
it was better to escape from him and ride with the graceless Cubbon--the
man in a Dragoon Regiment at Umballa--the boy with a handsome face, and
no prospects. Kitty liked Cubbon more than a little. He never pretended
for a moment the he was anything less than head over heels in love with
her; for he was an honest boy. So Kitty fled, now and again, from the
stately wooings of Barr-Saggott to the company of young Cubbon, and
was scolded by her Mamma in consequence. "But, Mother," she said, "Mr.
Saggott is such--such a--is so FEARFULLY ugly, you know! "
"My dear," said Mrs. Beighton, piously, "we cannot be other than an
all-ruling Providence has made us. Besides, you will take precedence of
your own Mother, you know! Think of that and be reasonable. "
Then Kitty put up her little chin and said irreverent things about
precedence, and Commissioners, and matrimony. Mr. Beighton rubbed the
top of his head; for he was an easy-going man.
Late in the season, when he judged that the time was ripe, Barr-Saggott
developed a plan which did great credit to his administrative powers.
He arranged an archery tournament for ladies, with a most sumptuous
diamond-studded bracelet as prize.
He drew up his terms skilfully, and every one saw that the bracelet was
a gift to Miss Beighton; the acceptance carrying with it the hand and
the heart of Commissioner Barr-Saggott. The terms were a St. Leonard's
Round--thirty-six shots at sixty yards--under the rules of the Simla
Toxophilite Society.
All Simla was invited. There were beautifully arranged tea-tables under
the deodars at Annandale, where the Grand Stand is now; and, alone in
its glory, winking in the sun, sat the diamond bracelet in a blue velvet
case. Miss Beighton was anxious--almost too anxious to compete. On the
appointed afternoon, all Simla rode down to Annandale to witness the
Judgment of Paris turned upside down.
Kitty rode with young Cubbon, and it was easy to see that the boy
was troubled in his mind. He must be held innocent of everything that
followed. Kitty was pale and nervous, and looked long at the bracelet.
Barr-Saggott was gorgeously dressed, even more nervous than Kitty, and
more hideous than ever.
Mrs. Beighton smiled condescendingly, as befitted the mother of a
potential Commissioneress, and the shooting began; all the world
standing in a semicircle as the ladies came out one after the other.
Nothing is so tedious as an archery competition. They shot, and they
shot, and they kept on shooting, till the sun left the valley, and
little breezes got up in the deodars, and people waited for Miss
Beighton to shoot and win. Cubbon was at one horn of the semicircle
round the shooters, and Barr-Saggott at the other. Miss Beighton was
last on the list. The scoring had been weak, and the bracelet, PLUS
Commissioner Barr-Saggott, was hers to a certainty.
The Commissioner strung her bow with his own sacred hands. She stepped
forward, looked at the bracelet, and her first arrow went true to a
hair--full into the heart of the "gold"--counting nine points.
Young Cubbon on the left turned white, and his Devil prompted
Barr-Saggott to smile. Now horses used to shy when Barr-Saggott smiled.
Kitty saw that smile. She looked to her left-front, gave an almost
imperceptible nod to Cubbon, and went on shooting.
I wish I could describe the scene that followed. It was out of the
ordinary and most improper. Miss Kitty fitted her arrows with immense
deliberation, so that every one might see what she was doing. She was
a perfect shot; and her 46-pound bow suited her to a nicety. She pinned
the wooden legs of the target with great care four successive times. She
pinned the wooden top of the target once, and all the ladies looked at
each other. Then she began some fancy shooting at the white, which,
if you hit it, counts exactly one point. She put five arrows into the
white. It was wonderful archery; but, seeing that her business was to
make "golds" and win the bracelet, Barr-Saggott turned a delicate green
like young water-grass. Next, she shot over the target twice, then wide
to the left twice--always with the same deliberation--while a chilly
hush fell over the company, and Mrs. Beighton took out her handkerchief.
Then Kitty shot at the ground in front of the target, and split several
arrows. Then she made a red--or seven points--just to show what she
could do if she liked, and finished up her amazing performance with some
more fancy shooting at the target-supports. Here is her score as it was
picked off:--
Gold. Red. Blue. Black. White. Total Hits. Total Score Miss Beighton
1 1 0 0 5 7 21
Barr-Saggott looked as if the last few arrowheads had been driven into
his legs instead of the target's, and the deep stillness was broken by
a little snubby, mottled, half-grown girl saying in a shrill voice of
triumph: "Then I'VE won! "
Mrs. Beighton did her best to bear up; but she wept in the presence of
the people. No training could help her through such a disappointment.
Kitty unstrung her bow with a vicious jerk, and went back to her place,
while Barr-Saggott was trying to pretend that he enjoyed snapping
the bracelet on the snubby girl's raw, red wrist. It was an awkward
scene--most awkward. Every one tried to depart in a body and leave Kitty
to the mercy of her Mamma.
But Cubbon took her away instead, and--the rest isn't worth printing.
HIS CHANCE IN LIFE.
Then a pile of heads be laid--
Thirty thousand heaped on high--
All to please the Kafir maid,
Where the Oxus ripples by.
Grimly spake Atulla Khan:--
"Love hath made this thing a Man. "
--Oatta's Story.
If you go straight away from Levees and Government House Lists, past
Trades' Balls--far beyond everything and everybody you ever knew in your
respectable life--you cross, in time, the Border line where the last
drop of White blood ends and the full tide of Black sets in. It would be
easier to talk to a new-made Duchess on the spur of the moment than
to the Borderline folk without violating some of their conventions or
hurting their feelings. The Black and the White mix very quaintly in
their ways. Sometimes the White shows in spurts of fierce, childish
pride--which is Pride of Race run crooked--and sometimes the Black
in still fiercer abasement and humility, half heathenish customs and
strange, unaccountable impulses to crime. One of these days, this
people--understand they are far lower than the class whence Derozio, the
man who imitated Byron, sprung--will turn out a writer or a poet; and
then we shall know how they live and what they feel. In the meantime,
any stories about them cannot be absolutely correct in fact or
inference.
Miss Vezzis came from across the Borderline to look after some children
who belonged to a lady until a regularly ordained nurse could come out.
The lady said Miss Vezzis was a bad, dirty nurse and inattentive. It
never struck her that Miss Vezzis had her own life to lead and her own
affairs to worry over, and that these affairs were the most important
things in the world to Miss Vezzis.
Very few mistresses admit this sort of reasoning. Miss Vezzis was as
black as a boot, and to our standard of taste, hideously ugly.
She wore cotton-print gowns and bulged shoes; and when she lost her
temper with the children, she abused them in the language of the
Borderline--which is part English, part Portuguese, and part Native.
She was not attractive; but she had her pride, and she preferred being
called "Miss Vezzis. "
Every Sunday she dressed herself wonderfully and went to see her
Mamma, who lived, for the most part, on an old cane chair in a greasy
tussur-silk dressing-gown and a big rabbit-warren of a house full of
Vezzises, Pereiras, Ribieras, Lisboas and Gansalveses, and a floating
population of loafers; besides fragments of the day's bazar, garlic,
stale incense, clothes thrown on the floor, petticoats hung on strings
for screens, old bottles, pewter crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah
puppies, plaster images of the Virgin, and hats without crowns. Miss
Vezzis drew twenty rupees a month for acting as nurse, and she
squabbled weekly with her Mamma as to the percentage to be given towards
housekeeping.
When the quarrel was over, Michele D'Cruze used to shamble across the
low mud wall of the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis after the
fashion of the Borderline, which is hedged about with much ceremony.
Michele was a poor, sickly weed and very black; but he had his pride.
He would not be seen smoking a huqa for anything; and he looked down on
natives as only a man with seven-eighths native blood in his veins can.
The Vezzis Family had their pride too. They traced their descent from
a mythical plate-layer who had worked on the Sone Bridge when railways
were new in India, and they valued their English origin. Michele was
a Telegraph Signaller on Rs. 35 a month. The fact that he was in
Government employ made Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the shortcomings of his
ancestors.
