No More Learning

"

"What reason! The Dancing Master in himself is a reason. How does it go?
'If in his life some trivial errors fall, Look in his face and you'll
believe them all. ' I am prepared to credit any evil of The Dancing
Master, because I hate him so. And The Dowd is so disgustingly badly
dressed"--

"That she, too, is capable of every iniquity? I always prefer to believe
the best of everybody. It saves so much trouble. "

"Very good. I prefer to believe the worst. It saves useless expenditure
of sympathy. And you may be quite certain that the Waddy believes with
me. "

Mrs. Mallowe sighed and made no answer.

The conversation was holden after dinner while Mrs. Hauksbee was
dressing for a dance.

"I am too tired to go," pleaded Mrs. Mallowe, and Mrs. Hauksbee left
her in peace till two in the morning, when she was aware of emphatic
knocking at her door.

"Don't be very angry, dear," said Mrs. Hauksbee. "My idiot of an ayah
has gone home, and, as I hope to sleep tonight, there isn't a soul in
the place to unlace me. "

"Oh, this is too bad! " said Mrs. Mallowe sulkily.

"'Can't help it. I'm a lone, lorn grass-widow, dear, but I will not
sleep in my stays. And such news, too! Oh, do unlace me, there's a
darling! The Dowd--The Dancing Master--I and the Hawley Boy--You know
the North veranda? "

"How can I do anything if you spin round like this? " protested Mrs.
Mallowe, fumbling with the knot of the laces.

"Oh, I forget. I must tell my tale without the aid of your eyes. Do you
know you've lovely eyes, dear? Well to begin with, I took the Hawley Boy
to a kala juggah. "

"Did he want much taking? "

"Lots! There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in kanats, and she was in
the next one talking to him. "

"Which? How? Explain. "

"You know what I mean--The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We could hear
every word and we listened shamelessly--'specially the Hawley Boy.
Polly, I quite love that woman! "

"This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened? "

"One moment. Ah-h! Blessed relief. I've been looking forward to taking
them off for the last half-hour--which is ominous at my time of life.
But, as I was saying, we listened and heard The Dowd drawl worse
than ever. She drops her final g's like a barmaid or a blue-blooded
Aide-de-Camp. 'Look he-ere, you're gettin' too fond 0' me,' she said,
and The Dancing Master owned it was so in language that nearly made
me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while. Then we heard her say, 'Look
he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you such an awful liar? ' I nearly exploded
while The Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems that he never told
her he was a married man. "

"I said he wouldn't. "

"And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She
drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy and
grew quite motherly. 'Now you've got a nice little wife of your own--you
have,' she said. 'She's ten times too good for a fat old man like you,
and, look he-ere, you never told me a word about her, and I've been
thinkin' about it a good deal, and I think you're a liar. ' Wasn't that
delicious? The Dancing Master maundered and raved till the Hawley Boy
suggested that he should burst in and beat him. His voice runs up
into an impassioned squeak when he is afraid. The Dowd must be an
extraordinary woman. She explained that had he been a bachelor she might
not have objected to his devotion; but since he was a married man and
the father of a very nice baby, she considered him a hypocrite, and this
she repeated twice. She wound up her drawl with: 'An I'm tellin' you
this because your wife is angry with me, an' I hate quarrellin' with any
other woman, an' I like your wife. You know how you have behaved for the
last six weeks. You shouldn't have done it, indeed you shouldn't. You're
too old an' fat. ' Can't you imagine how The Dancing Master would wince
at that! 'Now go away,' she said. 'I don't want to tell you what I think
of you, because I think you are not nice. I'll stay he-ere till the next
dance begins. ' Did you think that the creature had so much in her? "

"I never studied her as closely as you did. It sounds unnatural. What
happened? "

"The Dancing Master attempted blandishment, reproof, jocularity, and the
style of the Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch the Hawley Boy
to make him keep quiet. She grunted at the end of each sentence and, in
the end he went away swearing to himself, quite like a man in a novel.
He looked more objectionable than ever. I laughed. I love that woman--in
spite of her clothes. And now I'm going to bed. What do you think of
it? "

"I sha'n't begin to think till the morning," said Mrs. Mallowe,
yawning "Perhaps she spoke the truth. They do fly into it by accident
sometimes. "

