Читать книгу Star of India - Alice Perrin - Страница 8

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Very early next morning Colonel Crayfield was awakened by a crash. His bedroom was alight with the dawn; the lemon scent of magnolia blossom floated in at the open window. What had aroused him? Involuntarily he glanced at the tea-tray, at the big teapot and breakfast cup for which he had Miss Ellen to thank; then he became aware of a curious sound, and sitting up he beheld the milk-jug in fragments on the floor and a cat complacently lapping the milk that had spread in a pool on the carpet. In a fury he sprang from the bed, clapping his hands, shouting at the thief; the cat, ears back, tail on end, made for the window and disappeared in a flash; he could hear her scrambling down the magnolia tree. What about his tea! He hated tea without milk, and probably the household would not be astir for hours. He formed a bold project—he would go downstairs and forage for more milk. No one need hear him; he could explain, relate the disaster at breakfast. Slippers on his feet, and a coat over his sleeping-suit, he crept into the long, low passage. All was still. But the stairs! The stairs might have been actually alive and the banisters too; how they did creak! It was a relief to arrive at the foot of the staircase without having aroused the household. Now there was a green baize door that evidently gave on to the kitchen quarters; it yielded silently to his push, and he was confronted with a short flight of stone steps. At any rate, they could not creak. Quickly descending them, he found himself in a large, old-fashioned kitchen, stone-paved; beyond, surely, was the larder where milk might be found, if the cat had not been there before him. How different it all was from Indian establishments; in India, whether as a guest or in one's own house, one could demand tea at any hour of the night or day, and it was forthcoming as a matter of course; in India——

"Hallo!"

Colonel Crayfield jumped ingloriously, and only just saved himself from swearing aloud. His goddaughter was standing in the larder doorway, a cup in one hand, a crust of bread in the other. She had the advantage of him in the matter of toilet, being fully dressed in a blue washing frock that fell in straight lines from her neck to her ankles, and a wide straw hat bound with a ribbon of the same colour.

They looked at each other, amazed. Colonel Crayfield drew his coat closer about him, and passed his hand mechanically over his hair.

"Good gracious!" he said resentfully.

"Did you hear me go down?" she inquired.

"No; but I wonder you didn't hear me! The stairs made such a confounded noise."

"Yes, I know; aren't they awful! I always expect Aunt Augusta to burst from her room with a poker in her hand. Were you looking for something to eat?"

"I was looking for some milk," he admitted; "a cat got into my room and knocked down the milk-jug. I don't like tea without milk."

"I expect it was Granny."

"Granny?" repeated Colonel Crayfield, mystified.

Stella laughed. "Not my grandmother! Was it an old black-and-white cat with a very long tail?"

"I really did not notice. Anyway, the brute broke the jug and was drinking the milk——"

"Here you are then," she handed him a jug.

He took it. "But have you all you want yourself?" he inquired politely.

"Heaps," she replied, munching her crust. "Have a piece of bread? It's lovely—home made. I only wish I had an onion, too. Don't you love onions?"

"I don't object to them——" he began; then suddenly the unfitness of the situation came home to him with something of a shock. Here was he, the ruler of a vast area in India, accustomed to ceremony and circumstance and state, pilfering a larder with a chit of a girl—discussing onions, of all things; and further than that he was not dressed! It might have been a silly dream.

"And what are you doing down here at this extraordinary hour?" he asked of his goddaughter with what dignity was left to him.

"Eating and drinking, as you can see," was her flippant reply. Then, as though conscious that she was perhaps not treating Colonel Crayfield quite with the respect that was his due, she added primly: "I often get up very early and go for a ramble"; she hesitated, and continued with diffidence, "would you care to come for a walk instead of going to bed again?"

"Well, I can't come as I am; but if you will wait till I've had my tea and dressed——"

"Of course I'll wait! I'll leave the side door open and you'll find me outside."

Later, when he joined her, his self-respect as Commissioner of Rassih restored, he said: "Indian life would suit you, since you are so fond of early rising. In India I am nearly always out soon after daybreak."

Stella sighed. "Oh! India—how I should love to go there!"

"Really? What about the heat and the exile and the insects?"—and he added playfully—"not to speak of snakes and tigers!"

"I'm not afraid of anything!" bragged Stella, and with the elimination of grandmamma this was true enough. "If it comes to exile, what could be worse than life at The Chestnuts—where nothing ever happens, and nothing will ever happen!"

Now they were out of the garden, out on a common that was ablaze with gorse—the spongy turf was silvered with dew, the air fragrant and fresh; birds' voices, the distant lowing of cattle, echoed in the sweet stillness.

"But some day you will marry," prophesied Colonel Crayfield, in a tone of encouragement.

"Marry!" derided Stella. "Who is there for me to marry?" She thought of Miss Spurt and of the young porter at the railway station.