There was a compromising legend--Dom Anna the tailor brought it from
Poonani--that a black Jew of Cochin had once married into the D'Cruze
family; while it was an open secret that an uncle of Mrs. D'Cruze was at
that very time doing menial work, connected with cooking, for a Club in
Southern India! He sent Mrs D'Cruze seven rupees eight annas a month;
but she felt the disgrace to the family very keenly all the same.
However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. Vezzis brought herself
to overlook these blemishes and gave her consent to the marriage of her
daughter with Michele, on condition that Michele should have at least
fifty rupees a month to start married life upon. This wonderful prudence
must have been a lingering touch of the mythical plate-layer's Yorkshire
blood; for across the Borderline people take a pride in marrying when
they please--not when they can.
Having regard to his departmental prospects, Miss Vezzis might as well
have asked Michele to go away and come back with the Moon in his pocket.
But Michele was deeply in love with Miss Vezzis, and that helped him to
endure. He accompanied Miss Vezzis to Mass one Sunday, and after Mass,
walking home through the hot stale dust with her hand in his, he swore
by several Saints, whose names would not interest you, never to forget
Miss Vezzis; and she swore by her Honor and the Saints--the oath runs
rather curiously; "In nomine Sanctissimae--" (whatever the name of the
she-Saint is) and so forth, ending with a kiss on the forehead, a kiss
on the left cheek, and a kiss on the mouth--never to forget Michele.
Next week Michele was transferred, and Miss Vezzis dropped tears
upon the window-sash of the "Intermediate" compartment as he left the
Station.
If you look at the telegraph-map of India you will see a long line
skirting the coast from Backergunge to Madras. Michele was ordered to
Tibasu, a little Sub-office one-third down this line, to send messages
on from Berhampur to Chicacola, and to think of Miss Vezzis and his
chances of getting fifty rupees a month out of office hours. He had the
noise of the Bay of Bengal and a Bengali Babu for company; nothing more.
He sent foolish letters, with crosses tucked inside the flaps of the
envelopes, to Miss Vezzis.
When he had been at Tibasu for nearly three weeks his chance came.
Never forget that unless the outward and visible signs of Our
Authority are always before a native he is as incapable as a child of
understanding what authority means, or where is the danger of disobeying
it. Tibasu was a forgotten little place with a few Orissa Mohamedans
in it. These, hearing nothing of the Collector-Sahib for some time,
and heartily despising the Hindu Sub-Judge, arranged to start a little
Mohurrum riot of their own. But the Hindus turned out and broke their
heads; when, finding lawlessness pleasant, Hindus and Mahomedans
together raised an aimless sort of Donnybrook just to see how far they
could go. They looted each other's shops, and paid off private grudges
in the regular way. It was a nasty little riot, but not worth putting in
the newspapers.
Michele was working in his office when he heard the sound that a man
never forgets all his life--the "ah-yah" of an angry crowd.
[When that sound drops about three tones, and changes to a thick,
droning ut, the man who hears it had better go away if he is alone. ] The
Native Police Inspector ran in and told Michele that the town was in an
uproar and coming to wreck the Telegraph Office.
The Babu put on his cap and quietly dropped out of the window; while
the Police Inspector, afraid, but obeying the old race-instinct
which recognizes a drop of White blood as far as it can be diluted,
said:--"What orders does the Sahib give? "
The "Sahib" decided Michele. Though horribly frightened, he felt that,
for the hour, he, the man with the Cochin Jew and the menial uncle in
his pedigree, was the only representative of English authority in the
place. Then he thought of Miss Vezzis and the fifty rupees, and took the
situation on himself. There were seven native policemen in Tibasu, and
four crazy smooth-bore muskets among them. All the men were gray with
fear, but not beyond leading. Michele dropped the key of the telegraph
instrument, and went out, at the head of his army, to meet the mob. As
the shouting crew came round a corner of the road, he dropped and fired;
the men behind him loosing instinctively at the same time.
The whole crowd--curs to the backbone--yelled and ran; leaving one man
dead, and another dying in the road. Michele was sweating with fear, but
he kept his weakness under, and went down into the town, past the house
where the Sub-Judge had barricaded himself. The streets were empty.
Tibasu was more frightened than Michele, for the mob had been taken at
the right time.
Michele returned to the Telegraph-Office, and sent a message to
Chicacola asking for help. Before an answer came, he received a
deputation of the elders of Tibasu, telling him that the Sub-Judge said
his actions generally were "unconstitional," and trying to bully him.
But the heart of Michele D'Cruze was big and white in his breast,
because of his love for Miss Vezzis, the nurse-girl, and because he had
tasted for the first time Responsibility and Success. Those two make
an intoxicating drink, and have ruined more men than ever has Whiskey.
Michele answered that the Sub-Judge might say what he pleased, but,
until the Assistant Collector came, the Telegraph Signaller was the
Government of India in Tibasu, and the elders of the town would be held
accountable for further rioting. Then they bowed their heads and said:
"Show mercy! " or words to that effect, and went back in great fear; each
accusing the other of having begun the rioting.
Early in the dawn, after a night's patrol with his seven policemen,
Michele went down the road, musket in hand, to meet the Assistant
Collector, who had ridden in to quell Tibasu. But, in the presence of
this young Englishman, Michele felt himself slipping back more and more
into the native, and the tale of the Tibasu Riots ended, with the strain
on the teller, in an hysterical outburst of tears, bred by sorrow that
he had killed a man, shame that he could not feel as uplifted as he had
felt through the night, and childish anger that his tongue could not
do justice to his great deeds. It was the White drop in Michele's veins
dying out, though he did not know it.
But the Englishman understood; and, after he had schooled those men
of Tibasu, and had conferred with the Sub-Judge till that excellent
official turned green, he found time to draught an official letter
describing the conduct of Michele. Which letter filtered through the
Proper Channels, and ended in the transfer of Michele up-country once
more, on the Imperial salary of sixty-six rupees a month.
So he and Miss Vezzis were married with great state and ancientry; and
now there are several little D'Cruzes sprawling about the verandahs of
the Central Telegraph Office.
But, if the whole revenue of the Department he serves were to be his
reward Michele could never, never repeat what he did at Tibasu for the
sake of Miss Vezzis the nurse-girl.
Which proves that, when a man does good work out of all proportion to
his pay, in seven cases out of nine there is a woman at the back of the
virtue.
The two exceptions must have suffered from sunstroke.
WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.
What is in the Brahmin's books that is in the Brahmin's heart.
Neither you nor I knew there was so much evil in the world.
--Hindu Proverb.
This began in a practical joke; but it has gone far enough now, and is
getting serious.
Platte, the Subaltern, being poor, had a Waterbury watch and a plain
leather guard.
The Colonel had a Waterbury watch also, and for guard, the lip-strap of
a curb-chain. Lip-straps make the best watch guards.
They are strong and short. Between a lip-strap and an ordinary leather
guard there is no great difference; between one Waterbury watch
and another there is none at all. Every one in the station knew the
Colonel's lip-strap. He was not a horsey man, but he liked people to
believe he had been one once; and he wove fantastic stories of the
hunting-bridle to which this particular lip-strap had belonged.
Otherwise he was painfully religious.
Platte and the Colonel were dressing at the Club--both late for their
engagements, and both in a hurry. That was Kismet. The two watches
were on a shelf below the looking-glass--guards hanging down. That was
carelessness. Platte changed first, snatched a watch, looked in the
glass, settled his tie, and ran. Forty seconds later, the Colonel did
exactly the same thing; each man taking the other's watch.
You may have noticed that many religious people are deeply suspicious.
