That Eurasian

by Aleph Bey

That sister of mine, no longer little, but the mother of several bouncing boys had, with her husband, paid us several visits. They were leading a busy, happy, prosperous life. She had been well educated, so my wife found in her a genial companion, and their coming to us made a kind of festival in our home. On one of these visits an uncle and aunt of my wife’s had come to see us on their tour through India. Our Collector and this gentleman were old acquaintances, so we were all invited to a large dinner party at the Barra Sahib’s. On entering the drawing room we found quite an assembly of the society people of the station. As we went up to greet the hostess, to my consternation there stood my venerable father and my distinguished half brother. They were so placed that they could not escape if they had desired to, and we had acquired such momentum that we could not retire. There was no alternative but to face each other. My heart beat at a thumping pace, and every one of the seven hundred thousand pores in my body became an aqueduct, and in a moment I was in a glow of heat and perspiration. This was not from fear, far from it. Had I not been dared by this parent of mine, and had I not met him and thrown his insults back into his own face? I had no fear of him whatever, nor did I fear that white-haired, white-faced half brother of mine; he, too, had fallen before my well barbed shafts. It was not of myself that I thought. Had I been alone I would have risked my soul, but I would have given them each something to keep as a memento of our meeting. I truly confess that I would have hugely enjoyed this, let others say what they might about such a feeling.

There was my wife. She knew nothing of my relation to this couple, nor would I for the life of me have revealed a word and I knew she could hold her own in any tilt with them, but my sister, the daughter of the one, the half sister of the other, to meet her own father who had betrayed and seduced her! Since that fearful time when I had rescued her from his baneful power, we had never mentioned his name. We would have erased and annihilated from our thoughts and lives every remembrance of him if we could. I know this was my feeling and I am sure it was hers. She was beautiful, as my little sister, as I think I have said before, but now developed into a very handsome matron. As she had been educated in the best schools in France and England and been polished by travel in different countries, she could appear in any society with dignity and grace.

But to my story. We were in a tight place, at least I was. I doubt if ever I thought so quickly in my life as then. The thoughts came like flashes. I had the most anxious solicitude to shield this beloved sister. Our hostess received us most graciously, and then began to introduce us. At first to those nearest her, who were Mr. Smith and his son. I bowed. Then my wife acquitted herself nobly, as if the two, sire and son, had been members of the royal family, and if this had been her first meeting with Mr. Smith, Jr. I was proud of her, for she was a queen to me, then as always. Then Mrs. Edwards, my sister, the daughter to her father who had been mistress to him.

There was a scene. Not a word was said, only a bow, but I saw from the flushes of paleness to red on the old man’s face that he was conscious of all the past. He no doubt had his turn of nervous thinking as I had mine. I certainly would have prevented this meeting had I had any suspicion of it, but as it was I had—call it a wicked pleasure if you will—a delight in thus facing my enemy and giving him something to remind him of his sins. All this took place in a moment, for others coming up, we passed on and into another room. Then I saw my sister greatly agitated. She did not utter a word, as if she was conscious that I understood as well as if she had told me all with her lips. I led her to a seat, and my wife remarked about the crowd and the heat in the big room. Such a relief to always have that to which we can attribute our troubles as well as our sins. Every heart knows its own sorrows, and what a blessing it is that every one else does not know them. So far so good, but I still had my anxiety. I was fearful that our hostess in her ignorance might arrange that another face to face encounter would take place at the dinner table. I was in a quandary and probably in a greater state of excitement than was Napoleon at Waterloo. Our hostess soon came up, saying, “Mr. Japhet, you are to take Mrs. Shanks to dinner.” “And my wife and sister?” said I, interrupting her. “O,” she replied, “Mr. Smith, Sr., will take your sister, and Smith, Jr., your wife.”

This gave me a shock as from a battery, and I broke in, “Why not let my wife go with Mr. Smith, Sr. She would like to meet him.” This was a lie, unintentioned, as I was at my wit’s end, and on the impulse of a moment did what most, even the best of people might do in such a case, told the smallest, whitest lie I could. “It is well,” she said; “I will arrange it at once.” And she did. So my father took out his daughter-in-law, my wife; and my half brother his half sister. The two couples were seated some distance apart, so I was somewhat at ease. Nothing further occurred to disturb me, and I made some excuse to take away my company soon after dinner. I never wanted such another encounter. Life is too short to have many such excitements that set the heart going like a runaway engine under an extra pressure of steam.

On our return home my wife and sister seemed to have enjoyed their company. The one certainly never suspected that her consort was my father, her father-in-law. Though now aged, he was an accomplished man of society. I say it, though he was my villain of a father, he could pose anywhere with the outward grace of a gentleman. Outwardly in “society” he observed the decencies of life, but his hypocrisy was a sufficient cloak to conceal his immoralities. The other did not realize that her escort was her half brother and mine as well. Why tell them? This question often came to me during years afterward. Why did I allow them to go out with these men? I cannot tell. We are not always able to give a reason why we do thus and so. Another question. What would these ladies have said and done had they known who their gentlemen were? I can surmise about my wife. Had she learned at table who he was, my venerable parent would have thought himself in a hurricane storm off the Irish coast, as she would have given him such cutting strokes of her native wit that he would have preferred a dish of bitter herbs to the elaborate spread before him, so her ignorance was bliss to him.

It appeared that my sister in her agitation at seeing Smith Sr. did not catch the name of the other man when she was introduced, so after our return home she asked his name. I quickly replied Smythe, Smithers, or some other name commencing with S. She asked no further and I was content. Now comes a question in morals, whether it is ever right to deceive. One of the maxims of the Roman church is that “it is an act of virtue to deceive and lie when the church might be promoted.” If the church can do this by a pious fraud, why not an individual mislead another for his good? But I will not discuss the subject. Had she suddenly become aware that she was seated by her half brother, the son of her father, she would have fainted or rushed away in fright and disgust.

It is well we do not know everything about others, nor in fact all about ourselves. Any one will loathe his own skin when seen through a microscope. A traveler once dined well and heartily, praising the roast, but on being informed that it was monkey, was suddenly afflicted with a mal de mer, and was ill for a week afterward. To make him turn pale it was only to say “monkey.”

But how did the gentlemen feel? I don’t know. The one I think was so blasé in sin that he would have bluffed either an angel of light or the devil himself, and without a blush. I have often imagined a little scene, a catastrophe that I might have made by some introductions, as “Mr. Smith, my father, your daughter-in-law, my wife,” or “Mr. Smith, your daughter, my sister,” or “Mr. Smith, my brother, this is your sister.” I am glad now that I was not fool or rogue enough to have done it. Yet there would have been lots of fun to me in the doing of it, and lots of misery to two of them at least. We get pain and trouble enough without trying to make it.

I ought to state that the Smiths were unexpected visitors in the station. It seems that the senior, then an old man, had retired from the service and was living in a hill station and had gone on a holiday visit to his son. The latter concluded to take a run up to our station, and brought my father with him. The old man had probably a desire to look over his old stamping ground, but did not expect to run against his son, that is me, or to see his daughter, the once governess whom he had met years ago on the parade ground, and whom he had betrayed under promise of marriage. I might have invited him to visit Lucknow with me, to go out through that old gully to the little court where my mother, his wife, had lived, but why surmise any further?