Читать книгу The Potter's Thumb - Flora Annie Webster Steel - Страница 5

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It was band-night in the public gardens; mail night also; a combination of dancing and picture papers, ensuring a large attendance in the big hall, which had been built, gravely, as a memorial to some departed statesman. But now English girls hurried through its dim corridors to the ladies' dressing-room, intent on changing tennis shoes for dancing slippers. English women took possession of the comfortable nooks between the pillars where there was room for two. English boys lounged about the vestibule, finishing their cigars and waiting for the band to strike up. English men drifted to billiards and whist, or to their own special corner in the reading-room.

A weird-looking place even at noon was the big hall set round with paste and paper mementoes of the semi-historic festivals held beneath its high arched roof; with shields from the Prince of Wales' ball, flags from the Imperial installation, trophies from the welcome given to our soldiers after an arduous campaign. But seen now by the few lamps lit at one end it looked positively ghostly, as if it must be haunted by a thousand memories of dead men, and women, and children who had flitted across the kaleidoscope of Rajpore society. Up in the gallery the native band, after playing 'God save the Queen' to the Aryan brother outside, was tuning up for dance music. And by-and-bye a couple would come waltzing out of the shadows into the bright reflections of the polished floor, and waltz back again. Then three or four couples, perhaps ten or a dozen; not more. Viewed from the other end, where the non-dancers sat in darkness, the scene looked like a dim reflection of something going on in another world.

And outside, under the rising moon, the builders of the hall trooped home to the packed highways and byways of the native city, full, no doubt, of that silent, evergreen wonder at the strange customs of the ruling race which is an integral part of native life; that ruling race which, with all its eccentricities, rules better than even the fabled Vicramiditya himself!

In the far corner of the inner reading-room a girl stood looking at the new number of the Scientific American, keeping a stern watch the while on the present possessor of the Saturday Review. A tennis bat lay on the table beside her, and her workmanlike flannels and tan shoes showed what her occupation had been. For the rest, a well-made, well-balanced girl, looking as if she walked well, rode well, danced well, and took an honest pride in doing so. Her face was chiefly remarkable for a pair of beautifully arched eyebrows, and her best point was undoubtedly the poise of her head with its closely plaited coif of hair.

A sort of snore followed by a thud, told that people were passing in and out through the swing-doors of the outer room. Here, however, as befitted the abode of more serious literature, all was peaceful; almost empty in fact, and its only other female occupant was a medical lady deep in the Lancet.

'Oh Gordon!' called a voice from the outer room, 'have you seen my daughter?'

'Miss Tweedie is here, sir,' replied the young man addressed. 'She has been for the last five minutes trying to make up her mind whether to go and dance, or brain Dr. Greenfell for keeping the Saturday so long.'

'Really, Mr. Gordon!' cried Rose Tweedie aghast. 'No indeed not--Dr. Greenfell! I didn't really--I mean I was of course, but I don't now--Oh, it's awfully good of you.' Then as the apologetic little doctor moved away, pausing to say a few words to a tall grey-haired man who was entering, she turned aggressively to the offender: 'Why did you say that, Mr. Gordon?'

'Why, Miss Tweedie? Because you insisted yesterday that women preferred the truth, even when it was rude. And it was true. I suppose, as your father wants you, I have no hope of this dance; and I'm engaged for all the others.'

Rose Tweedie's eyebrows went up. 'How lucky for you--I mean, of course, how unlucky for me.' Then she added in more conciliatory tones, 'I'm not dancing to-night; these shoes won't do.' She thrust out her shapely foot with the careless freedom of a child.

'I can see no fault,' he replied artificially, putting up his eye-glass, 'they appear to me quite perfect.'

'Your knowledge of women doesn't apparently extend to their understandings,' she retorted quickly, her voice, as usual when she was irritated, showing a trace of Scotch accent. 'Oh father! if you want me to come home, I'm ready.'

Colonel Tweedie hesitated. A single glance at him suggested that the late Mrs. Tweedie must have been a women of strong individuality, or else that Rose had reverted to some ancestral type.