They seem--for purely religious purposes, of course--to know more about
iniquity than the Unregenerate. Perhaps they were specially bad before
they became converted! At any rate, in the imputation of things evil,
and in putting the worst construction on things innocent, a certain type
of good people may be trusted to surpass all others. The Colonel and
his Wife were of that type. But the Colonel's Wife was the worst. She
manufactured the Station scandal, and--TALKED TO HER AYAH! Nothing
more need be said. The Colonel's Wife broke up the Laplaces's home. The
Colonel's Wife stopped the Ferris-Haughtrey engagement. The Colonel's
Wife induced young Buxton to keep his wife down in the Plains through
the first year of the marriage. Whereby little Mrs.
Buxton died, and the baby with her. These things will be remembered
against the Colonel's Wife so long as there is a regiment in the
country.
But to come back to the Colonel and Platte. They went their several
ways from the dressing-room. The Colonel dined with two Chaplains, while
Platte went to a bachelor-party, and whist to follow.
Mark how things happen! If Platte's sais had put the new saddle-pad on
the mare, the butts of the terrets would not have worked through the
worn leather, and the old pad into the mare's withers, when she was
coming home at two o'clock in the morning. She would not have reared,
bolted, fallen into a ditch, upset the cart, and sent Platte flying over
an aloe-hedge on to Mrs. Larkyn's well-kept lawn; and this tale would
never have been written. But the mare did all these things, and while
Platte was rolling over and over on the turf, like a shot rabbit, the
watch and guard flew from his waistcoat--as an Infantry Major's sword
hops out of the scabbard when they are firing a feu de joie--and rolled
and rolled in the moonlight, till it stopped under a window.
Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put the cart straight,
and went home.
Mark again how Kismet works! This would not happen once in a hundred
years.
Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel
let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission
Reports. The bar of the watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, and
the watch--Platte's watch--slid quietly on to the carpet. Where the
bearer found it next morning and kept it.
Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his bosom; but the driver of
the carriage was drunk and lost his way. So the Colonel returned at an
unseemly hour and his excuses were not accepted. If the Colonel's Wife
had been an ordinary "vessel of wrath appointed for destruction," she
would have known that when a man stays away on purpose, his excuse
is always sound and original. The very baldness of the Colonel's
explanation proved its truth.
See once more the workings of Kismet! The Colonel's watch which came
with Platte hurriedly on to Mrs. Larkyn's lawn, chose to stop just under
Mrs. Larkyn's window, where she saw it early in the morning, recognized
it, and picked it up. She had heard the crash of Platte's cart at two
o'clock that morning, and his voice calling the mare names. She knew
Platte and liked him. That day she showed him the watch and heard his
story. He put his head on one side, winked and said:--"How disgusting!
Shocking old man! with his religious training, too! I should send the
watch to the Colonel's Wife and ask for explanations. "
Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the Laplaces--whom she had known
when Laplace and his wife believed in each other--and answered:--"I will
send it. I think it will do her good. But remember, we must NEVER tell
her the truth. "
Platte guessed that his own watch was in the Colonel's possession, and
thought that the return of the lip-strapped Waterbury with a soothing
note from Mrs. Larkyn, would merely create a small trouble for a few
minutes. Mrs. Larkyn knew better. She knew that any poison dropped would
find good holding-ground in the heart of the Colonel's Wife.
The packet, and a note containing a few remarks on the Colonel's
calling-hours, were sent over to the Colonel's Wife, who wept in her own
room and took counsel with herself.
If there was one woman under Heaven whom the Colonel's Wife hated with
holy fervor, it was Mrs. Larkyn. Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous lady,
and called the Colonel's Wife "old cat. " The Colonel's Wife said that
somebody in Revelations was remarkably like Mrs. Larkyn.
She mentioned other Scripture people as well. From the Old Testament.
[But the Colonel's Wife was the only person who cared or dared to say
anything against Mrs. Larkyn. Every one else accepted her as an amusing,
honest little body. ] Wherefore, to believe that her husband had been
shedding watches under that "Thing's" window at ungodly hours, coupled
with the fact of his late arrival on the previous night, was. . . . .
At this point she rose up and sought her husband. He denied everything
except the ownership of the watch. She besought him, for his Soul's
sake, to speak the truth. He denied afresh, with two bad words. Then a
stony silence held the Colonel's Wife, while a man could draw his breath
five times.
The speech that followed is no affair of mine or yours. It was made up
of wifely and womanly jealousy; knowledge of old age and sunken cheeks;
deep mistrust born of the text that says even little babies' hearts
are as bad as they make them; rancorous hatred of Mrs. Larkyn, and the
tenets of the creed of the Colonel's Wife's upbringing.
Over and above all, was the damning lip-strapped Waterbury, ticking away
in the palm of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, I think, the
Colonel's Wife realized a little of the restless suspicions she had
injected into old Laplace's mind, a little of poor Miss Haughtrey's
misery, and some of the canker that ate into Buxton's heart as he
watched his wife dying before his eyes. The Colonel stammered and tried
to explain. Then he remembered that his watch had disappeared; and the
mystery grew greater. The Colonel's Wife talked and prayed by turns
till she was tired, and went away to devise means for "chastening the
stubborn heart of her husband. " Which translated, means, in our slang,
"tail-twisting. "
You see, being deeply impressed with the doctrine of Original Sin, she
could not believe in the face of appearances. She knew too much, and
jumped to the wildest conclusions.
But it was good for her. It spoilt her life, as she had spoilt the life
of the Laplaces. She had lost her faith in the Colonel, and--here the
creed suspicion came in--he might, she argued, have erred many times,
before a merciful Providence, at the hands of so unworthy an instrument
as Mrs. Larkyn, had established his guilt.
He was a bad, wicked, gray-haired profligate. This may sound too sudden
a revulsion for a long-wedded wife; but it is a venerable fact that, if
a man or woman makes a practice of, and takes a delight in, believing
and spreading evil of people indifferent to him or her, he or she will
end in believing evil of folk very near and dear. You may think, also,
that the mere incident of the watch was too small and trivial to raise
this misunderstanding. It is another aged fact that, in life as well as
racing, all the worst accidents happen at little ditches and cut-down
fences. In the same way, you sometimes see a woman who would have made a
Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces
over all the mean worry of housekeeping. But that is another story.
Her belief only made the Colonel's Wife more wretched, because it
insisted so strongly on the villainy of men. Remembering what she had
done, it was pleasant to watch her unhappiness, and the penny-farthing
attempts she made to hide it from the Station. But the Station knew and
laughed heartlessly; for they had heard the story of the watch, with
much dramatic gesture, from Mrs. Larkyn's lips.
Once or twice Platte said to Mrs. Larkyn, seeing that the Colonel had
not cleared himself:--"This thing has gone far enough. I move we tell
the Colonel's Wife how it happened. " Mrs. Larkyn shut her lips and shook
her head, and vowed that the Colonel's Wife must bear her punishment
as best she could. Now Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous woman, in whom none
would have suspected deep hate. So Platte took no action, and came to
believe gradually, from the Colonel's silence, that the Colonel must
have "run off the line" somewhere that night, and, therefore, preferred
to stand sentence on the lesser count of rambling into other people's
compounds out of calling hours. Platte forgot about the watch business
after a while, and moved down-country with his regiment. Mrs. Larkyn
went home when her husband's tour of Indian service expired. She never
forgot.
But Platte was quite right when he said that the joke had gone too far.
The mistrust and the tragedy of it--which we outsiders cannot see and
do not believe in--are killing the Colonel's Wife, and are making the
Colonel wretched. If either of them read this story, they can depend
upon its being a fairly true account of the case, and can "kiss and make
friends. "
Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of watching an Engineer being
shelled by his own Battery. Now this shows that poets should not write
about what they do not understand. Any one could have told him that
Sappers and Gunners are perfectly different branches of the Service.
But, if you correct the sentence, and substitute Gunner for Sapper, the
moral comes just the same.
THE OTHER MAN.
When the earth was sick and the skies were gray,
And the woods were rotted with rain,
The Dead Man rode through the autumn day
To visit his love again.
