The Hosts of the Lord Part 12

"I don't see on what ground," began the Under Secretary, laboriously.

"Then ye don't read your Bible. Didn't Adam, when he was given dominion over the lower animals, begin by bestowing names on them? Ah! my dear Mrs. Smith, I didn't know ye were so close. A thousand congratulations, my dear lady."

"You don't mean it, sir," she interrupted, laughing. "Do you think I have forgotten the consolatory verses you wrote me last year when Eugene _didn't_ get anything? You are a fraud."

"Not a bit of it; only an Irishman," put in Father Ninian, with an almost tender smile for the keen, whimsical face which had been friend to him, and foe to him, for many a long year. "Let us have the verses, Mrs. Smith."

"Say ye don't remember them, there's a kind soul," urged the Commissioner, persuasively.

"But I do:

"I dreamt, and lo, the stars fell from the sky To blaze upon the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of naughty men; And as I wondered, came this swift reply:-- 'Each star is some soul's inmost aim, and when The angels don't approve, it is returned To feed the base-born flame by which it burned.

The nice, they keep until--life's struggle striven-- The owners find them at the gates of heaven.'"

"Striven--heaven!" groaned the Commissioner, amid the clapping of hands. "My dear madam, did I commit such a crime--I mean rhyme? But the poet's right. Ye can't go wide of the mark, annyhow, even in a song, but you're sure to find the fact again in the heart of a friend."

So, with that curiously light-hearted, almost reckless, frivolity of Indian society--a not unnatural recoil, perhaps, from the perpetual presence of the greatest social problem the world has ever seen, or is likely to see, that is, the mutual a.s.similation of East and West without injury to either--the little company of English men and women, empire makers and breakers, drifted out into the sunshine, and so on to the Viceroy's private enclosure, where the band, weary of national anthems, was already at work on a selection of street tunes, beginning with "Tommy, make room for your uncle."

So the pageant of power pa.s.sed into a garden-party, and nothing remained to show the hand-grip which had made that garden out of a wilderness, to tell of the tireless effort to solve the problem, the ceaseless striving to be just, which underlay all the quips and cranks, the foibles and follies, of the great camp, save the premature baldness of a few heads, as their owners fought desperately at badminton; fought to prevent a child's shuttlec.o.c.k from falling in the wrong court!

A fight which was watched with blank courtesy, as a further exhibition of sheer eccentricity, by those of the jewelled and brocaded owners of t.i.tles who had the _entree_ to this Holy of Holies.

Roshan Khan, however,--who looked splendid in his uniform,--fought with the best; and won, too, though Laila Bonaventura, who played on his side, stood still, taking, it is true, the shots which came within reach dexterously enough, but never stirring an inch for one beyond.

And, as he played, the curious chance which had brought him into her company made his blood run fast.

Captain Dering had bidden him join the set; bidden him curtly, almost savagely, as the best player available, in answer to a challenge from Muriel Smith to play her, her husband, and the Commissioner. And this challenge had come curtly, also, because Captain Dering was standing beside Laila Bonaventura, to whom he had been giving a cup of coffee.

Not because it gave him pleasure, but from sheer determination not to let his mistake in the darkness count for anything. Yet, as the girl's hand took the cup from his, he had remembered with a thrill the gladness, the content it had brought him. Though he refused to acknowledge the fact, the puzzle of this mistake had been his chief thought ever since it occurred, and a smouldering resentment regarding his past relationship with one who was still to him the best and dearest of women was the result. He felt vaguely that she, as well as he, ought to have known that their sentiment, their monopoly, as it were, of friendship, could only mean--what it had meant to him during those few moments of blindness which had, paradoxically, opened his eyes. So he had felt bitter, and she had known it instinctively. If she had ever faced facts, this alone might have opened her eyes also; but she was too good a woman, too helplessly bound by her woman's cult of love, to disa.s.sociate it from friendship. So, without bringing a doubt even, the jealous desire of appropriation which draws a line clear and clean as a sword-cut between the two, had risen up in her from the absence of the sympathetic look she had expected from Vincent Dering.

