Chronicles of Dustypore Part 6

CHAPTER XI.

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.

After short silence then, And summons sent, the great debate began.

A body const.i.tuted of as discordant elements as the three members of the Salt Board was not likely to remain very long at peace with itself; and for weeks past, Blunt's increasing truculence of deportment had warned his colleagues of an approaching outbreak.

Since his successful raid upon the Board's accounts this gentleman had made the lives of Fotheringham and c.o.c.kshaw a burden to them. His insatiable curiosity plunged in the most ruthless manner into matters which the others knew instinctively would not bear investigation. He proposed reforms in an offhand manner which made poor Fotheringham's hair stand on end; and the very perusal of his memoranda was more than c.o.c.kshaw's industry could achieve. He had a st.u.r.dy cob on which he used to ride about in the mornings, acquiring health and strength to be disagreeable the entire day, and devising schemes of revolution as he went. Poor c.o.c.kshaw's application for the Carraways had been refused; General Beau had got the appointment and was actually in course of a series of valedictory visits to various ladies whom he believed broken-hearted at his departure. Fotheringham grew greyer and sadder day by day and prepared himself as best he might to meet the blows of fate in an att.i.tude of dignified martyrdom. Matters at last reached a crisis in a proposal of Blunt's, brought out in his usual uncompromising fashion and thrust upon the Board, as Fotheringham acknowledged with a shudder, with a horrid point-blank directness which rendered evasion and suppression (the only two modes of dealing with questions which his experience had taught him) alike impossible. In the first place Blunt demonstrated by statistics that not enough salt was produced at the Rumble Chunder quarries to enable the inhabitants to get enough to keep them healthy. Nothing could be more convincing than his figures: so many millions of people--so many thousands of tons of salt--so much salt necessary per annum for each individual, and so forth. Then Blunt went on to show that the cla.s.ses of diseases prevalent in the Sandy Tracts were precisely those which want of salt produces; then he demonstrated that there was wholesale smuggling. From all this it followed obviously that the great thing wanted was to buy up existing interests, develop the quarries, improve the roads, and increase the production. If this were done salt might be sold at a rate which would bring it within the reach of all cla.s.ses, and yet the gains of Government would be increased. This was Blunt's view. The opposite party urged that to vary the salt-supply would interfere with the laws of political economy, would derange the natural interaction of supply and demand (this was one of Fotheringham's favourite phrases), would depress internal trade, paralyse existing industries, cause all sorts of unlooked-for results and not benefit the consumer a whit; and that, even if it would, ready money was not to be had at any price. Blunt, however, was not to be put off with generalities and claimed to record his opinions, that his colleagues should record theirs, and that the whole matter should be submitted to the Agent. c.o.c.kshaw gave a suppressed groan, lit a cheroot, and mentally resolved that nothing should tempt _him_ into writing a memorandum, or, if possible, into allowing anybody else to do so. 'For G.o.d's sake,' he said, 'don't let us begin minuting upon it; if the matter must go to Empson, let us ask him to attend the Board, and have it out once for all.' Now Mr. Empson was at this time Agent at Dustypore. The custom was that he came to the Board only on very solemn occasions, and only when the division of opinion was hopeless; then he sat as Chairman and his casting-vote decided the fortunes of the day.

The next Board day, accordingly, Empson appeared, and it soon became evident that Blunt was to have his vote.

Fotheringham was calm, pa.s.sive, and behaved throughout with the air of a man who thought it due to his colleagues to go patiently through with the discussion, but whose mind was thoroughly made up. The fight soon waxed vehement.

'Look,' said Blunt, 'at the case of cotton in the Kutchpurwanee District.'

'Really,' said Fotheringham, 'I fail to see the a.n.a.logy between cotton and salt.' This was one of Fotheringham's stupid remarks, which exasperated both Empson and Blunt and made them flash looks of intelligence across the table at each other.

