The Mercy of the Lord Part 4

One he knew. It was Elflida Norma, her impromptu ball dress metamorphosed by her race into loose white draperies out of which the small dark head and slim throat, with its circlet of big blue beads, rose as from clouds. The other, unknown, was that of a tall, fair young man.

"If you had only stood still," the latter was saying angrily, "I could have managed, but you dodged about like--like----" His eyes had taken her in by this time, and he paused in his simile. But hers had wandered to the monster p.r.o.ne in the dust; and she stepped closer to it curiously.

"I suppose it is named a motor bicycle," she said, coolly. "I have not seen one in our place before, only in picture books. I am glad."

There were no regrets or apologies. And even Iman Khan, when he recovered his breath, made no inquiries as to whether the young man had hurt himself in getting out of the Miss-Sahiba's way He simply looked at the wheels of the bicycle and then at its stalwart young rider.

G.o.d had been kind and sent a husband in a miraculous car!

II

Iman Khan sate in the early dawn, putting such polish as never before was put on a pair of rather large size Oxford shoes. So far all had gone well. His own vast experience, aided by the stranger's complete ignorance of Indian ways, had sufficed for much; and Alexander Alexander Sahib (all the twelve Imans be praised for such a name!) was now comfortably asleep in the bastion opposite the widow's quarters, under the impression that the hastily produced whisky and soda, with a "sand beef" (sandwich) in case hunger had come on the road, the simple but clean bedding, and briefly, all the luxuries of a night's sleep after a somewhat severe shaking, were due to the commercial instincts of a good old chap in charge of the usual rest-house: that being exactly what Iman had desired as a beginning.

The sequel required thought, and, as he polished, his brain was full of plans for the immediate future. One thing was certain, however, quite certain. The husband G.o.d had sent in a car must not be allowed to ride away on it before seeing more of the Miss-_Sahiba_. Arrangements must be made, as they always had to be made in the best families. Generally it began with a tennis party--but this, of course, was out of the question--and perhaps the accident on the road might be taken as an equivalent for that introduction. Then there were dances, and "fools-food" (picnics). The one might be considered as taken also, the others were out of season in the heats of May. There remained drives and dinners. Both possible, but both required time; therefore time must be had. The _chota-sahib_ must not ride away after breakfast, as he had settled on doing, should he and the monster be found fit for the road.

Now the _chota-sahib_ seemed none the worse for his fall, as Iman, in his capacity of valet, had had opportunities of judging. The inference, therefore, was obvious. It must be the monster who was incapable.

Iman gave a finishing glisten to the shoes and placed them decorously side by side, ready to be taken in when the appointed hour came for shaving water. Then he went over and looked at the motor bicycle, which was accommodated in the verandah. It did not pant or smell now as if it were alive, but for all that it looked horribly healthy and strong. It was evidently not a thing to be broken inadvertently by a casual push.

Then a thought struck him, and he ambled off to the old blacksmith, who still lived in the serai arcade and boasted of his past trade of mending springs, shoeing horses, and selling to travellers his own manufactures in the way of wonderful soft iron pocket-knives with endless blades and corkscrews warranted to draw themselves instead of the corks!

"Ari Bhai," said Iman mildly to this worthy, "thou art a prince of workmen, truly; but come and see something beyond thy art in iron.

Bapri bap! I warrant thou couldst not even guess at its inner parts."

Could he not? Tezoo, the smith, thought otherwise, and being clever as well as voluble, hit with fair correctness on pivots, cog-wheels, and such-like inevitables of all machinery, the result of the interview being that Iman, armed with his kitchen chopper and a bundle of skewers, had a subsequent _tete-a-tete_ with the monster, in which the latter came off second best; so that when its owner, fortified by a most magnificent breakfast (served in the verandah by reason of the central room of that bastion having an absolutely unsafe roof), went to overhaul his metal steed, he was fairly surprised.

