The Native Born; or, the Rajah's People Part 23

Travers started, and then smiled.

"Is there anything you do not know or have not read, Rajah?" he said, with an amused admiration.

"I have read a great deal," was the earnest answer, "but it seems to me as though I had known nothing until yesterday. Yesterday, in an hour, a new world was revealed to me." He leaned forward, extending his hand. "I ask you as a man of honor," he said, "before you show me your plans, before I definitely engage myself in this great work, tell me, do you believe that it will be for my people, what you say? Will it lift them from their misery; will it make them prosperous and happy?"

Travers took the hand in his own. For a moment he studied it intently, curiously, as though it had been the sole topic of their conversation.

Then his eyes met those of the Rajah with unflinching calm and decision.

"As far as I can be sure of anything, it will do for your country all that I have said," he answered. And therein he was sincere--as sincere, that is, as a man can be whose retreat is already secured.

With a sigh of relief Nehal Singh drew the table closer.

"Show me your plans," he said.

For three uninterrupted hours the two men sat over the papers which Travers had brought. Now and again he lifted his head and glanced toward the doorway through which the strange apparition had disappeared, half expecting to see once more the white extended hand, half believing that he had been the victim of a delusion, a fantasy born of the mysterious veil with which the whole palace seemed shrouded. Then he glanced at the ring which sparkled on his own finger, and he knew that it was no delusion, but that a corner of the veil lay perhaps within his grasp.

CHAPTER XIII

THE ROAD CLEAR

The English colony heard of the Rajah's project with mingled feelings of amus.e.m.e.nt and anxiety. As Colonel Carmichael expressed it, it would have been safer to have stirred up a hornet's nest than to attempt any vital reform in the native quarters; and he was firmly convinced that the inhabitants of the Bazaar would cling to their dirt and squalor with the same tenacity with which they clung to their religion. When the first batch of native workers, under the direction of a European overseer, set out on the task of constructing new and sanitary quarters half a mile outside Marut, he announced that it was no more than the calm before the storm, and kept a weather eye open for trouble. But, in spite of these gloomy prognostications, the work proceeded calmly and steadily on its way. The new dwellings were well constructed, broad, clean thoroughfares taking the place of the narrow, dirty pa.s.sages which had run like an unwholesome labyrinth through the old Bazaar. Water in abundance was laid on from the river.

Natives of superior caste, who had proved their capacity for order, were put in charge of the different blocks and made responsible for their condition. Of more value than all this was the energy and willingness with which the people entered into the project. More workers offered themselves than were required, and could only be comforted with the a.s.surance that very soon a new enterprise would be set on foot in which they, too, would find occupation.

A month after the first stone had been laid, Stafford paid a visit of inspection in company with the Rajah and Travers. On his way back be pa.s.sed the Carys' bungalow, and seeing Beatrice on the verandah, he had ridden up, as he said, to make his salaams. Very little persuasion tempted him into the cool, shady drawing-room. He knew that Lois would be up at the club, and, _faute de mieux_, Beatrice's company was something to be appreciated after a hot and exhausting afternoon. For a rather curious friendship had sprung up between these two. They had nothing in common. His stiffly honest and orthodox character was oil to the water of her outspoken indifference to the usual codes and morals of ordinary society. And yet he liked her, and, strangely enough, he never found that her supercilious criticisms and daring opinions jarred on him. Perhaps it was his honesty which recognized the honesty in her, just as, on the reverse side, the sanctimonious Philistinisms of Maud Berry left him glowing with irritation because his instincts told him that they were not even sincere.

On this particular afternoon he was more than usually glad to have a few minutes' quiet chat with Beatrice. That which he had seen and heard on his four hours' ride had stirred to life a sudden doubt in himself and in his. .h.i.therto firmly rooted principles, and, like a great many men, he felt that he could only regain a clear outlook by an exchange of ideas with some second person.

"You know my standpoint pretty well by now," he said, as, seated in a comfortable lounge chair, he watched Beatrice busy over some patterns which she had just received from London. "It isn't your standpoint, of course, and no doubt you would be fully in your right to say, 'I told you so,' when I confess that I am beginning to waver."

"I never say, 'I told you so,'" she returned, smiling. "That is the war-cry of those accustomed to few triumphs."

"Not that by wavering I mean that I am coming round to your opinions,"

he went on. "On the contrary, nothing on this earth will shake my theory that a mingling of races is an impossibility. They must and will, with few exceptions, remain separate to all eternity, and one or the other must have the upper hand if there is to be any law or order.

No, it's not that. It's my self-satisfaction that is beginning to waver."