Mrs. Hauksbee's account of her eavesdropping was an ornate one but
truthful in the main. For reasons best known to herself, Mrs. "Shady"
Delville had turned upon Mr Bent and rent him limb from limb, casting
him away limp and disconcerted ere she withdrew the light of her eyes
from him permanently. Being a man of resource, and anything but pleased
in that he had been called both old and fat, he gave Mrs. Bent to
understand that he had, during her absence in the Doon, been the victim
of unceasing persecution at the hands of Mrs. Delville, and he told the
tale so often and with such eloquence that he ended in believing it,
while his wife marvelled at the manners and customs of "some women. "
When the situation showed signs of languishing, Mrs. Waddy was always on
hand to wake the smouldering fires of suspicion in Mrs. Bent's bosom
and to contribute generally to the peace and comfort of the hotel. Mr.
Bent's life was not a happy one, for if Mrs. Waddy's story were true,
he was, argued his wife, untrustworthy to the last degree. If his own
statement was true, his charms of manner and conversation were so
great that he needed constant surveillance. And he received it, till
he repented genuinely of his marriage and neglected his personal
appearance. Mrs. Delville alone in the hotel was unchanged. She removed
her chair some six paces toward the head of the table, and occasionally
in the twilight ventured on timid overtures of friendship to Mrs. Bent,
which were repulsed.

"She does it for my sake," hinted the Virtuous Bent.

"A dangerous and designing woman," purred Mrs. Waddy.

Worst of all, every other hotel in Simla was full!

* * * * *

"Polly, are you afraid of diphtheria? "

"Of nothing in the world except smallpox. Diphtheria kills, but it
doesn't disfigure. Why do you ask? "

"Because the Bent baby has got it, and the whole hotel is upside down
in consequence. The Waddy has 'set her five young on the rail' and fled.
The Dancing Master fears for his precious throat, and that miserable
little woman, his wife, has no notion of what ought to be done. She
wanted to put it into a mustard bath--for croup! "

"Where did you learn all this? "

"Just now, on the Mall. Dr. Howlen told me. The Manager of the hotel
is abusing the Bents, and the Bents are abusing the manager. They are a
feckless couple. "

"Well. What's on your mind? "

"This; and I know it's a grave thing to ask. Would you seriously object
to my bringing the child over here, with its mother? "

"On the most strict understanding that we see nothing of The Dancing
Master. "

"He will be only too glad to stay away. Polly, you're an angel. The
woman really is at her wits' end. "

"And you know nothing about her, careless, and would hold her up to
public scorn if it gave you a minute's amusement. Therefore you risk
your life for the sake of her brat. No, Loo, I'm not the angel. I shall
keep to my rooms and avoid her. But do as you please--only tell me why
you do it. "

Mrs. Hauksbee's eyes softened; she looked out of the window and back
into Mrs. Mallowe's face.

"I don't know," said Mrs. Hauksbee, simply.

"You dear! "

"Polly! --and for aught you knew you might have taken my fringe off.
Never do that again without warning. Now we'll get the rooms ready. I
don't suppose I shall be allowed to circulate in society for a month. "

"And I also. Thank goodness I shall at last get all the sleep I want. "

Much to Mrs. Bent's surprise she and the baby were brought over to
the house almost before she knew where she was. Bent was devoutly and
undisguisedly thankful, for he was afraid of the infection, and also
hoped that a few weeks in the hotel alone with Mrs. Delville might lead
to explanations. Mrs. Bent had thrown her jealousy to the winds in her
fear for her child's life.

"We can give you good milk," said Mrs. Hauksbee to her, "and our house
is much nearer to the Doctor's than the hotel, and you won't feel as
though you were living in a hostile camp Where is the dear Mrs. Waddy?
She seemed to be a particular friend of yours. "

"They've all left me," said Mrs. Bent, bitterly. "Mrs. Waddy went first.
She said I ought to be ashamed of myself for introducing diseases there,
and I am sure it wasn't my fault that little Dora"--

"How nice! " cooed Mrs. Hauksbee. "The Waddy is an infectious disease
herself--'more quickly caught than the plague and the taker runs
presently mad. ' I lived next door to her at the Elysium, three years
ago. Now see, you won't give us the least trouble, and I've ornamented
all the house with sheets soaked in carbolic. It smells comforting,
doesn't it? Remember I'm always in call, and my ayah's at your service
when yours goes to her meals and--and. . . if you cry I'll never forgive
you. "

Dora Bent occupied her mother's unprofitable attention through the day
and the night. The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four hours, and
the house reeked with the smell of the Condy's Fluid, chlorine-water,
and carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms--she
considered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause of
humanity--and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the Doctor as a help in
the sick-room than the half-distraught mother.