"It is a verra remarkable occurrence," he said softly to himself as his deft hands busied themselves with nuts and screws (for he was a Scotch engineer on his way to take up an appointment as superintendent in a ca.n.a.l workshop), "most remarkable. And would be a fine example to the old ministers thesis that accident is not chance. There's just a method in it that is absolutely uncanny."

In short, even with the smithy on the premises, of which the good old chap in charge spoke consolingly, it was clear he could not start before evening, if then. Not that it mattered so much, since he had plenty of time in which to join his billet.

Thus, as he smoked his pipe, the question came at last for which the old matchmaker had been longing.

"And who would the young lady be who smashed me up last night?"

In his reply Iman dragged in _Warm E-stink Sahib Bahadur_ and a vast amount of extraneous matter out of his own past experiences. Regarding the present, however, he was distinctly selective without being actually untruthful. The late _E-stink Sahib's_ widow and children, for instance, being also at rest in the serai, were equally under his charge. And this being so, since there was but one public room in which dinner could possibly be served as it should be served--here Iman made a digression regarding the rights of the sahib-logue at large and _E-stink Sahib's_ family in particular--it was possible that the Huzoor might meet his fellow-lodgers and the Miss-_Sahiba_ again.

In fact, he--Iman--would find it more convenient if the meal were eaten together and at the same time, and the mem--her absence being one of the eliminated truths--would, he knew, fall in with any suggestion of his; which statement again was absolutely true.

Alec Alexander, lost in the intricacies of a piston-rod, acquiesced mechanically, though in truth the likelihood of seeing such a remarkably pretty face again was not without its usual unconscious charm to a young man.

This charm, however, became conscious half an hour afterwards, when hard at work in the smithy, his coat off, his sleeves rolled up, showing milk-white arms above his tanned wrists, he looked up from the bit of glowing iron on the anvil and saw a large pair of blue eyes and a large string of blue beads about an almost childish throat.

It struck him that both were as blue as the sky inarching the wide inarched square of the old serai. It struck him also that the eyes, anyhow, had more in common with the sky than with the house made with hands in which he stood, even though dead kings had built it. Yes! the whole figure did not belong somehow to its environment; to the litter of wasted forage, the ashes of dead fires, to the desertion and neglect of a place which, having served its purpose of a night's lodging, has been left behind on the road. It seemed worth more than that.

"I gave you a nice toss, didn't I?" said Elflida Norma, breaking in on his quasi-sentimental thought with a certain complacency. "If you had got out of my way it would have been more better."

"You mean if you hadn't got in mine," he replied, grimly. "But don't let us quarrel about that now. The mischief's done so far as I am concerned."

The blue eyes narrowed in eager interest.

"Have you broken things inside, too?" she asked, sympathy absent, pure curiosity present in her tone.

"No! I didn't," he said, shortly. "I'm not of the kind that breaks easily."

She considered him calmly from head to foot. "No-o-o," she admitted, sparingly. "I suppose not--but your arms look veree brittle, like china--I suppose that is from being so--being so chicken-white."

"Perhaps," he said, still more shortly, and was relieved when Iman (having from the cook-room, where he was feverishly feathering fowls in preparation for the night's feast, detected Elflida's flagrant breach of etiquette in having anything whatever to do with a coatless sahib) hurried across to beguile his charge back to the paths of propriety by reporting that Lily-_baba_ (to whom the girl was devoted) evinced a determination to eat melons with her brothers, which he, Iman, was far too busy to frustrate.

"You need not make such pother about big dinner to-night," she said, viciously, when, with the absolutely accommodating Lily in her arms, she stood watching the far less interesting process of pounding forcemeat on a curry stone; "for I heard him tell the smith that he would go this evening if--well, if somebody kept his temper in boiling oil. Such a queer idea--as if anybody could!"

