CHAPTER V

Slowly, monotonously for Philip the months dragged on, unmarked by any special events of a personal character. At intervals he heard from Miss Baker. First she reported her safe arrival at the Mission headquarters, having considered it "only right" to go there rather than take advantage of the more comfortable hospitality offered by the Magistrate and his wife. But apparently this meritorious attitude was not fully understood or appreciated by her hardworking hosts, for Miss Baker complained that though the Mission people were always desperately busy themselves they made no real use of the services she was so ready to render; one of them had actually advocated her joining the Station Club that she might obtain some distraction! The next letter came from the Magistrate's bungalow, where Miss Baker was being nursed over an attack, her first attack, of malarial fever; at the Mission House, it seemed, no one had time to look after a white patient! The Magistrate's wife had most opportunely come to the rescue.... As soon as a passage could be secured Miss Baker intended to go home. On the whole, she confessed, she felt that her visit to India had not been quite the success she had anticipated. Wherever she went she seemed only to get in the way—and she had meant to be so useful! English people in India wasted their energies over things that did not greatly matter, and in consequence had no time for more vital questions. Later on, perhaps, she might come back, and with better results; in any case she had gathered ample material for her book, which she would begin on the voyage.... She wrote to Philip from board ship, and again from her father's house in Mayfair. The letters still contained criticisms aimed at British administration in India, but through them all there ran a pathetic little undercurrent of self-distrust that reached Philip's sympathy; and her never-failing remembrance of their brief companionship touched him—always her love to Jacob, and how was the chestnut pony, and the old bearer, and did he recollect this, that, and the other? Also when was he coming home? A few mails later (great excitement) she had met Lady Lane-Johnson, his sister, at a big literary gathering, quite by accident; they had begun to talk about India, and then of course had discovered, etc., etc.

These letters, though Philip sometimes felt it an effort to answer them, were welcome during the dreary routine of duty, as inspection followed inspection, journey upon journey, by road or by rail, from one famine-smitten area to another. The battle with death and want continued through the long, hot days and nights, until, as though with belated compassion, nature at last stepped in, and a strong monsoon swept up from the coast, allaying epidemics, washing away disease and dirt, reviving energy and hope; and if the work was still as strenuous in its way, it was at least work that was spurred by relief and thankfulness in place of dread and despair.

With the cessation of the rains Flint felt free to take a breathing-space. His leave granted for September, he sought a popular station, that, not being the headquarters of a Provincial Government, was in a measure exempt from official etiquette and certain irksome observances that prevailed in the more important health resorts. Surima, its dwellings perched like a flock of white birds on the slopes of the high hills, was notorious for its gaiety and its gregarious gatherings. Here assembled merchants from the great ports, lonely ladies whose health and spirits suffered from the heat and the dullness of the plains, subalterns intent on "a good time," holiday-makers of every service and calling, and an abundance of pretty girls....

Philip selected Surima for his leave because he felt it might be possible to lose his identity for the time being in such a motley crowd. He need make no calls; Government House with a visitors' book and commands to social functions was non-existent. His presence would not be noted. He intended to loaf, to spend long hours in the life-giving air on the hill-sides, perhaps do a little shooting—jungle fowl, a bear or two, possibly a leopard. He would have ease and leisure in which to make up his mind whether to sink back to the level of humdrum district administration until his first pension was due and he could leave India altogether, or set himself to regain his position in the front ranks of competitors for high office. He realised that he was overworked, that his mental outlook was hardly to be trusted at present, deranged as it had been by the distressing affair at Rassih. Given time and rest he might manage, in a measure, to make a fresh start and to put the past behind him....

To his disgust the Club chambers at Surima were full, and he was forced to find temporary quarters in a fashionable hotel that occupied a central position. It was close on the dinner hour when he arrived, and as he changed into evening clothes he found it difficult to realise that for a full month he would be master of his time, able to follow his own inclinations. With a sense of personal freedom he strolled into the dining-room only to be confronted by a scene that, at first glance, made him query—was he, by any chance, in a lunatic asylum instead of a hotel?

The tables were crowded with a chattering throng garbed in a variety of fantastic costumes, a host of masqueraders. He beheld a devil complete with horns and tail; a red Indian; an aerial being all wings and gossamer; figures enveloped in dominoes; others painted, patched, bewigged—all laughing and talking and eating. He felt like a sparrow that had strayed into an aviary of tropical birds. Humbly he slipped into an empty seat beside a stout youth draped in a leopard skin, with a wreath on his brow! "Bacchus," or whatever mythological character this individual imagined he represented, made way for the stranger good-naturedly.