'Not, not exactly, my dear. I only--wanted to--er--speak to you.'

'Good-bye, Miss Tweedie,' said Lewis Gordon, taking the hint. 'Oh! by the way, sir, if your daughter will remember I'm a personal assistant, and excuse shop for an instant--Fitzgerald came back to-day from Hodinuggur.'

Rose Tweedie's face lit up. 'Did he say how Mr. Keene liked it?' she asked eagerly.

'I'm afraid not; but he can scarcely be expected to like the desert after--Rajpore. I shouldn't--under the circumstances. That is all, sir; except that he reports everything satisfactory, so far.'

The Colonel gave a little cough; it was his way of starting the official machine inside the social one. 'I hope--for Mr. Fitzgerald's sake it--it--er--may remain so. The past scandals have been a disgrace--er--to the Department.

'Not to him, though,' broke in Rose hotly. 'I think he is quite one of the nicest people I ever met.'

'And what is more, the ablest man we have in our service,' added Lewis Gordon heartily. The girl's face softened at his tone. If he would only speak like that always, instead of simpering and scraping!

'Well, father, what is it?' she asked when he had gone. The other readers had drifted away, and the medical lady looked as if even the last trump would not rouse her from the post-mortem she was perusing, so to all intents and purposes they were alone. Colonel Tweedie gave another little cough; it was an unusual occurrence in private matters, and she repeated her question with quickened interest.

'I want you, my dear, to go and speak to--to Mrs. Boynton. I've--I've asked her to come into camp with us this time.'

'Why?'

Pages full of words would fail to give a better idea of Rose Tweedie's mental outlook than this simple interrogation. Briefly, she must have a reason, good, bad, or indifferent, for everything. Her father, being her father and knowing this, had several ready.

'Dacre's wife isn't strong enough to face the sand, and you must have a chaperon--I mean another lady--you never need a chaperon of course, my dear--but if anything happened--besides, we shall be very busy, and it will be lonely--I thought it better than leaving you at home--it isn't as if she were quite an outsider--she is Gordon's cousin, and he is my personal----'

'The widow of a cousin, you mean,' she interrupted with emphasis. 'A cousin he scarcely knew; and he never even saw her till he returned from furlough last year.'

'Didn't he, my dear?' said the Colonel feebly. 'Still, they are relations. Call each other by their Christian names, and----'

This time a laugh interrupted him; rather a hard laugh for a girl.

'What a number of cousins the Rajpore ladies must have!' she began.

'Not Mrs. Boynton, Rose; not Mrs. Boynton,' protested the Colonel with spirit.

'No, I admit it. She is perfectly lady-like. I don't really dislike her a bit.'

'Dislike! my dear Rose! who could dislike so--so----'

'I admit it again, father. She is charming. I catch myself watching her, just as if I were in love with her like all the nice men are.'

'Really, my dear Rose----'

'Well, dear, why not? She is perfectly sweet. Then she has such tact. Do you know she never allows an ungentlemanly man to fall in love with her? I often wonder how she manages it. It's awfully clever of her.' Rose, standing by the fire, shifted a log with her foot and the sparks flew upwards. 'Of course I would rather have had a girl; but I suppose it wouldn't have done. There! don't worry, dear! Go off to your whist. I'll settle it all.'

'My dear girl----'

She told him calmly that there was no need for gratitude, and Colonel James Tweedie, R.E., head of a great Department, slunk away abashed to the card-room. Rose was very fond of her father, though she understood him perfectly--after the manner of modern children; accepting him reasonably, with all his weaknesses, as the parent Providence had assigned to her. And why, if she would have him, should he not marry Mrs. Boynton? The mother, who had died when Rose was born, had been well remembered; the Colonel was still middle-aged, and when his daughter married might have long years of solitude before him. Would it be fair for her to object? It was another of Rose Tweedie's characteristics that this question came uppermost in her dealings with both friends and foes. No! it would not be fair; there was no reason against it. None.

