The Potter's Thumb Part 26

'And you?'

The question, which came almost in a whisper, was answered by a smile only; but it brought a sort of mist to George Keene's young eyes as he looked out over the plains again. The spiritual exaltation of it all was almost too much at times for the hard-headed young fellow who had clothed his own honest uprightness with a woman's softness and sweetness, in order to worship it.

Now, as a matter of fact, Mrs. Boynton had said nothing to Colonel Tweedie about the lad's leave; still, as she fully intended doing so in the course of the afternoon, her smile was perhaps excusable. 'What is more, she kept to her intention. Half an hour afterwards any one rash enough to do so might have interrupted a _tete-a-tete_ she was conceding to the Colonel in the shade of a huge deodar tree to one side of a level stretch where two mud tennis-courts had been laid out. But no one did. A certain officialdom prevails in Simla society, and the heads of departments have recognised rights and privileges. The Colonel, however, would scarcely have admitted that he owed his good fortune to his seniority, for he felt juvenile in a new lounge suit with very baggy trousers--quite the thing for lolling about in on the gra.s.s while a pretty woman leant over the shafts of the _dandy_ she was using as a seat, and asked for your opinion on a number of trivial personal questions. Yet Gwen Boynton was in earnest about it all--to judge from her eyes--as she let the conversation drift further afield.

'He is such a nice boy--one of those boys who make a woman think how delightful it would be to have a son in her old age. But he looks as if he would be the better of another week in the hills; and I suppose even you cannot manage that.'

He smiled condescendingly.

'The Lieutenant-Governor might object, of course.'

'Then you can! Ah! Colonel Tweedie, if you would! He really isn't fit to go down, and Mr. Fitzgerald, who is as strong as a horse, could easily stop at Hodinuggur. He wouldn't like it, of course, but it won't hurt him. Only----' She paused, looked at her companion, and shook her head gravely.

'Only?' echoed her elderly admirer, his heart, which had melted like wax at her cavalier mention of Dan, stiffening again at what might be consideration for that most ill-advised person.

'Only George won't consent to that, I'm afraid. He has such a ridiculous attachment to Mr. Fitzgerald. And I suppose it would be quite impossible to leave the place even for a few days without a really first-cla.s.s man in charge. What a comfort it must be for you to have officers on whom you can rely, like Mr. Fitzgerald.'

Colonel Tweedie gave his little preparatory cough. 'No doubt, no doubt. At the same time, I am not aware that Mr. Fitzgerald's presence--er--is so--er--indispensable. The fact is, my dear Mrs.

Boynton, that, owing--er--to previous occurrences, we were anxious to keep him out--er--out of the responsibility as much as possible. In fact, but for his own request I should not--er--have arranged for him to take Mr. Keene's work at all. To refuse, however, would have--er--given rise to--er--unfounded comment, and so----'

She interrupted his halting mixture of dignity and desire to be at once considerate and captious with a sigh.

'Poor Mr. Fitzgerald, he has been unlucky. And I suppose if anything were to go wrong when he was there you would have to take notice of it.

How dreadful for him! Perhaps, after all, it would be better for George to go back. One would need to be omnipotent to carry out all one's kindly impulses, wouldn't one, Colonel Tweedie? And we women are so helpless.'

He leant forward and laid his hand close to hers as it rested on the framework of the _dandy_. 'Unless you have a stronger arm at your disposal, as you have now--my dear lady--if only for your kindness to my daughter, and, as you say, young Keene is not quite the thing.

Besides--I--I mean you--I mean there are privileges which----'

What those privileges were remained unexplained, though Gwen, no doubt, had a shrewd guess at them, for, just at that moment Dalel Beg, having no fear of Departments before his eyes, came swaggering up in a bright-green velvet coat.

'Aha, you here! Hi, you kitmutghar, bring me champagne cup. Jolly, Tweedie, ain't it?' The Colonel's face belied the proposition, but the new-comer was not one of those who look for support to surroundings; he was a law unto himself only. 'You see I wear swagger clothes like you, Mrs. Boynton. Rajah Sahib old-style man, so I come as native of India to please him. He is neighbour, Mrs. Boynton, by Hodinuggur, down waste-water ca.n.a.l cut. You give him water, sir, he give you lakhs on lakhs.'

This time the Colonel's expression was a study, but Gwen, despite her usually keen sense of the ludicrous, did not add a smile to the Mirza sahib's crackling laugh.

'I regret,' began the head of the Department loftily, but Dalel's mind was full of one thing only, and that was himself; his immense superiority over the Rajah Sahib, his equality with the sahib-logues.

'Hi, kitmutghar. _Ai, soor ke butcha kyon nahin sunte ho?_ (Ah, son of a pig, why don't you listen?) _Ek_ gla.s.s curacoa. Cup what you call hog-wash, eh, Tweedie? Rajah, poor chap, know nothing about cup.

Khansamah do him in the eye, hee, hee! Poor old chappie. Gone home to do poojah and have baths. What rot!'

'Will you take me to get a cup of coffee?' said Gwen hastily to Colonel Tweedie. 'I won't trouble you to bring it here; it spills so in the saucer and then it drops over one's best frock.'