So she had challenged him, and so it came to pa.s.s that Roshan Khan played badminton with Laila Bonaventura. She took no notice of him beyond a casual inspection of his uniform; still the mere fact of being her equal within the white lines which separated their badminton court from the realities of life seemed a fate. When the game was over, his eyes followed her closely, and he, himself, at a respectful distance; and as he followed her, his desire to speak to her grew as he pondered on his right to do so. After all, as his grandmother had said, she was his cousin.

And fate was on his side once more. A well-bred crowding round a table where some photographs of the camp were being shown, brought him so near her that she caught sight of his yellow, silver-laced uniform behind her, and turned quickly. Turned with a look in her big black eyes which dazzled him.

It vanished, however, in a second; yet her words, spoken with a faint resentment, made the memory of the look give rise to a swift pulse of angry suspicion.

"I thought you were Captain Dering," she said. "Why do you wear the same uniform? I thought natives couldn't be officers."

The a.s.sumption, in his present state of mind, made all his fierce temper flash to his face; but ere he could choose English words to express it, she laughed, and, after her fashion when amused, became confidential. "You are angry at being called a native; but you _are_ one, aren't you? Then it is so foolish. You are like my guardian. He can't bear the bazaar people to call me '_Begum-sahiba_'; but they do sometimes, you know, because I own a lot of their houses and lands, and my grandmother was a native princess. I know that, though my guardian never speaks about it. He is ashamed, I think--like you are. I'm not. I didn't choose my grandmother. Why should one fuss about such things? If they're true, it can't be helped, and if they're not, what _does_ it matter? Besides, it must be rather nice to be a real Begum. You haven't seen any, of course; they wouldn't let you, would they? That must be horrid. How could you like people if you didn't see them? Besides--"

she added, with an access of demure, pious conviction, "it would be wicked to marry them, you know. You should never marry anyone you don't love. Even the Sisters told me that."

Her voice had deepened, broadened; her eyes, occupied with his uniform, not his face, had grown soft. Hitherto he had been too much at a loss before her sudden garrulity to interrupt; now, that vague suspicion recurred, making him feel inclined to say brutally, "I am your cousin; I claim you." The very thought of her outraged face attracted him. But English words were inadequate for such emotions, so, as he paused, she went on:--

"As you are here, I suppose you'll be asked to the ball, also. It is to be in my palace, you know, because Captain Dering thinks it the best place. He says the gardens will be beautiful all lit up--" She smiled as if at some secret mystery, then continued: "Of course, I don't know yet; I haven't seen it, but I think it will be lovely. Only I wish my dress was different. I am Beatrice--Dante's Beatrice--and I think it stupid. But my guardian chose it because--" she smiled again with the same secret amus.e.m.e.nt--"I don't know, of course, but I expect it is because my great-grandmother went as Beatrice to some ball long ago. It is generally that. I think he must have been in love with her--isn't it funny?"

"Laila," came Father Ninian's voice from behind, "I have been looking for you everywhere. It is time to go."

His usually kind old face was stern. He gave the curtest of recognitions to Roshan Khan, and, as he carried his ward off, said sharply, "Who introduced you to that native?"

"No one," she replied, indifferently; "I thought he was Captain Dering; their uniforms--" she broke off to add, with more animation, "I do like the gold and silver lace. Though of course the jewels, like the rajahs wore, look best."

He interrupted her in Italian, giving a quick gesture of dissent. "Say not so, _cara mia_, they would look ill on--on Englishmen. And listen, child! You should not speak to strangers; and I would rather you did not speak to such natives at all. They--cannot understand--quite--for they look on women differently from what we do."

Laila's eyes narrowed sullenly. "Very well, guardian," she said resignedly, "only I suppose they must know what their women are really like--and--perhaps the native ladies prefer it."

The old man looked at her, startled, but said nothing.

