MEERUT AND THE ELTONS
For reasons of his own, which he could not have explained to anyone, Tom determined not to see Mrs. Doncaster again; so marching orders were given to Hoosanee and Ganesh that night, and early on the following morning the train of bullock-carts and camels that carried the tents and baggage were on the move.
Tom followed them, taking one more ride round the town before he went. The last place he visited—this he remembered long afterwards—was Hoomayun's tomb. He entered within battlemented walls, mounted the massive platform on which the palace of the dead stands, and saw the marble tombs of the Emperor and his friends, lying each in the frost-bound silence of its vaulted hall. Then, from the elevated platform he looked out on the soft green fields that surround the city, and the river flowing peacefully on its way, while the towering minarets of the glorious Jumma Musjid, and the swelling cupolas of the Pearl Mosque, and the red battlemented walls of Shah Jehan's palace loomed mysteriously through the amber-coloured mist of the morning.
Silent and peaceful it lay, like a dream of past greatness; the city, incalculable ages ago, of proud Hindu warriors and earth-spurning priests; the capital, in later years, and the stronghold of Moslem dominion; the city swept by wave after wave of revolution, sacked, devastated, shifted hither and thither over the plain; but never destroyed; to-day the city of a shadow; to-morrow, what? As he gazed into the tranquil plain, he felt his soul shuddering within him. Grey antiquity seemed to be throwing its arms about him and pressing out his life. He panted for breath like one stifled. What was he, and his people, with all their greatness, what—what were they? Time, that, like the fabled monster devouring its own children, moves forward irresistibly, had brought them into being, and Time, when their days ran out, would thrust them from the path of the living. Or was Time also an illusion—a shadow thrown by shadows on the whiteness of eternity? Did nothing really exist? Nothing—the awful word echoed through his brain, like the knell of a dying faith. He groaned and pressed his hands together.
Hark! What was that?
'Is anyone there?' he said, looking round him.
He saw no one; but a voice answered, 'I am here.'
'Who are you?' said Tom.
'The same who spoke to you before. I came to you with your inheritance. You ask if there is a reality. I tell you that there is.'
'Then, in the name of Heaven, where is it to be found?'
'Listen!' said the voice. 'You are like many others who search afar off for the thing that is close at hand. Look within; not without. It is there that you will find reality, for you carry it about with you. You, not your body, but the self that animates the body, are the reality of which you are in search. Know this and you are free, but you cannot yet.'
'Why cannot I?'
'Because for the good of others you are bound to action. But be of good cheer! Give yourself to the influences that are carrying you along. Resist the solicitations of sense, and, in time to come, the knowledge that makes free shall dawn upon you.' Whether it was a voice outside of himself or a mere colloquy between contending trains of thought he could not tell. Little could he have imagined meanwhile that here, where he had stood, dreaming of the past, here, where the son of Baber and the father of Akbar slept, the last of his race would hide as fugitives, and that thence they would be taken to imprisonment and death by a rough English soldier, with a few troopers at his heels. Verily Time devoureth its offspring!
Tom's next place of rest was Meerut, a large military station about forty miles from Delhi.
It was afternoon when the cavalcade arrived. The camp was pitched in a little mango-tope near the native town, and in the evening—such an evening as is common in North India in winter, when the air is crisp and the sky cloudless—Tom, who was in European dress, mounted an Arab pony and rode into the station.
When he entered the Mall, which intersects the cantonments, and is the pride of every Englishman in the district, he found it full of life. Buggies, drawn by fast-trotting ponies, were flashing past; well turned-out English carriages, full of ladies and children in gay summer dress, were passing more slowly up and down, officers in mufti riding beside them; and here and there came an elephant, slowly pacing the ground, his driver between his ears, and a gorgeously dressed Indian gentleman in the howdah on his back.
Tom was looking out on the gay scene when suddenly he was pulled up; for a group of smiling faces were coming to meet him along the drive. For a moment he fancied himself in England again. There was his dear Lady Elton, as pretty and soft as ever, lying back amongst the crimson cushions of a phæton, and Maud was holding the reins, and Trixy and Lucy were smiling at him from the back seat.
'Tom!' they cried in one breath, as he drew rein.
'You here!' he exclaimed.
'I don't wonder you are surprised,' said Lady Elton, whose face was pink with excitement. 'We left home much sooner than we expected. The General wished for the girls' sake to take another summer at home. But he was wanted.'