He made no answer; he was appraising the slim, young form beside him, marking the grace of her limbs, the poise of the little head on the long, round neck, the clean turn of ankle and wrist—every point was good; in a couple of years she must be a magnificent woman.

"What are you thinking about?" inquired Stella. "Here we are at the end of the common and you've hardly spoken a word. Are you tired?"

"Tired? Certainly not! It would take rather more than a walk across a common to tire me!" He stepped out with vigour.

"What long strides you are taking. Hadn't we better have a race while we are about it? See that oak tree over there—at the edge of the wood? I bet you I'll get there first. One, two, three—off!"

And the Commissioner of Rassih, who could still hold his own at tennis and rackets, accepted the challenge. The race ended in a dead heat.

Stella flung herself down beneath the oak tree, and Colonel Crayfield took a seat, formed by the roots, beside her. The fact that he was scarcely out of breath pleased him.

"Anyway, you can run!" pronounced Stella.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Oh, I don't know." She was politely evasive; it would hardly do to explain that such agility in anyone of his age and bulk had surprised her, and she hastened to change the subject. "Now, do let us talk about India"—she looked up at him with eager, bright eyes—"you don't know how I long to see India. I suppose it's in my blood; all the Carringtons did things in India, and if I had been a boy I should have gone out to do things, too. I am the last young Carrington left—and I am only a girl!"

Colonel Crayfield took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick, grey hair; he was proud of its thickness; most men of his age in India were hopelessly bald.

"India isn't what it was; the spirit of romance and adventure has gone, the pagoda tree is dead, prices are rising, and exchange is falling——"

"But haven't you lovely big houses?" interrupted Stella, "and heaps of servants and horses, and the sun and gardens and fruit? What is your bungalow like in India?"

He checked his inclination to grumble. "It isn't a bungalow. It's part of a Moghul fort, built on the walls of the old city; the wall goes right round the compound; a compound is——"

"Yes, I know what compound means! I know compound, and tiffin, and chuprassee, and peg, and lots of words. I find them in all the old family letters put away in the lumber room. Do go on!"

"Well, I believe the city in the old days used to come close up to the wall, but it has gradually been moved farther away. The back of the house looks on to a desert that stretches for miles——"

"Is it a big station?"

"No; it's a small civil station; too small considering that it's the headquarters of a big charge."

"It must be ripping to feel you are ruling, governing all the time! Don't you love power—spelt with a capital P?"

"Who doesn't? But there are definite drawbacks as well as compensations in Indian service."

She sighed. "I shall never see the country; never feel the Indian sun, or smell an Indian bazaar. I shall never hear a tom-tom or the frogs' chorus in the rains, or even see a snake, except in the Zoo or in a bottle!"

Colonel Crayfield gazed at the child in astonishment. He guessed nothing of the grip that the old letters and memoirs, stored in the lumber room, had on her imagination; he had no conception of the strength of hereditary memory, of the spell bequeathed by a long line of forbears whose lives had been spent in the East, whose hearts and minds and souls had been bound up with India—their mighty relentless mistress. He met, in puzzled silence, the frank gaze of the lovely limpid eyes that stirred his blood, tempting him in all opposition to his reason and foresight; yet, just as his activity in the race to the oak tree had pleased him, flattered his pride in his physical preservation, so did this amorous thrill.

Stella looked away, disconcerted; something in his expression reminded her of his first glance on the platform the previous afternoon; she did not understand it, and it made her vaguely uneasy. She rose, brushing her skirt, uttering hasty little remarks—it was getting late, they ought to go back, breakfast would be ready, look at the sun!

Yes, the sun by now was well up in the sky; a hot summer sun that sucked the dew from foliage and turf, creating a mist, like smoke, dispensing strong perfumes of earth, promising great heat for the day. To the man whose youth lay behind him, it strengthened his ardour, tempting him to take possession of this exquisite child by means of her mania for India, her boredom with her present life and surroundings. Then, suddenly, he remembered that his mission to The Chestnuts was to administer reproof; to give profitable advice! As they re-started across the common he said abruptly: "You know why I have come to The Chestnuts?"

The girl flushed. "Yes," she said reluctantly; here it was at last, the lecture, the blame, just when she had almost forgotten. It was beastly of her godfather. "Need we talk about it now?"

"We shall have to talk about it some time, I suppose." His tone reassured her; it sounded as if, after all, he was rather more on her side than on that of grandmamma and the aunts. Still she felt suspicious.

"What did you do, exactly?"

"Well, I made eyes at an awful young man when we were out for a walk in the town," she blushed deeper at the recollection; "it was just to see what would happen more than anything else—like pulling a dog's tail. Oh! I can't explain. Nobody will ever understand——"

"And what did happen?"