--Old Ballad.
Far back in the "seventies," before they had built any Public Offices at
Simla, and the broad road round Jakko lived in a pigeon-hole in the P.
W. D. hovels, her parents made Miss Gaurey marry Colonel Schreiderling.
He could not have been MUCH more than thirty-five years her senior; and,
as he lived on two hundred rupees a month and had money of his own,
he was well off. He belonged to good people, and suffered in the cold
weather from lung complaints. In the hot weather he dangled on the brink
of heat-apoplexy; but it never quite killed him.
Understand, I do not blame Schreiderling. He was a good husband
according to his lights, and his temper only failed him when he was
being nursed. Which was some seventeen days in each month. He was almost
generous to his wife about money matters, and that, for him, was a
concession. Still Mrs. Schreiderling was not happy. They married her
when she was this side of twenty and had given all her poor little heart
to another man. I have forgotten his name, but we will call him the
Other Man. He had no money and no prospects.
He was not even good-looking; and I think he was in the Commissariat or
Transport. But, in spite of all these things, she loved him very
madly; and there was some sort of an engagement between the two when
Schreiderling appeared and told Mrs. Gaurey that he wished to marry her
daughter. Then the other engagement was broken off--washed away by
Mrs. Gaurey's tears, for that lady governed her house by weeping over
disobedience to her authority and the lack of reverence she received
in her old age. The daughter did not take after her mother. She never
cried. Not even at the wedding.
The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was transferred to as bad a
station as he could find. Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suffered
from intermittent fever, and that may have distracted him from his other
trouble. He was weak about the heart also. Both ways. One of the valves
was affected, and the fever made it worse.
This showed itself later on.
Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schreiderling took to being ill.
She did not pine away like people in story books, but she seemed to pick
up every form of illness that went about a station, from simple fever
upwards. She was never more than ordinarily pretty at the best of times;
and the illness made her ugly. Schreiderling said so. He prided himself
on speaking his mind.
When she ceased being pretty, he left her to her own devices, and went
back to the lairs of his bachelordom. She used to trot up and down Simla
Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well on the back of
her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her.
Schreiderling's generosity stopped at the horse. He said that any saddle
would do for a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling. She never was
asked to dance, because she did not dance well; and she was so dull
and uninteresting, that her box very seldom had any cards in it.
Schreiderling said that if he had known that she was going to be such
a scare-crow after her marriage, he would never have married her. He
always prided himself on speaking his mind, did Schreiderling!
He left her at Simla one August, and went down to his regiment.
Then she revived a little, but she never recovered her looks. I found
out at the Club that the Other Man is coming up sick--very sick--on an
off chance of recovery. The fever and the heart-valves had nearly
killed him. She knew that, too, and she knew--what I had no interest in
knowing--when he was coming up. I suppose he wrote to tell her. They had
not seen each other since a month before the wedding. And here comes the
unpleasant part of the story.
A late call kept me down at the Dovedell Hotel till dusk one evening.
Mrs. Schreidlerling had been flitting up and down the Mall all the
afternoon in the rain. Coming up along the Cart-road, a tonga passed me,
and my pony, tired with standing so long, set off at a canter. Just by
the road down to the Tonga Office Mrs. Schreiderling, dripping from head
to foot, was waiting for the tonga. I turned up-hill, as the tonga was
no affair of mine; and just then she began to shriek. I went back at
once and saw, under the Tonga Office lamps, Mrs. Schreiderling kneeling
in the wet road by the back seat of the newly-arrived tonga, screaming
hideously.
Then she fell face down in the dirt as I came up.
Sitting in the back seat, very square and firm, with one hand on the
awning-stanchion and the wet pouring off his hat and moustache, was the
Other Man--dead. The sixty-mile up-hill jolt had been too much for his
valve, I suppose. The tonga-driver said:--"The Sahib died two stages out
of Solon. Therefore, I tied him with a rope, lest he should fall out
by the way, and so came to Simla. Will the Sahib give me bukshish? IT,"
pointing to the Other Man, "should have given one rupee. "
The Other Man sat with a grin on his face, as if he enjoyed the joke of
his arrival; and Mrs. Schreiderling, in the mud, began to groan. There
was no one except us four in the office and it was raining heavily. The
first thing was to take Mrs. Schreiderling home, and the second was to
prevent her name from being mixed up with the affair. The tonga-driver
received five rupees to find a bazar 'rickshaw for Mrs. Schreiderling.
He was to tell the tonga Babu afterwards of the Other Man, and the Babu
was to make such arrangements as seemed best.
Mrs. Schreiderling was carried into the shed out of the rain, and for
three-quarters of an hour we two waited for the 'rickshaw. The Other
Man was left exactly as he had arrived. Mrs. Schreiderling would do
everything but cry, which might have helped her. She tried to scream as
soon as her senses came back, and then she began praying for the Other
Man's soul. Had she not been as honest as the day, she would have prayed
for her own soul too. I waited to hear her do this, but she did not.
Then I tried to get some of the mud off her habit. Lastly, the 'rickshaw
came, and I got her away--partly by force. It was a terrible business
from beginning to end; but most of all when the 'rickshaw had to squeeze
between the wall and the tonga, and she saw by the lamp-light that thin,
yellow hand grasping the awning-stanchion.
She was taken home just as every one was going to a dance at Viceregal
Lodge--"Peterhoff" it was then--and the doctor found that she had fallen
from her horse, that I had picked her up at the back of Jakko, and
really deserved great credit for the prompt manner in which I had
secured medical aid. She did not die--men of Schreiderling's stamp marry
women who don't die easily. They live and grow ugly.
She never told of her one meeting, since her marriage, with the Other
Man; and, when the chill and cough following the exposure of that
evening, allowed her abroad, she never by word or sign alluded to having
met me by the Tonga Office. Perhaps she never knew.
She used to trot up and down the Mall, on that shocking bad saddle,
looking as if she expected to meet some one round the corner every
minute. Two years afterward, she went Home, and died--at Bournemouth, I
think.
Schreiderling, when he grew maudlin at Mess, used to talk about "my
poor dear wife. " He always set great store on speaking his mind, did
Schreiderling!
CONSEQUENCES.
Rosicrucian subtleties
In the Orient had rise;
Ye may find their teachers still
Under Jacatala's Hill.
Seek ye Bombast Paracelsus,
Read what Flood the Seeker tells us
Of the Dominant that runs
Through the cycles of the Suns--
Read my story last and see
Luna at her apogee.
There are yearly appointments, and two-yearly appointments, and
five-yearly appointments at Simla, and there are, or used to be,
permanent appointments, whereon you stayed up for the term of your
natural life and secured red cheeks and a nice income. Of course, you
could descend in the cold weather; for Simla is rather dull then.
Tarrion came from goodness knows where--all away and away in some
forsaken part of Central India, where they call Pachmari a "Sanitarium,"
and drive behind trotting bullocks, I believe. He belonged to a
regiment; but what he really wanted to do was to escape from his
regiment and live in Simla forever and ever. He had no preference for
anything in particular, beyond a good horse and a nice partner.
the years before lawn-tennis was born when we all played croquet. There
were seasons before that, if you will believe me, when even croquet
had not been invented, and archery--which was revived in England in
1844--was as great a pest as lawn-tennis is now. People talked learnedly
about "holding" and "loosing," "steles," "reflexed bows," "56-pound
bows," "backed" or "self-yew bows," as we talk about "rallies,"
"volleys," "smashes," "returns," and "16-ounce rackets. "
Miss Beighton shot divinely over ladies' distance--60 yards, that
is--and was acknowledged the best lady archer in Simla. Men called her
"Diana of Tara-Devi. "
Barr-Saggott paid her great attention; and, as I have said, the heart of
her mother was uplifted in consequence. Kitty Beighton took matters more
calmly. It was pleasant to be singled out by a Commissioner with letters
after his name, and to fill the hearts of other girls with bad feelings.
