CHAPTER XXIX
The band had played the men back to barracks to the rousing tune of "When Johnny comes marching Home again"; it was eleven o'clock on Sunday morning, and Captain Haig, who had been to Parade Service, walked across the maidan to pay a morning call. His thoughts were still full of one subject—Verona Chandos, and he was anxiously debating whether to go to Manora or not? The question had kept him awake for hours; it had harassed him through the Book of Common Prayer, and the text of the padre's sermon had been, "To go to Manora or not?" Something in Verona's eyes magnetised him and drew him towards her, to be instantly driven away by her swarm of terrible relations, and they really were her own kindred; he had heard all about them at the mess. Malcolm Haig was on his way to see his cousin (once removed), Jimmy Fielder, and to have a friendly "bukh" with him in his own diggings. He knew all about Master Jimmy's affairs, and why he was now languishing on the plains of India. Lord Highstreet, who was a cast-iron parent of the so-called old school, had cut off the supplies, and sent his heir into banishment—sent him to the East in order to be out of harm's way, for, by all accounts, there were no widows in India. The native women were very properly burnt, and the Europeans were of the innocuous species, termed "grass," and not matrimonially dangerous. Captain Fielder was sprawling on a Bombay chair in the verandah, still clad in a smart blue silk sleeping suit and a pair of straw bath-slippers, and was engaged in reading a French novel, and smoking a Russian cigarette.
"Hullo!" he exclaimed, half rising, as he descried his cousin.
"Hullo!" repeated the visitor, "so this is what you call going to church!"
"There's a chair—here's a box of cigarettes. I never go to church—within four walls. I believe in parson green fields."
"So I see," assented Malcolm, as he seated himself and glanced significantly at the yellow book.
"You have been, of course—hence this air of virtue. Needs must when C. O. drives; your tent is pitched in the old man's compound, and you were under the paternal eye."
"Bosh!" blowing a cloud.
"Many in church?"
"Crowds—rather good singing."
"Ah! then—Dom Chandos was there."
"If you mean a tall, pale girl, with a soprano that nearly lifted the roof—she was——"
"Isn't it a marvellous voice? It's an awful shame she is lost out here——"
"Lost? She seems to know her way about fairly well——"
"I mean—her voice. If that girl had a chance at home at the Gaiety—or the halls—she'd become the craze; and she can dance a bit, too——"
"I knew the other Miss Chandos at home," said Captain Haig—slowly—knocking the ash off his cigarette in a preoccupied fashion. "She was the beauty of Homburg."
"Oh, well, I don't admire her one little bit. A beauty at home is not a beauty here, and vice versâ; I grant you she has a fine pair of unhappy, dark eyes, but give me her sister. I like a girl with a spice of the devil——"
"Cannot say that I do! How are you getting along, Jimmy?"
"Oh, all right. The pater thought he was sending me to penal servitude, but it's rather jolly. They are not a bad lot—these Muffineers—awfully sporting, but it's a rotten regiment. However, the duty is easy."
"How do you kill time?"
"Oh, there's polo, and squash rackets, some fair shooting—duck and snipe, partridge; quite a lot of small game——"
"And no other game?—eh, Jimmy? Sport was never in your line. Piccadilly, Hurlingham, the theatres and halls, used to be your orbit."
"Oh, I put in my days all right, though the climate undermines my moral character, and I eat enormously, and sleep many hours. When the hot weather comes, I'll trek for the hills!"
"Ah—I hope you won't get into mischief there. Had your father consulted me, I should have told him he was turning you out of the frying-pan into the fire!"
"Bah! the pater is only terrified that I should marry, that's all. No one marries in India—we carry on——"
"Oh, do you? And—what about Mrs. de Lacy? Have you dropped her?"
"I wish to goodness she'd drop me, Malcolm!" declaiming with uplifted hand and cigarette. "The pater was right there, though I'm the last man to tell him so! Nita is awfully up-to-date—plays bridge like a book, smokes like a chimney, has a ripping good figure—but twelve years, you know—I say, come, it's a good bit of a start, eh?"
"On the wrong side—yes. Uncle Horace wrote me a raving letter—he has a tremendous idea of what he calls 'A suitable alliance.' I fancy I see him and your father together at the club, wagging their heads over your 'case.' I bet your Uncle Horace prescribed India——"
"He has never been out, eh?" and Jimmy grinned significantly from ear to ear. "Well, I can't say I bear the old boy a grudge. I'm glad I came. Every one does India now; the Taj is as familiar as Charing Cross. I've been here four months—and the days have just slid along. I've had a blazing good time!"