'And as father wouldn't go out without mother, and mother wouldn't go out without us, we are all here,' said Trixy, putting her charming little face forward.
'I am afraid that is about the truth of it,' said Lady Elton. 'Where are you staying, Tom?'
'In camp. I have been living under canvas the last month, and a delightful life it is.'
'I should love it,' breathed Trixy.
'But you will come to us now, of course?' said Lady Elton. 'Now, do. We are a household of women. The General is out inspecting.'
'Tom likes women far better than men,' said Trixy.
'Can't you be quiet, scatter-brain?' said Maud, who had been waiting impatiently for the opportunity of putting in a word. 'Mr. Gregory' (turning her dark eyes upon Tom), 'I hope you will come. It will seem like old times.'
'When we sang and played together long, long ago,' piped Trixy.
'One of you at least hasn't changed,' said Tom, smiling at Lady Elton. 'Thank you a thousand times. If you will show me where your bungalow is and let me give directions about my things, I shall be only too glad to join you for a couple of days.'
'Good boy,' said Trixy, kissing the tips of her fingers to him, and Lady Elton smiled benignantly, telling him to come at his own time—everything should be ready for him, and Maud, who was even more dignified than she had been at Surbiton, gave him a courteous salutation and whipped up her ponies that Tom might see how well she could manage them. As for gentle little Lucy, who had been dumb throughout, she was wishing that Grace had been in her place.
And in fact that was the one drawback to an otherwise charming fortnight. Grace was away visiting. The pleasant, haphazard people did not quite know where she was. She had left them to visit an aunt at Lucknow, who was feeling dull after an only daughter's marriage, and had begged Lady Elton to spare Grace to her for a few weeks. She might possibly have gone on to Cawnpore, or perhaps to Agra, in both of which places the Eltons had intimate friends. They were expecting a letter daily. It was the hope of this letter coming that caused Tom to delay so long at Meerut. He certainly enjoyed the little break. For those few pleasant days he was able to fling off the burden of Orientalism that had been oppressing him, and to forget that there was such a thing as philosophy in the world. He was his old self—the Tom who had picnicked with the girls on the Thames, bantering Trixy, laughing at Maud, adoring Lady Elton, and losing his heart to Grace. The General came into Meerut two days after Tom's arrival. He had been inspecting troops in the district, and was exceedingly jubilant over the apple-pie order in which he had found everything. In the evening, when, the ladies having withdrawn, he and Tom sat together over coffee and cigars in the large cool verandah, he expressed his satisfaction freely. 'It is becoming the fashion,' he said, 'to run down our native contingent. Nothing more absurd! Properly trained and led, they are a splendid force.'
'But supposing fanatics got amongst them?' said Tom. 'There are a few of that sort about. I have met them.'
'So have the rest of us, my dear boy. You don't suppose I have served for thirty years in India without meeting religious and political maniacs? Why, the East is a hotbed for the species. They flourish like a bay-tree by a river. But look at the matter reasonably! Remember, it is to the soldiers they must appeal. Now what, in the name of Heaven, can the poor devils offer that our men should run after them? Money? They don't possess it. Plunder? Well, to be sure, something might be picked up at that little game, but the fellows have sense enough to know that it couldn't last long. No, no. They get more out of us than they could out of anyone else. And don't tell me, sir,' went on the General, working himself up to what Trixy called his boiling-point, 'that there is no sense of honour amongst them. For I know there is. Yes, sir,' bringing down his fist upon the table, 'I repeat it, there is! I am speaking from experience, mind, not hearsay. Why, I have had jemadars under me, who have been proof against temptations that would have corrupted half the Englishmen I know.'
It struck Tom that the General was trying as much to convince himself as to refute anyone else; but he was careful to give no hint of his suspicion, which, however, on the following day was curiously confirmed.
It was early in the forenoon. They had returned from their ride, and were sitting out in the verandah, the ladies busy over fancy-work, while Tom entertained them with a dramatic account of his travels. He had come to his experiences at Delhi, and the singular encounter with Mrs. Doncaster in the Chandni Chowk, when the General strode in, his face purple with indignation.
'Read this!' he said, striking the news-sheet in his one hand with the doubled-up fist of the other; and as Tom, at a sign from Lady Elton, who was not much affected by these outbursts, took the sheet from him, he muttered down in his throat, 'The fools! To make so much of a trifle.'