But there was no denying the fact that Barr-Saggott was phenomenally
ugly; and all his attempts to adorn himself only made him more
grotesque. He was not christened "The Langur"--which means gray ape--for
nothing. It was pleasant, Kitty thought, to have him at her feet, but
it was better to escape from him and ride with the graceless Cubbon--the
man in a Dragoon Regiment at Umballa--the boy with a handsome face, and
no prospects. Kitty liked Cubbon more than a little. He never pretended
for a moment the he was anything less than head over heels in love with
her; for he was an honest boy. So Kitty fled, now and again, from the
stately wooings of Barr-Saggott to the company of young Cubbon, and
was scolded by her Mamma in consequence. "But, Mother," she said, "Mr.
Saggott is such--such a--is so FEARFULLY ugly, you know! "
"My dear," said Mrs. Beighton, piously, "we cannot be other than an
all-ruling Providence has made us. Besides, you will take precedence of
your own Mother, you know! Think of that and be reasonable. "
Then Kitty put up her little chin and said irreverent things about
precedence, and Commissioners, and matrimony. Mr. Beighton rubbed the
top of his head; for he was an easy-going man.
Late in the season, when he judged that the time was ripe, Barr-Saggott
developed a plan which did great credit to his administrative powers.
He arranged an archery tournament for ladies, with a most sumptuous
diamond-studded bracelet as prize.
He drew up his terms skilfully, and every one saw that the bracelet was
a gift to Miss Beighton; the acceptance carrying with it the hand and
the heart of Commissioner Barr-Saggott. The terms were a St. Leonard's
Round--thirty-six shots at sixty yards--under the rules of the Simla
Toxophilite Society.
All Simla was invited. There were beautifully arranged tea-tables under
the deodars at Annandale, where the Grand Stand is now; and, alone in
its glory, winking in the sun, sat the diamond bracelet in a blue velvet
case. Miss Beighton was anxious--almost too anxious to compete. On the
appointed afternoon, all Simla rode down to Annandale to witness the
Judgment of Paris turned upside down.
Kitty rode with young Cubbon, and it was easy to see that the boy
was troubled in his mind. He must be held innocent of everything that
followed. Kitty was pale and nervous, and looked long at the bracelet.
Barr-Saggott was gorgeously dressed, even more nervous than Kitty, and
more hideous than ever.
Mrs. Beighton smiled condescendingly, as befitted the mother of a
potential Commissioneress, and the shooting began; all the world
standing in a semicircle as the ladies came out one after the other.
Nothing is so tedious as an archery competition. They shot, and they
shot, and they kept on shooting, till the sun left the valley, and
little breezes got up in the deodars, and people waited for Miss
Beighton to shoot and win. Cubbon was at one horn of the semicircle
round the shooters, and Barr-Saggott at the other. Miss Beighton was
last on the list. The scoring had been weak, and the bracelet, PLUS
Commissioner Barr-Saggott, was hers to a certainty.
The Commissioner strung her bow with his own sacred hands. She stepped
forward, looked at the bracelet, and her first arrow went true to a
hair--full into the heart of the "gold"--counting nine points.
Young Cubbon on the left turned white, and his Devil prompted
Barr-Saggott to smile. Now horses used to shy when Barr-Saggott smiled.
Kitty saw that smile. She looked to her left-front, gave an almost
imperceptible nod to Cubbon, and went on shooting.
I wish I could describe the scene that followed. It was out of the
ordinary and most improper. Miss Kitty fitted her arrows with immense
deliberation, so that every one might see what she was doing. She was
a perfect shot; and her 46-pound bow suited her to a nicety. She pinned
the wooden legs of the target with great care four successive times. She
pinned the wooden top of the target once, and all the ladies looked at
each other. Then she began some fancy shooting at the white, which,
if you hit it, counts exactly one point. She put five arrows into the
white. It was wonderful archery; but, seeing that her business was to
make "golds" and win the bracelet, Barr-Saggott turned a delicate green
like young water-grass. Next, she shot over the target twice, then wide
to the left twice--always with the same deliberation--while a chilly
hush fell over the company, and Mrs. Beighton took out her handkerchief.
Then Kitty shot at the ground in front of the target, and split several
arrows. Then she made a red--or seven points--just to show what she
could do if she liked, and finished up her amazing performance with some
more fancy shooting at the target-supports. Here is her score as it was
picked off:--
Gold. Red. Blue. Black. White. Total Hits. Total Score Miss Beighton
1 1 0 0 5 7 21
Barr-Saggott looked as if the last few arrowheads had been driven into
his legs instead of the target's, and the deep stillness was broken by
a little snubby, mottled, half-grown girl saying in a shrill voice of
triumph: "Then I'VE won! "
Mrs. Beighton did her best to bear up; but she wept in the presence of
the people. No training could help her through such a disappointment.
Kitty unstrung her bow with a vicious jerk, and went back to her place,
while Barr-Saggott was trying to pretend that he enjoyed snapping
the bracelet on the snubby girl's raw, red wrist. It was an awkward
scene--most awkward. Every one tried to depart in a body and leave Kitty
to the mercy of her Mamma.
But Cubbon took her away instead, and--the rest isn't worth printing.
HIS CHANCE IN LIFE.
Then a pile of heads be laid--
Thirty thousand heaped on high--
All to please the Kafir maid,
Where the Oxus ripples by.
Grimly spake Atulla Khan:--
"Love hath made this thing a Man. "
--Oatta's Story.
If you go straight away from Levees and Government House Lists, past
Trades' Balls--far beyond everything and everybody you ever knew in your
respectable life--you cross, in time, the Border line where the last
drop of White blood ends and the full tide of Black sets in. It would be
easier to talk to a new-made Duchess on the spur of the moment than
to the Borderline folk without violating some of their conventions or
hurting their feelings. The Black and the White mix very quaintly in
their ways. Sometimes the White shows in spurts of fierce, childish
pride--which is Pride of Race run crooked--and sometimes the Black
in still fiercer abasement and humility, half heathenish customs and
strange, unaccountable impulses to crime. One of these days, this
people--understand they are far lower than the class whence Derozio, the
man who imitated Byron, sprung--will turn out a writer or a poet; and
then we shall know how they live and what they feel. In the meantime,
any stories about them cannot be absolutely correct in fact or
inference.
Miss Vezzis came from across the Borderline to look after some children
who belonged to a lady until a regularly ordained nurse could come out.
The lady said Miss Vezzis was a bad, dirty nurse and inattentive. It
never struck her that Miss Vezzis had her own life to lead and her own
affairs to worry over, and that these affairs were the most important
things in the world to Miss Vezzis.
Very few mistresses admit this sort of reasoning. Miss Vezzis was as
black as a boot, and to our standard of taste, hideously ugly.
She wore cotton-print gowns and bulged shoes; and when she lost her
temper with the children, she abused them in the language of the
Borderline--which is part English, part Portuguese, and part Native.
She was not attractive; but she had her pride, and she preferred being
called "Miss Vezzis. "
Every Sunday she dressed herself wonderfully and went to see her
Mamma, who lived, for the most part, on an old cane chair in a greasy
tussur-silk dressing-gown and a big rabbit-warren of a house full of
Vezzises, Pereiras, Ribieras, Lisboas and Gansalveses, and a floating
population of loafers; besides fragments of the day's bazar, garlic,
stale incense, clothes thrown on the floor, petticoats hung on strings
for screens, old bottles, pewter crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah
puppies, plaster images of the Virgin, and hats without crowns. Miss
Vezzis drew twenty rupees a month for acting as nurse, and she
squabbled weekly with her Mamma as to the percentage to be given towards
housekeeping.
When the quarrel was over, Michele D'Cruze used to shamble across the
low mud wall of the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis after the
fashion of the Borderline, which is hedged about with much ceremony.
Michele was a poor, sickly weed and very black; but he had his pride.
He would not be seen smoking a huqa for anything; and he looked down on
natives as only a man with seven-eighths native blood in his veins can.