The courteous excuse for escape, which came quite naturally to Gwen's lips, pleased neither of her companions. The gracious instinct prompting it, which to Colonel Tweedie seemed uncalled for, was totally lost on the Mirza. He scowled after her, and muttering something as he tossed off the curacoa, went off to bestow his favours elsewhere.

A minute or two afterwards, George Keene ran up to the empty _dandy_ and pushed something under the cushion.

'She won't mind,' he said half aloud, 'and it's safer there than in the tent. Wouldn't do to lose it here, of all places in the world. All right, Markham, I'm coming! Spin for court. Rough? Rough it is. If I'd only known they were going to put me up in the doubles, I'd have come in flannels.'

With coat and waistcoat off, however, his white shirtsleeves rolled up, showing young, white round arms, and his Cooper's Hill scarf doing duty as a belt, George looked workman-like enough to play in the impromtu match of civil against military; and being of wholesome mind and person straightway forgot the round world in the effort to keep one ball a-rolling.

The sun hung in the west above a frilled edging of lilac-tinted hills, the snows began to glisten, the valleys on either side grew fathomless as the mist rose from the streams dashing through them. On the ridge itself the deodars sent long shadows eastward, though the yellow sunshine still seemed to crisp the tufted parsley-fern among which civilisation grouped itself in cliques and sets for afternoon tea, and in which the servants, decked in gorgeous liveries for the occasion, flitted about like gay b.u.t.terflies. A great content was on all; perhaps the memory of an excellent lunch lingered with the men, the gratifying consciousness of being well-dressed with the women, but the most of them felt that it was good to be there, transfigured, as it were, on a hill-top, forgetful even of Simla, whose shingled roofs showed on a jagged outline to the south. Yet Gwen Boynton, who, as a rule, would have shown at her best in such a scene, a situation, a society, pleaded a headache as an excuse for getting away early; so that when George came back to where he expected to find her _dandy_, she was already on her way back to Simla.

'What is it, Mr. Keene?' asked Rose, who was mounting her pony close by.

'Oh, nothing; only I put my watch and keys under the cushion of Mrs.

Boynton's _dandy_, and now she has gone off. If you see her on the road, you might tell her. I have to play a return match--bad luck to it!'

'You don't look very unhappy,' laughed the girl, as he finished the task of putting her up by professional little tugs at her habit to make it sit wrinkle-less. 'And oh! by the way, it's all right about your leave. Father has arranged it; he told me so just now.'

'How good you are! If I could only leave my interests in your hands, always, the future would have no terrors for me, as they say in the melodramas. Good-bye, Miss Tweedie, till dinner-time, and--you won't forget about the watch, will you? I don't want Mrs. Boynton----'

'I'll take care she doesn't make off with it,' interrupted Rose, wilfully unsympathetic, as she moved away at a walk. A hundred yards or so along the broad ride--which had been cut for the occasion in the hill-side from the high road to the picnic place--a zigzag bridle-path led down into the valley. Rose had never ridden that way, but she knew that, once at the stream below her, a recognised short cut would take her direct to her destination. At the worst, she might have to dismount and lead her horse for a while, and there was something decidedly fascinating in a downward path at all times, more especially when every step showed something new stealing into vision out of a blue mist. In addition, she would avoid the rush of people, and of late Rose Tweedie had found a large proportion of her fellow-creatures very tiresome; perhaps because humanity is only gifted with a certain capacity for liking, and she expended too much of hers on one person. The first mile or so fully justified her choice; the path, if steep, was safe, and, after pa.s.sing over a small bridge, she was about to follow a track, apparently leading down the right side of the ravine to the road below, when she heard a faint shout behind her to the left. With her experience of the Himalayas, she stopped instantly, knowing she must be on the wrong track, and retraced her steps, expecting, after a few turns, to come on the shepherd or coolie, who, having seen her from above, had raised the warning cry. Instead of this she came on Lewis Gordon, riding at what was really a breakneck pace for the style of the path. He pulled up suddenly.

'Miss Tweedie! you don't mean to say it was you I saw on the other bank? I had half a mind not to shout, for a man with a clever pony could do it easily. What a piece of luck for you I did!'

She flushed up at once. 'I'm afraid I don't see it in that light. I've no doubt I could have done it as easily as a man, and it is annoying to be brought back half a mile out of your road for nothing.'

'Unless that road happens to be a mile longer to begin with, as it is in this case,' replied Lewis coolly. 'But you really ought not to have tried the short cut alone. Your father, of course, had arranged to meet the Lieut.-Governor, and Keene couldn't get away; but if you had asked me, I should have been delighted to do my duty--I suppose you won't let me say pleasure; that is reserved for my juniors.' There was a certain snappishness in the conclusion of his speech which somehow appeased Rose's wrath.