With difficulty she told him, and awaited his censure. To her astonished relief he said: "Bad luck! You see the wicked don't always prosper!"

"But was I so wicked?" she asked defensively. "A girl I know told me she had done the same kind of thing often; she didn't think it was so dreadful. It seems to me an awful fuss about very little, and I don't know why you should have been bothered, even though you are my godfather. What shall you advise them to do?"

"At present," he said cryptically, "I am not quite sure."

She glanced at him half-alarmed. He laughed. "How would you like it if I advised them to send you out to India?"

Stella gasped. "Oh! would you? But how? As a missionary, a companion, a governess—what?"

Again he laughed. "As a companion, perhaps. I'm afraid you would not be much good as a missionary or a governess. What do you think yourself?"

"I shouldn't care. I'd do anything to get to India."

"Well, we shall see. Don't be too hopeful," he looked at his watch. "What time is breakfast?"

"Half-past eight—prayers first."

"Then step out!" Enough had been said for the moment.

"Oh! dear," complained Stella, "what a bother things are; you are as bad as Aunt Augusta about being in time. Why don't you marry Aunt Augusta?"

"She mightn't appreciate India," he said with a grin.

Grandmamma seldom came down to breakfast. Augusta read prayers, fiercely, glaring at her congregation as though to remind them of their unworthiness. Ellen kept her eyes shut and responded with fervent contrition. Neither sister was as yet aware of the guest's early expedition with their niece, and, as Stella made no mention of it during the meal, Colonel Crayfield preserved a discreet silence on the subject. There was a letter for Stella on the breakfast table. The aunts eyed her with suspicion as she read it and then hastily consigned it to her pocket. The letter was from Maud Verrall; it contained wonderful news:

"My dear, what do you think? I am engaged to be married in spite of all my resolutions not to commit myself in a hurry. No, it is not poor Fred Glossop, who is wild with despair, but a Captain Matthews in the Indian Cavalry. He is a positive picture, if you like; rather in the style of the riding-master I told you about, but much, much handsomer. My people aren't pleased, but that only adds to the excitement. There is nothing they can object to definitely; he has a little money of his own, and isn't badly connected. Of course, they expected me to choose a lord, or a baronet at least; but I am very unworldly. I am awfully happy, and frightfully in love. I am sure I shall enjoy myself hugely in India. Don't you wish you were me?"

Stella groaned over this letter in the privacy of her bedroom. Indeed, how she wished she were Maud!—who was going to India, not as a missionary, or a governess, nor in any other servile capacity; but as the wife of a cavalry officer! Colonel Crayfield was wrong; it was the wicked who prospered. As compared with herself, Maud had certainly been wicked, and now here was Maud rewarded with all that Stella would give her ears to attain. She wept with envy; felt convinced that her godfather had overrated his power to lighten her "lot"; and in any case grandmamma and the aunts would oppose whatever plan he might suggest. She was doomed to grow old at The Chestnuts; she was never to marry, never to enjoy herself, never to reach India—the Mecca of her dreams. If only that beast Maud had not been going to India! Stella felt bitterly jealous; it was all so cruel, so hopeless. …

Reluctant to appear with swollen eyelids, she remained in her room for the rest of the morning; also because she wished to allow her godfather every chance of imparting his advice, however fruitless it might be, to her guardians. She presented herself at luncheon, but the atmosphere seemed unchanged. Evidently nothing had happened, for she was still ignored by her relations, and Colonel Crayfield, purposely, she suspected, though not with unkindly intention, paid small heed to her presence.

After luncheon she was dispatched by Aunt Augusta on household errands.

"I am being got out of the way," said Stella to herself as she set off with a can of soup for old Mrs. Bly, and an order for bacon and rice at the post office—the postal department being a sort of incidental appendage to the only shop of the village; stamps and post cards were also required. Then she was to call for eggs and butter at a farmhouse quite a mile and a half away. She made no haste; the longer the palaver concerning her future, that she hoped was taking place during her absence, the better. The farmer's wife, Mrs. Capper, made her welcome, gave her tea with honey and fresh-baked bread, told her "what a fine growed young lady she was getting"; all of which was pleasant and consolatory for the time being, especially when young Capper came in, looking quite gentlemanlike in a tweed coat with leather patches on the shoulders, and breeches and gaiters; he betrayed unmistakable admiration for his mother's guest—Stella could hardly prevent him from escorting her home to carry the basket; not that she would have objected to his company, but somebody would be sure to espy them and tell old Betty, and old Betty would tell Aunt Augusta, and it would all be attributed to her own fast and unladylike tendencies, and add to her present disfavour. The risk was not good enough; young Capper would keep till she knew the result of Colonel Crayfield's intercession on her behalf. Despite the little distraction she strolled home listless and depressed.