The Vezzis Family had their pride too. They traced their descent from
a mythical plate-layer who had worked on the Sone Bridge when railways
were new in India, and they valued their English origin. Michele was
a Telegraph Signaller on Rs. 35 a month. The fact that he was in
Government employ made Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the shortcomings of his
ancestors.
There was a compromising legend--Dom Anna the tailor brought it from
Poonani--that a black Jew of Cochin had once married into the D'Cruze
family; while it was an open secret that an uncle of Mrs. D'Cruze was at
that very time doing menial work, connected with cooking, for a Club in
Southern India! He sent Mrs D'Cruze seven rupees eight annas a month;
but she felt the disgrace to the family very keenly all the same.
However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. Vezzis brought herself
to overlook these blemishes and gave her consent to the marriage of her
daughter with Michele, on condition that Michele should have at least
fifty rupees a month to start married life upon. This wonderful prudence
must have been a lingering touch of the mythical plate-layer's Yorkshire
blood; for across the Borderline people take a pride in marrying when
they please--not when they can.
Having regard to his departmental prospects, Miss Vezzis might as well
have asked Michele to go away and come back with the Moon in his pocket.
But Michele was deeply in love with Miss Vezzis, and that helped him to
endure. He accompanied Miss Vezzis to Mass one Sunday, and after Mass,
walking home through the hot stale dust with her hand in his, he swore
by several Saints, whose names would not interest you, never to forget
Miss Vezzis; and she swore by her Honor and the Saints--the oath runs
rather curiously; "In nomine Sanctissimae--" (whatever the name of the
she-Saint is) and so forth, ending with a kiss on the forehead, a kiss
on the left cheek, and a kiss on the mouth--never to forget Michele.
Next week Michele was transferred, and Miss Vezzis dropped tears
upon the window-sash of the "Intermediate" compartment as he left the
Station.
If you look at the telegraph-map of India you will see a long line
skirting the coast from Backergunge to Madras. Michele was ordered to
Tibasu, a little Sub-office one-third down this line, to send messages
on from Berhampur to Chicacola, and to think of Miss Vezzis and his
chances of getting fifty rupees a month out of office hours. He had the
noise of the Bay of Bengal and a Bengali Babu for company; nothing more.
He sent foolish letters, with crosses tucked inside the flaps of the
envelopes, to Miss Vezzis.
When he had been at Tibasu for nearly three weeks his chance came.
Never forget that unless the outward and visible signs of Our
Authority are always before a native he is as incapable as a child of
understanding what authority means, or where is the danger of disobeying
it. Tibasu was a forgotten little place with a few Orissa Mohamedans
in it. These, hearing nothing of the Collector-Sahib for some time,
and heartily despising the Hindu Sub-Judge, arranged to start a little
Mohurrum riot of their own. But the Hindus turned out and broke their
heads; when, finding lawlessness pleasant, Hindus and Mahomedans
together raised an aimless sort of Donnybrook just to see how far they
could go. They looted each other's shops, and paid off private grudges
in the regular way. It was a nasty little riot, but not worth putting in
the newspapers.
Michele was working in his office when he heard the sound that a man
never forgets all his life--the "ah-yah" of an angry crowd.
[When that sound drops about three tones, and changes to a thick,
droning ut, the man who hears it had better go away if he is alone. ] The
Native Police Inspector ran in and told Michele that the town was in an
uproar and coming to wreck the Telegraph Office.
The Babu put on his cap and quietly dropped out of the window; while
the Police Inspector, afraid, but obeying the old race-instinct
which recognizes a drop of White blood as far as it can be diluted,
said:--"What orders does the Sahib give? "
The "Sahib" decided Michele. Though horribly frightened, he felt that,
for the hour, he, the man with the Cochin Jew and the menial uncle in
his pedigree, was the only representative of English authority in the
place. Then he thought of Miss Vezzis and the fifty rupees, and took the
situation on himself. There were seven native policemen in Tibasu, and
four crazy smooth-bore muskets among them. All the men were gray with
fear, but not beyond leading. Michele dropped the key of the telegraph
instrument, and went out, at the head of his army, to meet the mob. As
the shouting crew came round a corner of the road, he dropped and fired;
the men behind him loosing instinctively at the same time.
The whole crowd--curs to the backbone--yelled and ran; leaving one man
dead, and another dying in the road. Michele was sweating with fear, but
he kept his weakness under, and went down into the town, past the house
where the Sub-Judge had barricaded himself. The streets were empty.
Tibasu was more frightened than Michele, for the mob had been taken at
the right time.
Michele returned to the Telegraph-Office, and sent a message to
Chicacola asking for help. Before an answer came, he received a
deputation of the elders of Tibasu, telling him that the Sub-Judge said
his actions generally were "unconstitional," and trying to bully him.
But the heart of Michele D'Cruze was big and white in his breast,
because of his love for Miss Vezzis, the nurse-girl, and because he had
tasted for the first time Responsibility and Success. Those two make
an intoxicating drink, and have ruined more men than ever has Whiskey.
Michele answered that the Sub-Judge might say what he pleased, but,
until the Assistant Collector came, the Telegraph Signaller was the
Government of India in Tibasu, and the elders of the town would be held
accountable for further rioting. Then they bowed their heads and said:
"Show mercy! " or words to that effect, and went back in great fear; each
accusing the other of having begun the rioting.
Early in the dawn, after a night's patrol with his seven policemen,
Michele went down the road, musket in hand, to meet the Assistant
Collector, who had ridden in to quell Tibasu. But, in the presence of
this young Englishman, Michele felt himself slipping back more and more
into the native, and the tale of the Tibasu Riots ended, with the strain
on the teller, in an hysterical outburst of tears, bred by sorrow that
he had killed a man, shame that he could not feel as uplifted as he had
felt through the night, and childish anger that his tongue could not
do justice to his great deeds. It was the White drop in Michele's veins
dying out, though he did not know it.
But the Englishman understood; and, after he had schooled those men
of Tibasu, and had conferred with the Sub-Judge till that excellent
official turned green, he found time to draught an official letter
describing the conduct of Michele. Which letter filtered through the
Proper Channels, and ended in the transfer of Michele up-country once
more, on the Imperial salary of sixty-six rupees a month.
So he and Miss Vezzis were married with great state and ancientry; and
now there are several little D'Cruzes sprawling about the verandahs of
the Central Telegraph Office.
But, if the whole revenue of the Department he serves were to be his
reward Michele could never, never repeat what he did at Tibasu for the
sake of Miss Vezzis the nurse-girl.
Which proves that, when a man does good work out of all proportion to
his pay, in seven cases out of nine there is a woman at the back of the
virtue.
The two exceptions must have suffered from sunstroke.
WATCHES OF THE NIGHT.
What is in the Brahmin's books that is in the Brahmin's heart.
Neither you nor I knew there was so much evil in the world.
--Hindu Proverb.
This began in a practical joke; but it has gone far enough now, and is
getting serious.
Platte, the Subaltern, being poor, had a Waterbury watch and a plain
leather guard.
The Colonel had a Waterbury watch also, and for guard, the lip-strap of
a curb-chain. Lip-straps make the best watch guards.
They are strong and short. Between a lip-strap and an ordinary leather
guard there is no great difference; between one Waterbury watch
and another there is none at all. Every one in the station knew the
Colonel's lip-strap. He was not a horsey man, but he liked people to
believe he had been one once; and he wove fantastic stories of the
hunting-bridle to which this particular lip-strap had belonged.
Otherwise he was painfully religious.
Platte and the Colonel were dressing at the Club--both late for their
engagements, and both in a hurry. That was Kismet. The two watches
were on a shelf below the looking-glass--guards hanging down. That was
carelessness. Platte changed first, snatched a watch, looked in the
glass, settled his tie, and ran. Forty seconds later, the Colonel did
exactly the same thing; each man taking the other's watch.