The futility of many proverbs has scarcely a better example than that one which sets the orthodox number for anger at two, when almost universally it is either one or three. For the spectacle of another man losing his temper is almost sure to soothe the first offender, unless dispa.s.sionate humanity reappears in the shape of a spectator. So Rose said sweetly that he was always very kind, and she certainly would have asked him to pioneer her, had she antic.i.p.ated any difficulty; since no one could give a better lead over than Bronzewing and her rider. And then, having reached the valley and a broader path, they dawdled along it at a walk beside the very edge of a stream splashing and dashing over its pebbly bed, and curving round tiny meadows just large enough to serve as a stand for some huge walnut tree. The soft mist they had seen from above, now they were in it, only intensified the blueness of the shadows or the gold of the sunlight following the contours of the hills. Down in the hollows the maiden-hair fern grew like a forest, out in the open great turk's-cap lilies rose higher than the blue and white columbines, and in every cranny the potentilla hung out its bunches of scarlet, tasteless, strawberry-like fruit.

Side by side they strolled for a mile or more, along a level gra.s.sy path, as if there were no such thing as effort in the world, as if civilisation and comfort, dinner and bed, all the necessaries of life in fact, did not lie two thousand feet or so over their heads.

'This way, I'm afraid,' said Lewis at last, turning his pony into a road joining the path at right angles; an engineered road with drains and retaining walls, scientific, uninteresting, guiltless of ups and downs, facing the ascent evenly.

'Oh dear!' cried Rose in tones of regret. And then they both laughed.

But the peace of the valley went with them, so that their gay chatter echoed up the zigzagging road to where glimpses of a _dandy_ toiling on ahead showed through the trees. Its occupant looking downwards could see them far below, the girl in front, the man behind, their voices becoming clearer and clearer, until just at the last turn where the zigzag merged into the high road, each careless word was distinctly audible as they came scrambling up below the retaining wall, which at this point carried the branch to its junction with the main road. Gwen Boynton's hand closed tight on the shaft of her _dandy_, partly in sympathy with her thoughts, partly because the coolies swung round the last corner sharply. The wall, which was not two feet high at the first turn sloped rapidly up to some fifteen feet before ending in the one which supported the big road. As is usually the case, it was built in steps or terraces giving the required slant of support. Just as the _dandy_ was at the turn of the road a horseman, followed by two mounted orderlies, came clattering along it; perhaps this frightened Rose's pony; perhaps the sudden swerve of the _dandy_ to get out of the new-comer's way just as the girl was about to pa.s.s it, actually forced her mount into shying and backing. Anyhow, it did. There was a struggle, a rattle of stones over the edge, a slip, then a jerk back as the beast found a momentary foothold for its hind legs on the narrow step some two feet down. A cry of dismay broke from the spectators--for with the next movement a fall backwards seemed inevitable--but it ended in one of relief, as Rose wheeled the pony clear round with swift decision, and giving it a cut with her whip leapt into the road below.

It was a bold stroke for life instead of death, and as the pony came on its knees with the shock, it seemed for an instant as if both it and its rider must go rolling over and over down the side of the hill. The next they had both struggled to their feet, and stood quivering all over, but safe and absolutely unhurt. Lewis, who had pulled up at the corner aghast with impotent horror, was back beside them, almost incoherent in his relief and admiration.

'And--and--I only had a snaffle,' said Rose with a tremulous laugh not far removed from tears. She felt it imperative, if she were to be calm, that they should descend to commonplace at once, being aided in this by Dalel Beg, who having reined in at the sight of a disaster for which he was partly responsible, was now standing by Gwen's _dandy_ oblivious of apology.

'Shahbash. Well done indeed. Pretty! pretty. You are rippin' rider, Miss Tweedie. If you race, you win like Gordon. Aha! Gordon. I congratulate you for lucky accident of paint. That Crosbie take me in also. He swore it was foul, Mrs. Boynton, and I thought I saw foul--you believe that, eh, Gordon?'

Lewis, to whom the temporising decision of the judges, that foul or no foul, Mr. Crosbie was out of it by having been at the wrong side of some post at some part of the course, had been irritating, scowled up at the group above.

'I am sure you saw foul,' he replied. 'Now, Miss Tweedie, if you please. The beast is all right and the sooner you get home for a quiet rest the better.'

He was so occupied with the shock to her that he scarcely seemed to realise that it must have been one to his cousin also, though Rose as she pa.s.sed paused to say that she was absolutely unhurt and that it was n.o.body's fault but her own for riding an unsteady pony on the hills.

They had gone on nearly half a mile before she recollected George Keene's message.

'I don't see the necessity for going back at all,' said Lewis crossly, 'but since you are so determined to obey orders, I'll go. If you ride on at a reasonable pace I'll catch you up again in no time---- What was it he left in her _dandy_?'

'His watch,' called Rose after him.

As he galloped back his temper was none of the best. He objected to a great many things. To George's familiarity with Gwen, to Rose's familiarity with George, and as he came on the _dandy_, to Dalel Beg's familiarity with it; for the Mirza had dismounted and was walking along with his hand on the shaft--just like an Englishman. The sight enlarged the focus of Lewis's displeasure, making it include Gwen.

'It was only a message from Keene,' he said curtly in reply to her welcoming smile. 'He asked Miss Tweedie to tell you, but she forgot; so I came back. He put his watch in your _dandy_ to keep it safe.'

'His watch!' echoed Gwen, feeling at the same time among the cushions.