'Then,' Blunt said with emphasis, 'I'll explain the a.n.a.logy. Cotton was twopence-halfpenny per pound and hard to get at that. What did we do? We laid out ten lakhs in irrigation, another five lakhs in roads, a vast deal more in introducing European machinery and supervision; raised the whole sum by an average rate on cotton cultivation--and what is the result? Why, last year the outcome was more than double what it was before, and the price a halfpenny a pound lower at least.'

'And what does that prove?' asked Fotheringham, who never could be made to see anything that he chose not to see; 'As I said before, where is the a.n.a.logy?' Blunt gave a cough which meant that he was uttering execrations internally, and took a large pinch of snuff. Fotheringham looked round with the satisfied air of a man who had given a clencher to his argument, and whose opponents could not with decency profess any longer to be unconvinced.

'I am against it,' said c.o.c.kshaw, 'because I am against everything. We are over-governing the country. The one thing that India wants is to be let alone. We should take a leaf out of the books of our predecessors--collect our revenue, as small an one as possible, shun all changes like the devil--and let the people be.'

'That is out of the question,' said Empson, whom thirty years of officialdom had still left an enthusiast at heart; '"Rest for India" is the worst of all the false cries which beset and bewilder us; it means, for one thing, a famine every ten years at least; and famines, you know, mean death to them and insolvency to us.'

'Of course,' said Fotheringham, sententiously, with the grand air of aeolus soothing the discordant winds; 'when c.o.c.kshaw said he was against everything, he did not mean any indifference to the country. But we are running up terrible bills; you know, Empson, we got an awful snubbing from home about our deficit last year.'

'Well, but now about the Salt,' put in Blunt, whose task seemed to be to keep everybody to the point in hand; 'this is no question of deficit. I say it will pay, and the Government of India will lend us the money fast enough if they can be made to think so too.'

'Well,' said c.o.c.kshaw, stubbornly lighting another cheroot, and getting out his words between rapid puffs of smoke, 'it won't pay, you'll see, and Government will think as I do.'

'Then,' replied Blunt, 'you will excuse me for saying Government will think wrong, and you will have helped them. Have you examined the figures?'

'Yes,' said c.o.c.kshaw, with provoking placidity, 'and I think them, like all other statistics, completely fallacious. You have not been out here, Blunt, as long as we have.'

'No; but the laws of arithmetic are the same, whether I am here or not.'

'Well,' observed Fotheringham, 'I really do not see--forgive me, pray, for saying it--but, as senior member, I may perhaps be allowed the observation--I really do not see how Blunt can pretend to know anything about our Salt.'

'There is one thing I know about it,' said Blunt to Empson as they drove home together from the Board; 'whatever it is, it is not Attic!'

While thus the battle raged within, Desvoeux, who had come with the Agent to the Board, took an afternoon's holiday, and found himself, by one of those lucky accidents with which Fortune favours every flirtation, in Mrs. Vereker's drawing-room, where Maud had just arrived to have luncheon and to spend the afternoon.

Now Mrs. Vereker was a beauty, and, as a beauty should, kept a little court of her own in Dustypore, which in its own way was quite as distinct an authority as the Salt Board or the Agency itself. Her claims to sovereignty were considerable. She had the figure of a sylph, hair golden and profuse and real. She had lovely, liquid, purple eyes, into which whoever was rash enough to look was lost forthwith; and a smile--but as to this the position of the present chronicler, as a married man and the father of a family, renders it impossible for him to describe it as it deserved. Suffice it to say that, even in a faded photograph, it has occasioned the partner of his bosom the acutest pangs, and it would be bad taste and inexpedient to say more than that gentlemen considered it bewitching, while many married ladies condemned it as an unmeaning simper of a very silly woman.

Mrs. Vereker affected to be greatly surprised at Desvoeux's arrival, and even to hesitate about letting him in; but the slight constraint of her manner, and the flush that tinged her cheek, suggested the suspicion that the call was not altogether fortuitous.