So she walked off calmly to the big hall, waiting to see Gwen Boynton's graceful figure--paired with some worthy partner, of course--come swaying out into the ring of light. But she was disappointed; for the very simple reason that the lady she sought was sitting with Lewis Gordon in the most comfortable corner in the whole building.

'Miss Tweedie!' said an eager voice behind her, as she stood instinctively marking the rhythm of the dance with one foot. 'Have you seen Mrs. Boynton? I can't find her anywhere.'

She turned gladly. It was Dan Fitzgerald, representing, as he always did, humanity at its handsomest. 'So you're back! No, Mr. Fitzgerald. She is not dancing, anyhow; but as those are the last bars, that is cold comfort. What a pity! when you came down to the hall on purpose.'

He flushed up like a girl; and she pointed to the gardenia in his button-hole.

'You don't go in for decoration except on state occasions,' she continued, 'and then you weren't at tennis. I always keep a look-out for you there; that back-handed return of yours from the line beats me. I've been trying it with the chuprassie bowling at me, but it didn't come off somehow. You must teach me when we are in camp.'

'Of course I will,' replied Dan cheerfully. Lewis Gordon would have simpered and said, 'Delighted, I'm sure.' The remembrance vexed Rose by its very appearance; as if it mattered what Gwen Boynton's cousin said or did. And the vexation accounted for the phrasing of her next words.

'Mr. Keene sent me a message, didn't he? No! How stupid of him! It was about his Nature. I was to have it, and he was to let me know what he wanted me to do with it.'

Dan's face, which had showed perplexity, cleared. 'Ah, it's the magazine you're meaning. Sure you puzzled me entirely, for it is not nature you want, Miss Tweedie, though, 'tis true, one can't have too much of a good thing.'

It was a distinct compliment, or meant to be one, but Rose listened to it gaily, and five minutes after, despite her shoes, was whirling in and out of the shadows, full of the keen enjoyment which dancing brings to some people.

Lewis Gordon, lounging lazily in his dark corner, noticed her with a certain irritated surprise. It was a more inconsequent, therefore a more womanly action than he expected in a girl who annoyed him by refusing to take either of the two places he assigned to women folk in his Kosmos. There were those of whom wives and mothers could be made discreetly, safely; and those who would be utterly spoilt by the commonplace process. He turned to his cousin feeling no such difficulty in regard to her classification. Yet in the dim light nothing could be seen save the outline of a small head, a huge fur boa, and long curves ending in a bronzed slipper catching the light beyond the shadow in which they sat.

'Shall we not dance?' he asked. 'It is the best waltz of the three. Then I could bring you some coffee and we could rest--on our laurels.'

'No, thanks. I was engaged to Mr. Fitzgerald for the last, and I must give him time to cool down.' The voice was sweet, refined, careless.

'I believe you are afraid of Fitzgerald.'

There was a touch of hauteur in the sweetness now.

'It is the second time this evening you have hinted at that, Lewis. I suppose--being a sort of relation--you know something of that boy and girl entanglement before I married your cousin. Is it so?'

Her unexpected and unusual frankness took him aback into faint excuse.

'There is nothing to apologise about, I assure you,' she went on, regaining her carelessness. 'You may as well know the facts. I was engaged to Mr. Fitzgerald. We were both babies, and my people disapproved. Then your cousin proposed, and good sense came to us; for we were not suited to each other. Du reste, Mr. Fitzgerald and I are still friends, and he is the best dancer in Rajpore.'

There was a pause, before he said quietly, 'Why not be quite frank, Gwen, and say he is in love with you still? Surely that is palpable.'

'Perhaps. But I prefer to leave such questions alone, even with my cousin. Especially since that cousin has done me the honour of telling me many times that he is devoted to me himself.'

He smiled at her deft evasion.

'What is the use of any one being devoted to you, Gwen, if you are going to marry Colonel Tweedie?' he replied half jestingly.

'I did not know I was going to marry him; but I am certainly going to look after Miss Rose Tweedie in camp--if she will have me. Do you think I shall want a new riding-habit, Mr. Gordon?'