When he had gone to find Akbar Khan and the carriage, Vincent Dering, seeing her alone, came up--so, at least, he told himself--out of sheer politeness, to ask if she wanted anything. Yet something in her face sent him beyond mere courtesy at once; something almost childishly apparent.

"I'm afraid you haven't been enjoying yourself," he said kindly. "Why not? I thought it rather pleasant."

"Very pleasant!" she a.s.sented wearily. "Only my guardian has been telling me not to do things; and I don't know why, but I always want to do them at once--don't you?"

He could not actually deny the fact. "Sometimes. One has to pretend--"

She raised her eyes to his blindingly; he caught a glimpse in them of the lawless approval Roshan Khan had seen, yet of something else--a lawless disdain. "Why must one?" she asked. "I never mean to, never! If I want to do a thing I'll do it. I don't mean wicked things, of course--" she returned here to demure, almost plaintive piety--"I don't want to do them, and nothing can be wrong when it seems right to you, and it is real--ever so real, and you give yourself to it, every bit of you, without thinking, and--and--ask nothing--nothing at all--"

Her vehemence, her pa.s.sionate a.s.sertion, roused a quick response in him. "Would you do that?" he asked, his voice vibrating. "Would you--really?"

She smiled slowly. "Of course I don't know," she said, "I haven't tried yet; but I never pretend. I don't even pretend to like my dress for the ball. It _is_ so stupid."

He felt annoyed at being led into a burst of emotion, and then baulked.

"You will look charming, I'm sure," he said in his worst manner. "And if you don't like it, change to something jolly after supper. Lots of people do."

"Will Mrs. Smith?" she asked quickly.

He flushed angrily. "I really don't know," he began. Her eyes were on him curiously.

"That's funny," she said. "I thought people--not that it matters," she went on, "for I can't. I haven't a dress. Do you know I never have anything I really like--never."

The girl's voice was absolutely touching in its listless, dull confidence, and he could not help consolation. "You'll have the ball, I'm sure; you will enjoy it awfully, and--and you mustn't forget that you've given me the second waltz, and the first extra after supper."

She did not answer for a moment. "Have I?" she asked. "I didn't know it; but I will. That will be nice. And you are coming to decorate to-morrow, aren't you? That will be nice, too."

Her tone lingered in his ears long after she had gone. It was with him even when he was driving Mrs. Smith home, and, of course, making up their little misunderstanding by the way; possibly, because of this making up, since, for the first time, the elaborate _eclairciss.e.m.e.nt_ irked him. It seemed so unnecessary unless the whole affair meant something, which was quite out of the question.

For instance, when driving Lance Carlyon back to the Fort afterwards he did not desire an explanation of the latter's moodiness. When a chum was evil-dispositioned, you waited calmly for him to come round. That was friendship.

"I'm sorry Miss Shepherd couldn't come," said Lance, suddenly, his eyes on that spit of sand, with its hovels and logs, below the town. "I wanted her to, awfully, if only because she's never seen a _durbar_; but"--he smiled--"I expect someone else wanted her instead. By George!

Dering, you don't know how that girl works. Sometimes I feel it's a shame, and sometimes I think it's splendid--though of course it don't matter a dash what I think."

And that--Vincent Dering asked himself--was that love?

Laila Bonaventura's voice came back to make him certain of one thing.

That would not be her version of the old, old story; and the knowledge made him, somehow, more content with his world.

Meanwhile another man in yellow and silver lace was being haunted by a girl's voice, which had spoken of things which no decent woman of his own race would have mentioned; yet which had spoken to him with an equality which no Englishwoman would have allowed herself. And as for Englishmen! The recollection of Father Narayan's face as he carried the girl off made Roshan Khan curse under his breath.

But the girl herself had been different. He literally did not know what to think; and the desire for someone else's opinion grew so strong that, finally, with a curious mixture of reluctance and triumph, he forsook the straight road to the Fort, and turned his horse's head towards his grandmother's house. She was at least a woman; she might understand and judge better than he.