Old Iman's hands fell for an instant from the _munadu_ (Maintenon) cutlets he was preparing, for he understood the frail foundation on which his chance of manufacturing a husband stood. Jullunder-sahib must be making a spring, and if the oil in which it had to be boiled---- But no! As cook, he knew something of the properties of hot fat, and felt convinced that the spring would never be fried in time.

So all that long hot day he toiled and slaved in company with an anatomy of a man whom he had unearthed from the city. A man who had also in his youth served the white blood, but had never risen beyond the scullery. A man who called him "Great Artificer," and fanned him and the charcoal fire indiscriminately according to their needs.

And all that long hot day on the other side of the arcaded square work went on also, so that the clang of metal on anvil or cook-room fire rose in antagonism on the dusty sunshine which slept between them.

Dinner or no dinner? Spring or no spring? And the circling dark shadows of the kites above in the blue sky were almost the only other signs of life, for Elflida Norma had found sleep the easiest way of keeping Lily-_baba_ from the melons, and the boys slept as they slept always.

But as the sun set Iman knew that fate had decided in favour of the dinner, for Jullunder-sahib came over from the smithy with empty hands, and found hot water in his room, and the change of white raiment he carried in his knapsack laid out decorously on the bed.

He took the hint and dressed for dinner, even to the b.u.t.tonhole of jasmine which he found beside his hair-brush.

Elflida Norma, under similar supervision, dressed also. In fact, everything was dressed, including the flat tin lids of the saucepans which Iman had impressed into doing duty as side-dishes. Surrounded by castellated walls of rice paste, supporting cannon b.a.l.l.s of alternate spinach and cochinealed potatoes, they really looked very fine. So did Iman himself, starched to inconceivable stiffness of deportment. So even did the anatomy, who, promoted for once to the dining-room, grinned at the young man and the girl, at the Great Artificer and all his works, with his usual indiscrimination.

And, in truth, each and all deserved grins. Yet Elflida Norma looked at Alec Alexander, he at her, and both at the dinner table set out marvellously with great trails of the common pumpkin vine looped with the cheap silver tinsel every Indian bazaar provides, and felt a sudden shyness of themselves, of each other, and the unwonted snowiness and glitter.

"Cler or wite?" said Iman, his old hands in difficulties with two soup plates. There was a dead silence.

"He means soup," faltered Elflida Norma desperately, wishing herself with the boys who were being regaled with curry and rice in her room, and thereinafter became dumb until the next course, when a sense of duty made her supplement Iman's "fish-bar'l" with the explanation that it was not really fish, which was not procurable, but another form of fowl.

So, in fact, were the side dishes which followed, and in which Iman had so far surpa.s.sed his usual self that Elflida was perforce as helpless as her companion for all save eating them solidly in due order. The old man, however, was too much absorbed in the due handling of "bredsa.r.s.e"

with the fowl, which was at last allowed to appear under the t.i.tle of "roschikken," too much discomforted by the subsidence of his favourite "sikken," a cheese _soufflee_, to notice silence, or the lack of it, until, just as--the worst strain over--he was perfunctorily apologising for the impossibility of "Hice-puddeen," a fateful cry came from the next room and Elflida started to her feet.

"It's Lily," she began; but Iman frowned her into her seat again, and turned to the anatomy superbly. "Go!" he said with dignity, "and bid the ayah see to Lily-_baba_."

The result, however, was unsatisfactory, and a certain obstinacy grew to Elflida's small face, which finally blossomed into open rebellion and a burst of confidence.

"You see," she said, those blue eyes of hers almost blinking as she narrowed them with earnestness, "she smells guavas, and they are more her hobby than melons even."

The young man smiled.

"Who's Lily?" he asked; "your sister, I suppose."

"My half-sister," she replied, solemnly. "But she will cry on, you see, if she is not let to come to my place."

"Then let her come--why not?"

"It is an evil custom," began Iman, as the order was given. He knew no graver blame than that even for a whole Decalogue in ruins; but Elflida Norma stamped her foot as she had stamped it in the polka, so he had to give in and thus avoid worse exposures.