'How provoking,' she said, when Desvoeux made his appearance, 'that you should just come this morning to spoil our _tete-a-tete!_ Don't you find, Miss Vernon, that whatever one does in life, there is invariably a man _de trop?_'

'No,' cried Desvoeux gaily; 'Providence has kindly sent me to rescue you both from a dull morning. Ladies have often told me that under such circ.u.mstances it is quite a relief to have a man come in to break the even flow of feminine gossip. Come, now, Miss Vernon, were you not pleased to see my carriage come up the drive?'

'No, indeed,' said Maud; 'nothing could be more _mal a propos_. Mrs.

Vereker was just going to show me a lovely new Paris bonnet, and now, you see, we must wait till you are gone!'

'Then, indeed, you would hate me,' answered Desvoeux; 'but happily there is no necessity for that, as I happen to be a connoisseur in bonnets, and Mrs. Vereker would not be quite happy in wearing one till I had given my approval. She will go away now, you will see, and put it on for us to look at.'

'Is not he conceited?' said Mrs. Vereker, raining the influence of a bewitching smile upon her guests, and summoning, as she could at pleasure, the most ingenuous of blushes to her cheeks; 'he thinks he is quite a first-rate judge of everything.'

'Not of _everything_,' said the other, 'but of some things--Mrs.

Vereker's good looks, for instance--yes, from long and admiring contemplation of the subject! It would be hard indeed if one could not have an opinion about what has given one so much pleasure, and, alas! so much suffering!'

Desvoeux said this with the most sentimental air, and Mrs. Vereker seemed to take it quite as a matter of course.

'Poor fellow!' she said; 'well, perhaps I will show you the bonnet after all, just to console you; am I not kind?'

'You know,' said Desvoeux, 'that you are dying to put it on. Pray defer your and our delectation no longer!'

'Rude and disagreeable person!' cried the other, 'Suppose, Miss Vernon, we go off and look at it by ourselves and have a good long chat, leaving him alone here to cultivate politeness?'

'Yes,' cried Maud, 'let us. Here, Mr. Desvoeux, is a very interesting report on something--Education--no, Irrigation--with nice tables and plenty of figures. That will amuse you till we come back.'

'At any rate, don't turn a poor fellow out into such a hurricane as this,' said Desvoeux, going to the window and looking into the garden, where by this time a sand-storm was raging and all the atmosphere thick and murky with great swirls of dust. 'I should spoil my complexion and my gloves, and very likely be choked into the bargain.'

'But it was just as bad when you came, and you did not mind it.'

'Hope irradiated the horizon,' cried Desvoeux; 'but it was horrible. I have a perfect horror of sand--like the people in "Alice," you know--

They wept like anything to see Such quant.i.ties of sand.

"If this were only cleared away,"

They said, "it would be grand."

"If seven maids with seven mops Swept it for half a year, Do you suppose," the Walrus said, "That they could get it clear?"

"I doubt it," said the Carpenter, And shed a bitter tear.

And I shall shed a bitter tear if you send me away. At any rate, let me stay to lunch, please, and have my horses sent round to the stable.'

'Shall we let him?' cried Mrs. Vereker teasingly. 'Well, if you do, you will have nothing but poached eggs and bottled beer. There is a little pudding, but only just big enough for Miss Vernon and me.'

'I will give him a bit of mine,' said Maud. 'I vote that we let him stay, if he promises not to be impertinent.'

'And I will show him my bonnet,' cried the other, whose impatience to display her new finery was rapidly making way. 'It is just as well to see how things strike men, you know, and my _caro sposo_, among his thousand virtues, happens to be a perfect ignoramus on the point of dress. He knows and cares nothing about all my loveliest things.'

'Except,' said Desvoeux, 'how much they cost. Well, there is a practical side which somebody must know about, I suppose, and a husband is just the person; but it is highly inartistic.'

'How did you know that I was here?' Maud asked, when Mrs. Vereker had left the room. 'And why are you not at the Agency doing your lessons?'

'Because we have an aviary of little birds at the Agency,' answered Desvoeux, his manner instantly becoming several shades quieter and more affectionate, 'and one of them came and sung me a tune this morning, and told me to go and take a holiday and meet the person I like the best in the world.'