'I really cannot help you on that question, Mrs. Boynton.'

She leant towards him, so that he could see the laugh pass from her pretty eyes. 'Don't be foolish, Lewis. You have been too good and kind to me for that. You, who know my affairs as well as I know them myself, must see that I have scarcely any choice between marrying again, and going home to live with my mother-in-law, or starving in some horrid poky lodging. How I should hate either! I can't live without money, Lewis. I don't spend much--but it goes somehow. Then my pension as a civilian's widow is but genteel poverty. Clothes are so expensive to begin with; yet even your best friends don't care for you unless you are well dressed.'

The real regret in her tone made him quote a trite saying about beauty unadorned.

'Rubbish!' she interrupted, sinking into her cushions again. 'Beauty is like the blue teapot; you must live up to it. I must marry some one who can afford a well-dressed wife. I must indeed, in common honesty to my future creditors. Personally I should prefer it to the mother-in-law. Besides, if I went home I should never see you again, Lewis. I should not like that--would you?'

If the words in themselves were a direct challenge, they came from the shadow where she sat, so daintily, so airily, that half a dozen replies were possible without trenching on sober affirmation or denial. Yet her hearer hesitated. There must always be a time when a man settles whether or no he shall ask a certain woman to be his wife, and this was not the first time the idea of marrying his cousin had occurred to Lewis Gordon. He was not the head of a Department, but he was in a fair way to become one in the future. He had money of his own, and she liked him in a way. As for her? she was perfection as a companion. As a wife?----

'My dear Gwen! I should hate it,' he said fervently, being certain of so much. But when he had said the words, they sounded too little, or too much, so he took refuge in jest again. 'Faute de mieux I should prefer the family party; that is to say, if you could induce your future stepdaughter, Miss Rose, to bear with my presence.'

The light on the bronze slipper shifted, showing an impatient movement of the pretty foot.

'Impossible, I should say,' came the voice, airy as ever; 'but as you seem to be imitating the barber's fifth brother to-night, why not settle that she should marry? Girls do, sometimes, especially in India.'

As she spoke a couple swooped out into the almost empty circle of polished floor. The waltz, nearing its end, gave them a swinging measure, and those two were dancers indeed. One could not choose but look, until, as the last chord crashed, they stopped as if petrified, to smile at each other, before hurrying away. Lewis Gordon watched them, his hands on his knees, a cynical smile on his face.

'By all means!' he said languidly. 'Suppose we say Dan Fitzgerald, and so get rid of our two bêtes-noir at once.'

Mrs. Boynton started from her cushions and gathered her boa together.

'What nonsense we are talking! Stupid nonsense into the bargain--which is intolerable. I am ashamed of myself. Come! let us have some coffee and forget our folly.'

Her companion rose to accompany her with a shrug of his shoulders. I beg your pardon, even though I fail to see the enormity of my offence. Fitzgerald, if he were once settled----'

She interrupted him with a gay laugh. 'So you aspire to the barber's office in other ways; would like to ranger your friends. When I am duly installed as chaperon I must consult you on matrimonial questions; but not till then, if you please, Lewis. Ah! there is Mrs. Dacre, I haven't seen her for an age; not since I went to Meerut.'

He took his dismissal placidly, as men do in a society where they cannot claim the undivided attention of at least one woman. Besides, Gwen Boynton's chief charm lay in the impossibility of forgetting that--provided she did not wish to do something else--she would be quite as gracious to the person who cut into your place as she had been to you. Furthermore that he was sure to hold as good a hand, and know the game as well as you did; for Mrs. Boynton, as Rose Tweedie had remarked, admitted no inferior players to her table. Seen now in the full light of the coffee-room she showed slight and graceful in the soft grey draperies which she wore as half mourning for the late Mr. Boynton--a perfectly unexceptional man who, on the verge of retirement, had lost all the savings of a long bachelorhood in one unfortunate venture, and had died of the disappointment. Beyond a perfectly lovely mouth and the faultless curves of chin and throat, there was nothing remarkable in her face; nothing at least to account for her remarkable charm. That, however, was indubitable; even Lewis Gordon, sipping his coffee outside the circle which gathered round her quickly, kept his eyes upon her. So he noticed hers turn more than once to Dan Fitzgerald, who stood at the table waiting to replace Rose Tweedie's tumbler of lemonade. 'She is afraid of him,' he thought. 'I wonder why? Perhaps she hasn't got over her fancy either; that is the only thing I can think of likely to create a difficulty.' Then he went off to button-hole another Secretary about business, and forgot even Gwen Boynton.