The trifle was the well-known incident at Dum-Dum, near Calcutta. A Lascar asked drink of a Sepoy. The Sepoy, being of high caste, refused haughtily to allow his drinking-vessel to be defiled by the lips of a low-caste man, whereupon the Lascar retorted that he would soon lose his caste altogether, as the Government were making cartridges greased with the fat of cows and swine.
It appeared from the article which Tom read aloud, that this story was flying through the length and breadth of the land, and the writer feared that, if something was not done promptly to reassure the high-caste men in the army, serious consequences would ensue.
The General heard it through, and then burst into a torrent of wrath. A nothing! Such a quarrel as might be seen going on any day in the bazaars to be magnified in this way! It was absurd. It was worse than absurd; it was criminal! If there was a panic, men like the writers of the article in question would be responsible for it. For himself, he knew the native army. They had their faults, but a finer body of men never breathed. He was glad—he was proud to say—that any day he would trust his life and honour in their hands.
Having delivered himself thus, the General calmed down, sent his bearer for a cooling drink, swallowed it at a draught, and, looking round on his wife and daughters, apologised for his heat, and begged them not to be disturbed.
They were not thinking of such a thing. Saucy little Trixy, whose eyes were twinkling merrily, pointed out that he was the only disturbed person present, except, perhaps, Tom, who did look a little serious; but then Tom was a 'Grif.' Tom protested with her; but she held to her point. He might be a rajah's heir ten times over, but he was a 'Grif' all the same. Why, the way he treated natives showed it. In the midst of which little discussion, Maud observed, tossing her shapely head, and with a fine expression of scorn on her face, that things would have come to a pretty pass if they could be afraid of natives. So far as she was concerned, she would not mind meeting any number of them with only her riding-whip in her hand. 'You know they are an inferior race; one can't help feeling it,' she said. And Lady Elton said, with her tranquil smile, that in Meerut, at least, they did not need to be afraid, as they had soldiers from England to protect them. So the incident passed off, and in a few hours it was forgotten; but Tom remembered it long afterwards.
The life at Meerut, meanwhile, was a very pleasant one. There were not many girls at the station, and the Eltons, being pretty, well-bred, charmingly dressed, and full of life and go, were considered a great acquisition by everybody. They were made the excuse for all sorts of gaieties. 'We mustn't let those girls be dull,' the men would say, and the unmarried consulted the married, and balls and picnics, riding-parties and military sports were got up in their honour. This was all in full swing when Tom arrived, and he, as the Eltons' guest, was included in their invitations, so that he had never been so gay before. Feeling bound to return the hospitality showered upon him, he took counsel with Hoosanee and Ganesh, and one evening his camp was decked out with flowers and bunting, and coloured lamps were hung upon the trees, and waxed cloths were laid out upon the ground in front of the tent, and at night, when the large full moon was rising, nearly all the European population of Meerut flocked out to dance and gossip, and sip champagne and coffee, and enjoy a picnic supper in the quarters of the mysterious Englishman, who was known already through India as the 'Rajah's Heir.'
That night brought Tom's stay at Meerut to a close. Hearing, on the following morning, that Grace was at Lucknow, and that as she had several more visits to pay there was not the least chance of her returning home for some considerable time, he could no longer be persuaded to delay. Early in the forenoon his camp was struck, and he followed it towards sundown; Maud and Trixy, with two or three young officers, riding out with him for some little distance.
When he insisted at last upon their drawing rein, Maud, who was riding in front with him, looked into his face with steady eyes.
'Good-bye, Tom,' she said. 'What message to Grace?'
'Will you take it if I send it?'
'Certainly,' holding out her hand.
'Thank you,' said Tom, grasping it warmly. 'Give her my dear love, Maud.'
'I will. Anything more?'
'Tell her,' hoarsely, 'that, whatever happens, I shall not lose sight of her.'
'Isn't that——?'
'A curious message,' broke in Tom, with a smile. 'I am afraid it is; but I can't help it. Good-bye.'
Then Trixy and her escort, a dashing young cavalry officer, called Bertie Liston, rode up, and the last farewells were spoken. The English party returned to Meerut, and the Rajah's Heir, followed as usual by his faithful servant, set his face towards the desert.