"I know nothing of illness," said Mrs. Hauksbee to the Doctor. "Only
tell me what to do, and I'll do it. "

"Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let her have as
little to do with the nursing as you possibly can," said the Doctor;
"I'd turn her out of the sick-room, but that I honestly believe she'd
die of anxiety. She is less than no good, and I depend on you and the
ayahs, remember. "

Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, though it painted olive
hollows under her eyes and forced her to her oldest dresses. Mrs. Bent
clung to her with more than childlike faith.

"I know you'll, make Dora well, won't you? " she said at least twenty
times a day; and twenty times a day Mrs. Hauksbee answered valiantly,
"Of course I will. "

But Dora did not improve, and the Doctor seemed to be always in the
house.

"There's some danger of the thing taking a bad turn," he said; "I'll
come over between three and four in the morning tomorrow.
"

"Good gracious! " said Mrs. Hauksbee. "He never told me what the turn
would be! My education has been horribly neglected; and I have only this
foolish mother-woman to fall back upon. "

The night wore through slowly, and Mrs. Hauksbee dozed in a chair by the
fire. There was a dance at the Viceregal Lodge, and she dreamed of it
till she was aware of Mrs. Bent's anxious eyes staring into her own.

"Wake up! Wake up! Do something! " cried Mrs. Bent, piteously. "Dora's
choking to death! Do you mean to let her die? "

Mrs. Hauksbee jumped to her feet and bent over the bed. The child was
fighting for breath, while the mother wrung her hands despairing.

"Oh, what can I do? What can you do? She won't stay still! I can't hold
her. Why didn't the Doctor say this was coming? " screamed Mrs. Bent.
"Won't you help me? She's dying! "

"I-I've never seen a child die before! " stammered Mrs. Hauksbee,
feebly, and then--let none blame her weakness after the strain of long
watching--she broke down, and covered her face with her hands. The ayahs
on the threshold snored peacefully.

There was a rattle of 'rickshaw wheels below, the clash of an opening
door, a heavy step on the stairs, and Mrs. Delville entered to find Mrs.
Bent screaming for the Doctor as she ran round the room. Mrs. Hauksbee,
her hands to her ears, and her face buried in the chintz of a chair, was
quivering with pain at each cry from the bed, and murmuring, "Thank God,
I never bore a child! Oh! thank God, I never bore a child! "

Mrs. Delville looked at the bed for an instant, took Mrs. Bent by the
shoulders, and said, quietly, "Get me some caustic. Be quick. "

The mother obeyed mechanically. Mrs. Delville had thrown herself down by
the side of the child and was opening its mouth.

"Oh, you're killing her! " cried Mrs. Bent. "Where's the Doctor! Leave
her alone! "

Mrs. Delville made no reply for a minute, but busied herself with the
child.

"Now the caustic, and hold a lamp behind my shoulder. Will you do as you
are told? The acid-bottle, if you don't know what I mean," she said.

A second time Mrs. Delville bent over the child. Mrs. Hauksbee, her face
still hidden, sobbed and shivered. One of the ayahs staggered sleepily
into the room, yawning: "Doctor Sahib come. "

Mrs. Delville turned her head.

"You're only just in time," she said. "It was chokin' her when I came
in, an' I've burned it. "

"There was no sign of the membrane getting to the air-passages after the
last steaming. It was the general weakness, I feared," said the Doctor
half to himself, and he whispered as he looked. "You've done what I
should have been afraid to do without consultation. "

"She was dyin'," said Mrs. Delville, under her breath. "Can you do
anythin'? What a mercy it was I went to the dance! "

Mrs. Hauksbee raised her head.

"Is it all over? " she gasped. "I'm useless--I'm worse than useless! What
are you doing here? "

She stared at Mrs. Delville, and Mrs. Bent, realizing for the first time
who was the Goddess from the Machine, stared also.

Then Mrs. Delville made explanation, putting on a dirty long glove and
smoothing a crumpled and ill-fitting ball-dress.

"I was at the dance, an' the Doctor was tellin' me about your baby bein'
so ill. So I came away early, an' your door was open, an' I-I lost my
boy this way six months ago, an' I've been tryin' to forget it ever
since, an' I-I-I-am very sorry for intrudin' an' anythin' that has
happened. "

Mrs. Bent was putting out the Doctor's eye with a lamp as he stooped
over Dora.