Yet, if half an hour afterwards he had by chance wandered into that portion of the gardens devoted to zoology he would have seen something to confirm his suggestion. For the two figures leaning over the iron rail surrounding the ornamental water were those of Mrs. Boynton and Dan Fitzgerald. The moon shone on the water; the clumps of bamboo and plantains on the central island showed softly dark; masses of feathery tamarisk trees and the sweeping curves of a sandhill or two beyond the garden shut out the world. Otherwise it was not a suitable spot for sentimental interviews, by reason of the ducks and geese, whose sleepy gabblings and quackings were apt to come in unsympathetic chorus to lovers' talk, while the adjutants, standing in pairs side by side, their heads under their wings, were over-suggestive of Darby and Joan. The conversation between these two, however, was sufficiently sensible to stand the test of their surroundings.

'It is really absurd,' she said in (for her) quite a querulous voice. 'I accept a pleasant invitation to make myself useful to the Tweedies, who have always been most kind to me,--and my cousin. And why every one should jump to the conclusion that I am going to marry a man who is almost old enough to be my father I cannot imagine. Really the world is too idiotic.'

'You don't lump me in as the world, do you, Gwen?' he answered in a lower tone. 'Surely you make a difference--surely there's some excuse for me, dear? I haven't seen you for six weeks, Gwen; you've been away, remember. And I hurried so for that promised dance, which you forgot. Yes; we'll say you forgot it. Then every one is talking of your going into camp with the Tweedies, wondering at your giving up the pleasures, the society, hinting at some reason----'

'If you can't trust me, Dan, that is an end of everything,' she interrupted sharply. 'No, don't!--please, don't! One never knows who mayn't come this way. Do let us be reasonable, Dan. We are not boy and girl now, to squabble and make it up again. You tell me always that I love you--have always loved you--will never love any one else; and perhaps you are right. Isn't that confidence enough for you?' She tried her utmost to keep an even tone, but something made the unwilling smile on her lips tremulous.

'It is, dear, and it isn't,' he said, his face showing soft and kindly in the moonlight. 'If I were only as sure of the rest of you as I am that you love me! But it was so, Gwen, in the old days; yet you threw me over. I knew it then, and it made me go to the devil--more or less. For if I had had the pluck to say, "You sha'n't," you would have been happier. I spoilt your life as well as my own by my cowardice. And I'm as bad as ever now, Gwen,--afraid to make you poor. Why don't I speak up, Gwen, instead of giving in to the worst part of you?--instead of waiting for promotion and making you more extravagant by paying the bills?'

'You needn't have reminded me of that!' she cried hotly; 'I'm not likely to forget it.'

He stared at her for an instant in sheer downright incredulity. Then he laid his hand on hers sharply, and with the touch something that was neither dislike nor fear, yet which seemed to alarm her, came to her face.

'Don't say that, Gwen! you don't--you can't mean it. For you know it is all yours--that I'd starve to give you a pleasure. Ah, Gwen! if you would only marry me to-morrow you'd never regret it. Why shouldn't you, dear? There's no fear; look how I've got on since you gave me the hope two years ago when I came to you in your trouble. If I had only had the pluck then to marry you straight away----'

'But it was impossible,' she broke in quickly, as if to lure him from the point. 'What would people have said? It was so soon.'