You may have noticed that many religious people are deeply suspicious.
They seem--for purely religious purposes, of course--to know more about
iniquity than the Unregenerate. Perhaps they were specially bad before
they became converted! At any rate, in the imputation of things evil,
and in putting the worst construction on things innocent, a certain type
of good people may be trusted to surpass all others. The Colonel and
his Wife were of that type. But the Colonel's Wife was the worst. She
manufactured the Station scandal, and--TALKED TO HER AYAH! Nothing
more need be said. The Colonel's Wife broke up the Laplaces's home. The
Colonel's Wife stopped the Ferris-Haughtrey engagement. The Colonel's
Wife induced young Buxton to keep his wife down in the Plains through
the first year of the marriage. Whereby little Mrs.
Buxton died, and the baby with her. These things will be remembered
against the Colonel's Wife so long as there is a regiment in the
country.
But to come back to the Colonel and Platte. They went their several
ways from the dressing-room. The Colonel dined with two Chaplains, while
Platte went to a bachelor-party, and whist to follow.
Mark how things happen! If Platte's sais had put the new saddle-pad on
the mare, the butts of the terrets would not have worked through the
worn leather, and the old pad into the mare's withers, when she was
coming home at two o'clock in the morning. She would not have reared,
bolted, fallen into a ditch, upset the cart, and sent Platte flying over
an aloe-hedge on to Mrs. Larkyn's well-kept lawn; and this tale would
never have been written. But the mare did all these things, and while
Platte was rolling over and over on the turf, like a shot rabbit, the
watch and guard flew from his waistcoat--as an Infantry Major's sword
hops out of the scabbard when they are firing a feu de joie--and rolled
and rolled in the moonlight, till it stopped under a window.
Platte stuffed his handkerchief under the pad, put the cart straight,
and went home.
Mark again how Kismet works! This would not happen once in a hundred
years.
Towards the end of his dinner with the two Chaplains, the Colonel
let out his waistcoat and leaned over the table to look at some Mission
Reports. The bar of the watch-guard worked through the buttonhole, and
the watch--Platte's watch--slid quietly on to the carpet. Where the
bearer found it next morning and kept it.
Then the Colonel went home to the wife of his bosom; but the driver of
the carriage was drunk and lost his way. So the Colonel returned at an
unseemly hour and his excuses were not accepted. If the Colonel's Wife
had been an ordinary "vessel of wrath appointed for destruction," she
would have known that when a man stays away on purpose, his excuse
is always sound and original. The very baldness of the Colonel's
explanation proved its truth.
See once more the workings of Kismet! The Colonel's watch which came
with Platte hurriedly on to Mrs. Larkyn's lawn, chose to stop just under
Mrs. Larkyn's window, where she saw it early in the morning, recognized
it, and picked it up. She had heard the crash of Platte's cart at two
o'clock that morning, and his voice calling the mare names. She knew
Platte and liked him. That day she showed him the watch and heard his
story. He put his head on one side, winked and said:--"How disgusting!
Shocking old man! with his religious training, too! I should send the
watch to the Colonel's Wife and ask for explanations. "
Mrs. Larkyn thought for a minute of the Laplaces--whom she had known
when Laplace and his wife believed in each other--and answered:--"I will
send it. I think it will do her good. But remember, we must NEVER tell
her the truth. "
Platte guessed that his own watch was in the Colonel's possession, and
thought that the return of the lip-strapped Waterbury with a soothing
note from Mrs. Larkyn, would merely create a small trouble for a few
minutes. Mrs. Larkyn knew better. She knew that any poison dropped would
find good holding-ground in the heart of the Colonel's Wife.
The packet, and a note containing a few remarks on the Colonel's
calling-hours, were sent over to the Colonel's Wife, who wept in her own
room and took counsel with herself.
If there was one woman under Heaven whom the Colonel's Wife hated with
holy fervor, it was Mrs. Larkyn. Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous lady,
and called the Colonel's Wife "old cat. " The Colonel's Wife said that
somebody in Revelations was remarkably like Mrs. Larkyn.
She mentioned other Scripture people as well. From the Old Testament.
[But the Colonel's Wife was the only person who cared or dared to say
anything against Mrs. Larkyn. Every one else accepted her as an amusing,
honest little body. ] Wherefore, to believe that her husband had been
shedding watches under that "Thing's" window at ungodly hours, coupled
with the fact of his late arrival on the previous night, was. . . . .
At this point she rose up and sought her husband. He denied everything
except the ownership of the watch. She besought him, for his Soul's
sake, to speak the truth. He denied afresh, with two bad words. Then a
stony silence held the Colonel's Wife, while a man could draw his breath
five times.
The speech that followed is no affair of mine or yours. It was made up
of wifely and womanly jealousy; knowledge of old age and sunken cheeks;
deep mistrust born of the text that says even little babies' hearts
are as bad as they make them; rancorous hatred of Mrs. Larkyn, and the
tenets of the creed of the Colonel's Wife's upbringing.
Over and above all, was the damning lip-strapped Waterbury, ticking away
in the palm of her shaking, withered hand. At that hour, I think, the
Colonel's Wife realized a little of the restless suspicions she had
injected into old Laplace's mind, a little of poor Miss Haughtrey's
misery, and some of the canker that ate into Buxton's heart as he
watched his wife dying before his eyes. The Colonel stammered and tried
to explain. Then he remembered that his watch had disappeared; and the
mystery grew greater. The Colonel's Wife talked and prayed by turns
till she was tired, and went away to devise means for "chastening the
stubborn heart of her husband. " Which translated, means, in our slang,
"tail-twisting. "
You see, being deeply impressed with the doctrine of Original Sin, she
could not believe in the face of appearances. She knew too much, and
jumped to the wildest conclusions.
But it was good for her. It spoilt her life, as she had spoilt the life
of the Laplaces. She had lost her faith in the Colonel, and--here the
creed suspicion came in--he might, she argued, have erred many times,
before a merciful Providence, at the hands of so unworthy an instrument
as Mrs. Larkyn, had established his guilt.
He was a bad, wicked, gray-haired profligate. This may sound too sudden
a revulsion for a long-wedded wife; but it is a venerable fact that, if
a man or woman makes a practice of, and takes a delight in, believing
and spreading evil of people indifferent to him or her, he or she will
end in believing evil of folk very near and dear. You may think, also,
that the mere incident of the watch was too small and trivial to raise
this misunderstanding. It is another aged fact that, in life as well as
racing, all the worst accidents happen at little ditches and cut-down
fences. In the same way, you sometimes see a woman who would have made a
Joan of Arc in another century and climate, threshing herself to pieces
over all the mean worry of housekeeping. But that is another story.
Her belief only made the Colonel's Wife more wretched, because it
insisted so strongly on the villainy of men. Remembering what she had
done, it was pleasant to watch her unhappiness, and the penny-farthing
attempts she made to hide it from the Station. But the Station knew and
laughed heartlessly; for they had heard the story of the watch, with
much dramatic gesture, from Mrs. Larkyn's lips.
Once or twice Platte said to Mrs. Larkyn, seeing that the Colonel had
not cleared himself:--"This thing has gone far enough. I move we tell
the Colonel's Wife how it happened. " Mrs. Larkyn shut her lips and shook
her head, and vowed that the Colonel's Wife must bear her punishment
as best she could. Now Mrs. Larkyn was a frivolous woman, in whom none
would have suspected deep hate. So Platte took no action, and came to
believe gradually, from the Colonel's silence, that the Colonel must
have "run off the line" somewhere that night, and, therefore, preferred
to stand sentence on the lesser count of rambling into other people's
compounds out of calling hours. Platte forgot about the watch business
after a while, and moved down-country with his regiment. Mrs. Larkyn
went home when her husband's tour of Indian service expired. She never
forgot.
But Platte was quite right when he said that the joke had gone too far.