"Take it away," said the Doctor. "I think the child will do, thanks to
you, Mrs. Delville. I should have come too late, but, I assure you"--he
was addressing himself to Mrs. Delville--"I had not the faintest reason
to expect this. The membrane must have grown like a mushroom. Will one
of you help me, please? "

He had reason for the last sentence. Mrs. Hauksbee had thrown herself
into Mrs. Delville's arms, where she was weeping bitterly, and Mrs. Bent
was unpicturesquely mixed up with both, while from the tangle came the
sound of many sobs and much promiscuous kissing.

"Good gracious! I've spoilt all your beautiful roses! " said Mrs.
Hauksbee, lifting her head from the lump of crushed gum and calico
atrocities on Mrs. Delville's shoulder and hurrying to the Doctor.

Mrs. Delville picked up her shawl, and slouched out of the room, mopping
her eyes with the glove that she had not put on.

"I always said she was more than a woman," sobbed Mrs. Hauksbee,
hysterically, "and that proves it! "

* * * * *

Six weeks later, Mrs. Bent and Dora had returned to the hotel. Mrs.
Hauksbee had come out of the Valley of Humiliation, had ceased to
reproach herself for her collapse in an hour of need, and was even
beginning to direct the affairs of the world as before.

"So nobody died, and everything went off as it should, and I kissed The
Dowd, Polly. I feel so old. Does it show in my face? "

"Kisses don't as a rule, do they? Of course you know what the result of
The Dowd's providential arrival has been. "

"They ought to build her a statue--only no sculptor dare copy those
skirts. "

"Ah! " said Mrs. Mallowe, quietly. "She has found another reward. The
Dancing Master has been smirking through Simla giving every one to
understand that she came because of her undying love for him--for
him--to save his child, and all Simla naturally believes this. "

"But Mrs. Bent"--

"Mrs. Bent believes it more than any one else. She won't speak to The
Dowd now. Isn't The Dancing Master an angel? "

Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged till bedtime. The doors of
the two rooms stood open.

"Polly," said a voice from the darkness, "what did that
American-heiress-globe-trotter-girl say last season when she was tipped
out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd adjective that made
the man who picked her up explode. "

"'Paltry,'" said Mrs. Mallowe. "Through her nose--like this--'Ha-ow
pahltry! '"

"Exactly," said the voice. "Ha-ow pahltry it all is! "

"Which? "

"Everything. Babies, Diphtheria, Mrs. Bent and The Dancing Master, I
whooping in a chair, and The Dowd dropping in from the clouds. I wonder
what the motive was--all the motives. "

"Um! "

"What do you think? "

"Don't ask me. She was a woman. Go to sleep. "

* * * * *




ONLY A SUBALTERN

. . . Not only to enforce by command but to encourage by
example the energetic discharge of duty and the steady
endurance of the difficulties and privations inseparable
from Military Service. --Bengal Army Regulations.

THEY made Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was a
gentleman before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that
"Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick" was posted as Second Lieutenant to
the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Kram Bokhar, he became an officer and a
gentleman, which is an enviable thing; and there was joy in the house of
Wick where Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and
offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his achievements.

Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his day, holding authority over
three millions of men in the Chota-Buldana Division, building great
works for the good of the land, and doing his best to make two blades
of grass grow where there was but one before. Of course, nobody knew
anything about this in the little English village where he was just "old
Mr. Wick" and had forgotten that he was a Companion of the Order of the
Star of India.

He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: "Well done, my boy! "

There followed, while the uniform was being prepared, an interval of
pure delight, during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a "man" at the
women-swamped tennis-parties and tea-fights of the village, and, I dare
say, had his joining-time been extended, would have fallen in love with
several girls at once. Little country villages at Home are very full of
nice girls, because all the young men come out to India to make their
fortunes.

"India," said Papa Wick, "is the place. I've had thirty years of it and,
begad, I'd like to go back again. When you join the Tail Twisters you'll
be among friends, if every one hasn't forgotten Wick of Chota-Buldana,
and a lot of people will be kind to you for our sakes. The mother will
tell you more about outfit than I can, but remember this. Stick to your
Regiment, Bobby--stick to your Regiment. You'll see men all round you
going into the Staff Corps, and doing every possible sort of duty but
regimental, and you may be tempted to follow suit. Now so long as you
keep within your allowance, and I haven't stinted you there, stick to
the Line, the whole Line and nothing but the Line. Be careful how you
back another young fool's bill, and if you fall in love with a woman
twenty years older than yourself, don't tell me about it, that's all. "

With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa Wick
fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when the Officers'
Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by the Regulations,
and the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts for India, and
the battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even to the slums of Longport,
while the drabs of Fratton came down and scratched the faces of the
Queen's Officers.

Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and shaky
detachment to manoeuvre inship and the comfort of fifty scornful females
to attend to, had no time to feel homesick till the Malabar reached
mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with a little guard-visiting
and a great many other matters.

The Tail Twisters were a most particular Regiment. Those who knew them
least said that they were eaten up with "side. " But their reserve and
their internal arrangements generally were merely protective diplomacy.
Some five years before, the Colonel commanding had looked into the
fourteen fearless eyes of seven plump and juicy subalterns who had all
applied to enter the Staff Corps, and had asked them why the three
stars should he, a colonel of the Line, command a dashed nursery for
double-dashed bottle-suckers who put on condemned tin spurs and rode
qualified mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He
was a rude man and a terrible. Wherefore the remnant took measures [with
the half-butt as an engine of public opinion] till the rumor went abroad
that young men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to the Staff
Corps, had many and varied trials to endure. However a regiment had just
as much right to its own secrets as a woman.

When Bobby came up from Deolali and took his place among the Tail
Twisters, it was gently But firmly borne in upon him that the Regiment
was his father and his mother and his indissolubly wedded wife, and
that there was no crime under the canopy of heaven blacker than that
of bringing shame on the Regiment, which was the best-shooting,
best-drilled, best-set-up, bravest, most illustrious, and in all
respects most desirable Regiment within the compass of the Seven Seas.
He was taught the legends of the Mess Plate from the great grinning
Golden Gods that had come out of the Summer Palace in Pekin to the
silver-mounted markhor-horn snuff-mull presented by the last C. 0. [he
who spake to the seven subalterns]. And every one of those legends told
him of battles fought at long odds, without fear as without support; of
hospitality catholic as an Arab's; of friendships deep as the sea and
steady as the fighting-line; of honor won by hard roads for honor's
sake; and of instant and unquestioning devotion to the Regiment--the
Regiment that claims the lives of all and lives forever.

More than once, too, he came officially into contact with the Regimental
colors, which looked like the lining of a bricklayer's hat on the end
of a chewed stick. Bobby did not kneel and worship them, because British
subalterns are not constructed in that manner. Indeed, he condemned them
for their weight at the very moment that they were filling with awe and
other more noble sentiments.

But best of all was the occasion when he moved with the Tail Twisters,
in review order at the breaking of a November day. Allowing for duty-men
and sick, the Regiment was one thousand and eighty strong, and Bobby
belonged to them; for was he not a Subaltern of the Line the whole Line
and nothing but the Line--as the tramp of two thousand one hundred and
sixty sturdy ammunition boots attested. He would not have changed places
with Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling by in a pillar of cloud
to a chorus of "Strong right! Strong left! " or Hogan-Yale of the White
Hussars, leading his squadron for all it was worth, with the price of
horseshoes thrown in; or "Tick" Boileau, trying to live up to his fierce
blue and gold turban while the wasps of the Bengal Cavalry stretched
to a gallop in the wake of the long, lollopping Walers of the White
Hussars.

They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little thrill
run down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the empty
cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the roar of the
volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that sound in action.
The review ended in a glorious chase across the plain--batteries
thundering after cavalry to the huge disgust of the White Hussars, and
the Tyneside Tail Twisters hunting a Sikh Regiment, till the lean lathy
Singhs panted with exhaustion. Bobby was dusty and dripping long before
noon, but his enthusiasm was merely focused--not diminished.

He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his "skipper," that is to say,
the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and
mystery of managing men, which is a very large part of the Profession of
Arms.

"If you haven't a taste that way," said Revere, between his puffs of
his cheroot, "you'll never be able to get the hang of it, but remember
Bobby, 'tisn't the best drill, though drill is nearly everything, that
hauls a Regiment through Hell and out on the other side. It's the man
who knows how to handle men--goat-men, swine-men, dog-men, and so on. "

"Dormer, for instance," said Bobby. "I think he comes under the head of
fool-men. He mopes like a sick owl. "

"That's where you make your mistake, my son.