'What do I care? But now there is no reason--no reason at all. I'll get my promotion all right. Keene is there at Hodinuggur, so nothing can go wrong again. Gwen, why shouldn't you marry me to-morrow?'

'To-morrow!' she echoed faintly; yet for the life of her unable to repress that tremulous smile.

'Yes. Ah! my darling, you don't know what the uncertainty means to a man like I am. You don't know--you don't understand. If I only had you to myself, I would not fear anything. And you wouldn't, either, if I had the chance of teaching you what it means to a woman to have some one between her and the world--some one to hold her fast--some one----'

She shrank now from his increasing emotion.

'Don't! oh, don't! you frighten me. And don't be hurt or angry, dear. I've promised to marry you sometime--I have indeed. Oh, Dan, how foolish you are!'

She laid her delicately gloved hand on his arm, as he leant over the railings, trying to hide the bitter pain her look had given him; but he only shook his head.

'You can't make me different from what I am,' she went on almost pettishly; 'you can't, indeed.'

'I could, if I had the chance. That is all I ask.'

'And you will have it some day, Dan. Perhaps you are right, and I should be happy. Only, what is the use of talking about it just now? We have settled so many times that nothing can be done until your promotion comes. That will be next year, won't it? if nothing goes wrong at Hodinuggur. Oh, Dan, do cheer up. I have to go out to dinner, and it is getting late; but I'll drop you at the Club, if you like. I didn't mean to hurt your feelings; you know that; but you are so impetuous. Dan, do come! the geese are making such a noise, I can scarcely hear myself speak.'

It was true. Something had disturbed the peace of the pond, for a confused gabbling and quacking filled the air. Dan tried to fight against it for a minute, then with an inward curse gave up the struggle. As they walked back to the carriage Gwen felt grateful to the birds. They had saved the Capitol, for a very little more of Dan's hurt feelings might have made her promise anything. It was her way when brought face to face with pain. To make up for what he had suffered she was very gracious to him as they strolled along the winding walks set with English flowers, and the barred cages where big yellow tiger's eyes gleamed out of the shadows; gleamed quite harmlessly of course. But when she returned that evening to the rooms in the hotel which she occupied during the winter months her mood had changed; for Lewis Gordon had been at the dinner. She went over to her writing-table, took out a bundle of receipted bills and looked at it with a distaste seldom displayed towards such a possession. How foolish, how wrong, how unfair to poor Dan it had been to let him pay; and what a dreadful tie to her, for of course if he did not get his promotion she could not possibly marry him and then the obligation would be unbearable. Gwen, brooding over the situation by the fire, felt aggrieved. She was one of those women who, paradoxical as it may seem, gain the power of exciting passion by their own absolute lack of comprehension as to its first principles. To say she had no heart would have been an unkind calumny. She was really very fond of Dan; more fond of him when he was absent perhaps than when he was present, but she had not the remotest conception of what his love meant to him. So as she sat thinking of him in her seamless dress--Gwen's evening dresses always had a seamless look, and the lace about her fair shoulders always seemed pinned on with cunning little diamond brooches glittering and sparkling--she told herself that it all depended on promotion, and that, in its turn, depended largely on a boy whom she had never seen, who had gone to live in the desert with the sole purpose of forcing her to keep her promise. A queer tie indeed between that branded bungalow set in the sand, and her refined little sitting-room.

And at that moment George, pondering over a cigar in the verandah before turning in, was meditating, not upon the mysterious mound of Hodinuggur, with the light in the Diwân's tower challenging the feeble flicker in the potter's house, but on something far more mysterious than either--his dinner. That dinner of six courses, compounded out of the desert fowl in various stages of existence, to which his factotum, a man whose imaginative faculty outran his creative power, had given such topsy-turvy yet familiar names. Wherefore? Why was it deemed necessary to feed a sahib on salt-fish concocted out of chicken and anchovy sauce, and then to give dignified support to the fraud by handing round the conventional egg-sauce? George gave up the puzzle and went to bed depressed by the consideration that if Hodinuggur was strange and unkenned to him, he was quite as strange and unkenned to it.