The mistrust and the tragedy of it--which we outsiders cannot see and
do not believe in--are killing the Colonel's Wife, and are making the
Colonel wretched. If either of them read this story, they can depend
upon its being a fairly true account of the case, and can "kiss and make
friends. "
Shakespeare alludes to the pleasure of watching an Engineer being
shelled by his own Battery. Now this shows that poets should not write
about what they do not understand. Any one could have told him that
Sappers and Gunners are perfectly different branches of the Service.
But, if you correct the sentence, and substitute Gunner for Sapper, the
moral comes just the same.
THE OTHER MAN.
When the earth was sick and the skies were gray,
And the woods were rotted with rain,
The Dead Man rode through the autumn day
To visit his love again.
--Old Ballad.
Far back in the "seventies," before they had built any Public Offices at
Simla, and the broad road round Jakko lived in a pigeon-hole in the P.
W. D. hovels, her parents made Miss Gaurey marry Colonel Schreiderling.
He could not have been MUCH more than thirty-five years her senior; and,
as he lived on two hundred rupees a month and had money of his own,
he was well off. He belonged to good people, and suffered in the cold
weather from lung complaints. In the hot weather he dangled on the brink
of heat-apoplexy; but it never quite killed him.
Understand, I do not blame Schreiderling. He was a good husband
according to his lights, and his temper only failed him when he was
being nursed. Which was some seventeen days in each month. He was almost
generous to his wife about money matters, and that, for him, was a
concession. Still Mrs. Schreiderling was not happy. They married her
when she was this side of twenty and had given all her poor little heart
to another man. I have forgotten his name, but we will call him the
Other Man. He had no money and no prospects.
He was not even good-looking; and I think he was in the Commissariat or
Transport. But, in spite of all these things, she loved him very
madly; and there was some sort of an engagement between the two when
Schreiderling appeared and told Mrs. Gaurey that he wished to marry her
daughter. Then the other engagement was broken off--washed away by
Mrs. Gaurey's tears, for that lady governed her house by weeping over
disobedience to her authority and the lack of reverence she received
in her old age. The daughter did not take after her mother. She never
cried. Not even at the wedding.
The Other Man bore his loss quietly, and was transferred to as bad a
station as he could find. Perhaps the climate consoled him. He suffered
from intermittent fever, and that may have distracted him from his other
trouble. He was weak about the heart also. Both ways. One of the valves
was affected, and the fever made it worse.
This showed itself later on.
Then many months passed, and Mrs. Schreiderling took to being ill.
She did not pine away like people in story books, but she seemed to pick
up every form of illness that went about a station, from simple fever
upwards. She was never more than ordinarily pretty at the best of times;
and the illness made her ugly. Schreiderling said so. He prided himself
on speaking his mind.
When she ceased being pretty, he left her to her own devices, and went
back to the lairs of his bachelordom. She used to trot up and down Simla
Mall in a forlorn sort of way, with a gray Terai hat well on the back of
her head, and a shocking bad saddle under her.
Schreiderling's generosity stopped at the horse. He said that any saddle
would do for a woman as nervous as Mrs. Schreiderling. She never was
asked to dance, because she did not dance well; and she was so dull
and uninteresting, that her box very seldom had any cards in it.
Schreiderling said that if he had known that she was going to be such
a scare-crow after her marriage, he would never have married her. He
always prided himself on speaking his mind, did Schreiderling!
He left her at Simla one August, and went down to his regiment.
Then she revived a little, but she never recovered her looks. I found
out at the Club that the Other Man is coming up sick--very sick--on an
off chance of recovery. The fever and the heart-valves had nearly
killed him. She knew that, too, and she knew--what I had no interest in
knowing--when he was coming up. I suppose he wrote to tell her. They had
not seen each other since a month before the wedding. And here comes the
unpleasant part of the story.
A late call kept me down at the Dovedell Hotel till dusk one evening.
Mrs. Schreidlerling had been flitting up and down the Mall all the
afternoon in the rain. Coming up along the Cart-road, a tonga passed me,
and my pony, tired with standing so long, set off at a canter. Just by
the road down to the Tonga Office Mrs. Schreiderling, dripping from head
to foot, was waiting for the tonga. I turned up-hill, as the tonga was
no affair of mine; and just then she began to shriek. I went back at
once and saw, under the Tonga Office lamps, Mrs. Schreiderling kneeling
in the wet road by the back seat of the newly-arrived tonga, screaming
hideously.
Then she fell face down in the dirt as I came up.
Sitting in the back seat, very square and firm, with one hand on the
awning-stanchion and the wet pouring off his hat and moustache, was the
Other Man--dead. The sixty-mile up-hill jolt had been too much for his
valve, I suppose. The tonga-driver said:--"The Sahib died two stages out
of Solon. Therefore, I tied him with a rope, lest he should fall out
by the way, and so came to Simla. Will the Sahib give me bukshish? IT,"
pointing to the Other Man, "should have given one rupee. "
The Other Man sat with a grin on his face, as if he enjoyed the joke of
his arrival; and Mrs. Schreiderling, in the mud, began to groan. There
was no one except us four in the office and it was raining heavily. The
first thing was to take Mrs. Schreiderling home, and the second was to
prevent her name from being mixed up with the affair. The tonga-driver
received five rupees to find a bazar 'rickshaw for Mrs. Schreiderling.
He was to tell the tonga Babu afterwards of the Other Man, and the Babu
was to make such arrangements as seemed best.
Mrs. Schreiderling was carried into the shed out of the rain, and for
three-quarters of an hour we two waited for the 'rickshaw. The Other
Man was left exactly as he had arrived. Mrs. Schreiderling would do
everything but cry, which might have helped her. She tried to scream as
soon as her senses came back, and then she began praying for the Other
Man's soul. Had she not been as honest as the day, she would have prayed
for her own soul too. I waited to hear her do this, but she did not.
Then I tried to get some of the mud off her habit. Lastly, the 'rickshaw
came, and I got her away--partly by force. It was a terrible business
from beginning to end; but most of all when the 'rickshaw had to squeeze
between the wall and the tonga, and she saw by the lamp-light that thin,
yellow hand grasping the awning-stanchion.
She was taken home just as every one was going to a dance at Viceregal
Lodge--"Peterhoff" it was then--and the doctor found that she had fallen
from her horse, that I had picked her up at the back of Jakko, and
really deserved great credit for the prompt manner in which I had
secured medical aid. She did not die--men of Schreiderling's stamp marry
women who don't die easily. They live and grow ugly.
She never told of her one meeting, since her marriage, with the Other
Man; and, when the chill and cough following the exposure of that
evening, allowed her abroad, she never by word or sign alluded to having
met me by the Tonga Office. Perhaps she never knew.
She used to trot up and down the Mall, on that shocking bad saddle,
looking as if she expected to meet some one round the corner every
minute. Two years afterward, she went Home, and died--at Bournemouth, I
think.
Schreiderling, when he grew maudlin at Mess, used to talk about "my
poor dear wife. " He always set great store on speaking his mind, did
Schreiderling!
CONSEQUENCES.
Rosicrucian subtleties
In the Orient had rise;
Ye may find their teachers still
Under Jacatala's Hill.
Seek ye Bombast Paracelsus,
Read what Flood the Seeker tells us
Of the Dominant that runs
Through the cycles of the Suns--
Read my story last and see
Luna at her apogee.
There are yearly appointments, and two-yearly appointments, and
five-yearly appointments at Simla, and there are, or used to be,
permanent appointments, whereon you stayed up for the term of your
natural life and secured red cheeks and a nice income. Of course, you
could descend in the cold weather; for Simla is rather dull then.
Tarrion came from goodness knows where--all away and away in some
forsaken part of Central India, where they call Pachmari a "Sanitarium,"
and drive behind trotting bullocks, I believe. He belonged to a
regiment; but what he really wanted to do was to escape from his
regiment and live in Simla forever and ever. He had no preference for
anything in particular, beyond a good horse and a nice partner.