"You must be more explicit," Beatrice observed.

"I mean, men like myself--in fact, most Englishmen--are pretty well convinced, even when they have the rare tact of keeping it to themselves, that they are the salt of the earth. They may be, as a whole, but there are exceptions all round, which we are inclined to overlook because of the foregone conclusion. It has struck me lately that there are some of us--well, not up to the mark."

"Has this revelation come to you by force of contrast?" she asked.

"Haven't you been out with the Rajah?"

He looked at her with the pleasure of a man who has been saved the bother of going into explanatory details.

"Yes, I have," he admitted, "and you are not far wrong when you talk about the force of contrast. You know what I thought of the Rajah.

There are any amount of good-looking native princes with nice surface manners--that sort of thing wouldn't impress me. But this man has more than good looks and manners. He is a born leader. You should have seen him this afternoon. There wasn't a thing he overlooked or forgot.

Every detail was at his fingers' ends, and he has a fire, an energy, an idealistic belief in himself and in the whole world which fairly sweeps you off your feet. It did me. I believe it did the Colonel, and I know it did the natives. The dust wasn't low enough for them. And it wasn't face worship, either. It came straight from the heart; I could see that they were ready to die for him on the spot, at his mere word."

"What a power!" Beatrice murmured. She had stopped turning over the patterns and was leaning back in her chair, her eyes fixed thoughtfully in front of her.

"Yes, it is a power," he echoed emphatically, "and I wish to goodness we had more men like him on our side. We English take things too lightly--most of us. And in India it is not safe to take things lightly."

He saw that she was about to make some observation, but at that moment Mrs. Cary entered. She had evidently been out in the garden, for she had a bunch of freshly cut flowers in her hand and a girlish muslin hat shaded the fat cheeks flushed with the unusual exertion.

"Ah, there you are, Captain Stafford!" she said, extending her disengaged hand. "Mr. Travers said he was sure you had dropped in, and wouldn't believe it when I told him that I had heard and seen nothing of you. There, come in, Mr. Travers. It's all right."

She smiled at Stafford with a playful significance that seemed to indicate an unspoken comprehension of the situation, but Stafford did not smile back. Like a great many worthy and honest people, he was not gifted with a sense of humor, and the ridiculous, especially if it took a human form, was his abomination. Consequently he disliked Mrs.

Cary, though not for the reason which made her unpopular in other quarters.

Travers followed almost immediately on her invitation, like Stafford, bearing the marks of a hard day's work on his unusually pale face.

"I expect Stafford has told you what a time we've been having," he said, in response to Beatrice's greeting. "It's no joke to have aroused an energy like the Rajah's, and I can see myself worked to a shadow. Please forgive my get-up, Miss Cary, but this isn't an official call. I only wanted to fetch Stafford."

"I'm afraid you can't," Mrs. Cary put in. "We have engaged the poor exhausted man to tea, and you are strictly forbidden to worry him with your tiresome business. You can stop, too, if you promise not to bother."

Travers, who had as a rule an equally amiable smile for every one, remained unexpectedly serious.

"I am awfully sorry," he said, hesitating. "Perhaps it would do another time."

"What is it about?" Stafford asked. "Will it take long?"

"As far as I am concerned, only a few minutes."

There was a significance in the tone of Travers' answer which pa.s.sed unnoticed. Stafford rose lazily to his feet.

"Perhaps you'll give us the run of your garden for just so long, Mrs.

Cary?" he said. "I'm not going to let Travers cheat me out of my promised cup of tea. Come on, my dear fellow. I'm ready for the worst."

The two men went down the verandah steps, and Mrs. Cary and her daughter remained alone. Beatrice returned at once to her contemplation of the fashion-plates, her att.i.tude enforcing silence upon the elder woman, who stood by the round polished table nervously arranging the flowers. Evidently she had something to say, but for once had not the courage to say it. At last, with one of those determined gestures with which irresolute people strive to stiffen their wavering wills, she pushed the flowers on one side, and came and sat directly opposite Beatrice.

"Have you got a few minutes to spare?" she asked.

Beatrice looked up, and put the papers aside.

"As many as you like."

Mrs. Cary's eyes sank beneath the direct gaze, and she began to play with the rings that adorned her fat fingers.

"I'm afraid you'll be angry," she said. "If it wasn't for my duty as a mother, I should let you go your own way--as it is, I must just risk it."

"There is no risk," Beatrice returned gravely. "Where duty is concerned, I am all consideration."

"It's about your intimacy with His Highness," Mrs. Cary went on. "I can't help thinking it has gone too far."