The Road to Mandalay Part 33

"Just this--that they are as a race too indolant and easy-going to study any big question, or to take the trouble to think for themselves."

"But what about the hundreds and thousands of holy priests who spend all their rives in profound meditation? What do you say to that? Come now."

"I say that they live a life of incorrigible idleness; they have no need to maintain themselves; they just eat, and sit, and muse; everything is supplied to them, including their yellow robe and betel nut. Their religion is selfish."

"Well, well, I'm too stupid to argue, my dear child, my brain is like cotton wool; but I have my hopes, my sure hopes. Karl is different.

He is cultured, he reads Marx and Hegel, and says we are like cabbages and have no future; when we go it is as a candle that is blown out.

Oh, here are visitors! What a bore! I shall not appear! Run and tell the bearer."

"Oh, but these are your own special old friends, Mrs. Vansittart and Mrs. Dowler. _Do_ let them come in; they will amuse you--poor dears, you know they always call after dark."

These visitors, friends of former days, were social derelicts, who had, so to speak, "gone ash.o.r.e" in Rangoon. One was chained to Burma by dire poverty and a drunken husband; the other, who had been a wealthy woman of considerable local importance, was now a childless widow, supporting herself with difficulty by means of a second-rate boarding-house. To these old friends, and in many other cases, Mrs.

Krauss had proved a generous and tactful helper. Both visitors were wearing costumes which had been worn and admired at "Heidelberg" and were still fairly presentable.

After a stay of an hour the ladies withdrew, leaving their hostess well entertained but completely exhausted. Then they hastily sought out Sophy in order to express to her, in private, their horror at the terrible change in her aunt.

"Her spirit is there all right," said Mrs. Dowler (who had a hundred-rupee note in her glove), "but oh, my dear Miss Leigh, _how_ she's wasted! I felt like crying all the time I was sitting with her."

"Yes, she should see a doctor, and that this very day," added Mrs.

Vansittart.

"Oh, but you know Aunt Flora," protested Sophy; "she cannot bear doctors, and Lily, her ayah, knows pretty well what to do."

"Tell me, Miss Leigh, what is the real truth about your aunt's illness?" said Mrs. Dowler, suddenly dropping her voice to a mysterious whisper. "It has been so long and so tedious--off and on for at least three years. She has been worse the last four months, and indeed ever since you went up to May Myo. It is not a malignant growth, please G.o.d?"

"Oh, no, nothing of that sort; just weakness and this relaxing climate."

"She should have returned home years ago," said Mrs. Vansittart; "and when she does go--oh, it will be a bad day and a sad day for me and many others, not to speak of all the animals she has befriended. She is wonderfully sympathetic to dumb creatures and indeed to everybody."

"That's true," echoed her companion, "no one knows of your aunt's good deeds and charities, not even her own servants, and that is saying _everything_. Her hand has raised many an unfortunate out of the dust."

Thus whispering, advising and hoping and bemoaning, the two ladies were conducted by Sophy to their jointly-hired _ticka gharry_, and were presently rattled away.

Sophy, too, had her own particular visitors, Mabel Pomeroy, Mrs.

Gregory and Fuchsia--Fuchsia, almost daily. To her it seemed that Sophy's confidences were frozen; she rarely mentioned her aunt, and gave evasive answers to her friend's probing inquiries. At last the brave American spoke out:

"You are frightfully changed, my Sophy girl--changed in a month. You have become so dull and absent-minded, and have lost all your pretty colour. Of course, _I_ know the reason, but you can do no good--no, not a sc.r.a.p. You had much better have gone home when you discovered the secret--you are as thin as a walking-stick, and look as if you sat up all night and never went to bed."

"Well, even if I did and, mind you, I'm not saying that I do, it is no worse for my health than dancing all night, is it? I'm very fond of Aunt Flora, and I'd do more than that for her."

"She has added years to your life; the gay flitting-about Sophy, with her pretty kittenish ways and harmless claws, has been thrust in a sack--and drowned!"

"Well, I do think you might have given her Christian burial," protested Sophy with a laugh.

"Christian burial brings me to the Marriage Service. What do you think--that great stupid Irishman, has at last blundered out a proposal, and in me," rising and making a curtsey, "you behold the future Mrs. Patrick FitzGerald."

"Oh, Fuchsia!" jumping up to embrace her, "I do congratulate you, and I do hope you will be very happy."

"Yes, I believe we shall. I have money and he----" she hesitated, and Sophy added:

"Has a warm, kind heart."

"Oh, well, I was about to say _looks_, but I'll throw in the heart as well! Next week I am going up to Calcutta to see about the trousseau and business. I'm real sorry to be the means of smashing up the Chummery Quartette."

"And when does the blow fall?"

"Not for some time; Patsy has asked for a long day."

"Fuchsia!"

"Well, no, it's not that; but he's obliged to finish some inspections.

He really is fond of me--I dare say he's not as fond of me as Shafto is of someone! But _his_ is a more serious, rigid character. If someone would smile, he would melt like a shovelful of snow on a coal fire!"

"My dear Fuchsia, do give your imagination a rest."

"Maybe you are right, and my tongue, too. I've only just one thing more to say," she paused and walked into the veranda in silence.

In silence Sophy followed her down to the car and, as she tucked in the knee-sheet, she raised her eyes and asked:

"What is this wonderful last word?"

"That I think 'Sophy Shafto' would be a nice easy name to say."

In another second Fuchsia's car had panted away and nothing remained of her visit but a cloud of red dust.

CHAPTER x.x.xIII

SOPHY

Sophy had a difficult part to act--in fact no less than three separate roles: one with her aunt, one with Herr Krauss, and a third in public.

Those who saw Miss Leigh dancing and playing tennis at the Gymkhana, little guessed how she spent the remainder of the day, soothing and interesting a fretful invalid, or sitting up half the night on duty--and on guard. Herr Krauss was frequently from home, being incessantly engaged in winding up his affairs. Business took him one week to Moulmein, the next to Calcutta. This fat, elderly man displayed a sort of volcanic energy; he lived in a fever of repressed excitement and scarcely gave himself time to gobble his huge meals.

Numbers of people--princ.i.p.ally natives--pressed for interviews; one or two arrived in fine motor-cars; evidently it was not a European business that appeared to absorb all his time and faculties. However, whatever its nationality, Herr Krauss was happy and exultant; there was an expression of a.s.sured triumph upon his frog-like visage.

Naturally this triple life left its mark on Sophy, though she kept her miseries and responsibilities to herself. Mrs. Gregory and other friends put their heads together and decided that she looked ill and careworn; and the ever-active Fuchsia laid certain information before Shafto, with the result that the following day he arrived at "Heidelberg" to make a formal call. Of late he found that he could never have a word with Miss Leigh; she rarely rode in the morning and was seldom to be seen at the Gymkhana, and so he, as Fuchsia had suggested, "bearded the lioness in her den"--that is, he called at "Heidelberg" between the orthodox hours of four and five.

"This is very formal," exclaimed Sophy, as he entered the somewhat dusky drawing-room; "visiting hour and visiting card complete. What does it mean?"

"It merely means that I wish to see you," replied Shafto; "I can never get a look in elsewhere. One would almost think that you avoided me and wanted to cut me."

"What a ridiculous idea!" she exclaimed, sitting down and motioning him to a chair.

"Well, it does seem ridiculous that we see so very little of you. I hope you are not ill?"

"No, indeed, why should I be ill? Do I look like an invalid?"

"Since you ask me, I don't think you seem particularly fit. How is Mrs. Krauss?"