"Ahem! Then—James—I'm much afraid you're at your old games. And yet—there are not many women of your style in the station——"
"That's true, oh, observant sage! Find the lady? By the way"—giving the conversation a sudden twist, "what are you doing to-day?"
"I don't quite know. Mrs. Chandos—asked me to tiffin——"
"What infernal cheek!" half sitting up; "you are not going to be such an ass as to give yourself away like that. If you do, she will nail you. Who enters there, leaves hope behind."
"What do you mean——?"
"Oh, you know—and you know too, that it's no good hankering after that girl—not a little bit. I grant you she is handsome and ladylike, but—keep her relations well in your mind's eyes. Think of the future cousins in the bazaars."
"Oh, you be hanged! Of course you have never been near the place?"
"I should say not! The Chandos bungalow is out of bounds; Chandos himself is a shady old chap, who shows his sense by never leaving cards on a mess, and never enters the station. His 'Mem Sahib' is all over the shop, flitting in and out of the club, and hanging on to the coat-tails of society. Of course we meet her at times in the reading room, and to speak to. She has a whole clan of brown relations in the city, called Jones. The man only wants a turban to be a khidmutgar!"
"Then you don't know them at all?"
"Oh, yes; I know Dom—she is different; she is not off the cab rank, and is rare good fun, and says the most amusing and unexpected things. We are tremendous pals, though I need scarcely remark that we don't publish the fact on the club notice board, or in the market place."
"Um—no; but where else——?"
"We write one another nice little notes. Our post office is a book in the library—last volume on fourth shelf. It is called 'Two Kisses'—rather neat, eh—quite my own idea——"
"Do you merely correspond?"
"Oh, no," responded Jimmy, with an airy flip of his cigarette, "on moonlight nights I drive out to Manora after mess; I have a rare stepper, and the cart has rubber tyres. I wait behind a little tope of trees for Dom, and we go for a couple of hours' spin. It's all as still as death and as bright as day; we have the whole country to ourselves. I'm not a fellow for humbugging about scenery, and the picturesque, but I tell you, Malcolm, that there's something in the quiet, still, spreading plains—with a silver shine on them, and the river here and there—flashing at one like a looking glass—that makes me feel quite—er—er—enthusiastic—and impressed, and all that sort of thing!"
"Oh! and I should like to know how Mr. Chandos would be impressed and all that sort of thing, if he met you and his daughter scouring the country in the middle of the night?"
"Bless your heart, there's not a soul in the secret but my syce. We always get home all right, and Dom creeps in as easily as a roof cat."
"If you will take my advice, Master Jimmy, you won't go too far."
"Ten to fifteen miles is our limit——"
"Oh, shut up! You know what I mean; that girl, by the look of her, has the real tropical temperament. If you play any of your tricks you will find yourself in the wrong box! Unless I'm mistaken, Nature has given her teeth and claws, and the power to use them. Mind you, it's not for nothing she's called the Red Cat—and I never trust any one with that particular shade of red hair——"
"Red hair! Come, I like that! And what about your own crop of carrots, my boy? I admire Dom's hair; it is splendid—the true Venetian colour, whilst you are on the ginger shade——"
"Carrots and ginger! What mixed metaphors!"
"No! vegetables both! I grant you that Dom is not an everyday girl; she is quick and all alive, O! and she never bores, but keeps your wits on the stretch all the time. She is not a bit like any woman I have ever met before, and that is what appeals to me. She is awfully plucky, too. One night we drove over a buffalo, and were pitched out on the road, and, I give you my word, she simply shrieked with laughter."
"Pray, what is going to be the end of this?" inquired his cousin in a cool, judicial tone.
"Oh, I don't know——"
"Still in the early chapters of the romance, eh——?"
"Yes; when it begins to get a bit—er—dull, and we are bored—we will say ta-ta; that's all!"
"All?" ejaculated his visitor.
"Well—I say, hang it, Malcolm! A fellow must have some amusement!"
"Play to you, and death to her—reputation."
"Oh, Dom will take good right care of that—I tell you——"
"And I tell you that if you play fast and loose with Dom she is just the sort of girl that would—kill you!"
"Oh, Lord! here we have a five-act tragedy in two lines! A tragedy generally makes me howl with laughter. Well, now I must go in, and shave and dress. I say, if you like, I'll drive you round by Manora this afternoon. It's a pretty sort of settlement—lots of trees and greenery—on the river side. We won't stop, but I will point you out the roof which shelters the Misses Chandos—your lady love, and mine!"
And tossing the end of his cigarette into a bush, he called for his boy, and disappeared indoors.