The ruthless destruction of Mrs. Dawson's dresses supplied a subject for conversation, not merely in the station, but also in the "Burra Bazaar," where the most private concerns of the sahibs, and mem-sahibs, are openly debated and discussed.
Speculation was active, but neither the station nor the bazaar could hazard the vaguest conjecture, or trace even the ghost of a clue.
The devil theory was dismissed with the contempt which it deserved; the monkey suggestion was equally scorned, since the defamed ape was dead, having departed this life two days previous to the outrage, and thereby established an unimpeachable alibi. If not the monkey, who then? And echo cried, Who? all over the arid, torpid cantonment. There was no reply, and the destruction of Mrs. Dawson's Europe frocks, like one of the historical crimes that have baffled humanity, remains undiscovered until the present day.
The next sensation was a moonlight picnic, given by the bachelors of Ramghur; the rendezvous was the Chinglepat road five miles out, on a low mound between the highway and the river. On the occasion the lady moon appeared unusually large and brilliant, as if aware that she was responsible for the feast; the night was still and breathless, but the hock was still iced. Like most bachelor entertainments, the picnic was a success; around and across the cloth flew corks, crackers, jokes, and chaff; the poor hot-weather folk were eating, drinking, and making merry just as if the thermometer did not stand at 98, and the merriest and most animated member of the company was Mrs. Wilkinson. She wore a charming white toilette, in which she totally eclipsed her rival, and was not unconscious of the fact; but she was also aware at the back of all her smiles that she herself was present entirely without her doctor's knowledge, and felt like an escaped prisoner, who was bound to be captured some day. But then she wanted so much to wear her new dress. It was modelled from Mrs. Rattray's vivid description of one of Mrs. Dawson's celebrated costumes, and was so exceedingly novel and becoming that she felt it no more or less than her duty to exhibit this ghost of a Paris toilette to her many admirers. To Mrs. Dawson it was indeed a phantom frock.
All the world knew that Mrs. Wilkinson was amazingly clever, but how could she reproduce a garment which she had never seen? Here was yet another mystery. Angela, who by all domestic laws should have been in bed and asleep, had been permitted to join the company as Mr. Gascoigne's guest, and was supremely happy. She wore her new hat, lavishly trimmed with roses, and her best and simplest manners. Her host had brought her in his cart; indeed, he now drove her out daily, as he believed that it did the wan little creature good to get fresh air, such as it was, and it afforded one means of removing her from her stepfather's orbit.
During these drives her cousin occasionally endeavoured in an awkward, clumsy fashion to improve the young mind, which was at present "wax to receive, and marble to retain;" his teaching was more adapted to a boy than a girl. His lessons—a mere sentence—brief, but pithy, showed her his abhorrence of lying, cowardice, and all mean actions. (Poor Angel listened with a tingling face, for she lived in an atmosphere of falsehood, and was conscious of certain small acts that were not creditable, chiefly connected with jam, hair ribbons, and beads; but in her heart Angel knew that she was no coward.) These seeds, casually cast by the wayside, and as casually received, were planted, and subsequently bore fruit, in the child's somewhat rocky little heart.
To return to the moonlight picnic. Colonel Wilkinson was present in a grey dirzee-made flannel suit rather tight for his rounded proportions; his moustache was waxed to exaggeration; he wore a new pink washing tie, and he made himself conspicuous in ushering guests to their places, arranging the viands, concocting the salad, and distributing the iced hock—for he was always exceedingly hospitable in other people's houses. At present the company were assembled under the vault of heaven, but the stout little officer presided at the end of the tablecloth, with his fat legs crossed Buddha-wise, carved the cold Guinea fowl and ham, and pressed delicacies on his neighbours so assiduously, that a casual arrival would have supposed that in him he beheld the host. No one could be more genial or convivial at his neighbour's board than Richard Wilkinson, Lieutenant-Colonel.
Angel shared a rug with her mother, and now and then stole her hand into hers and squeezed it gently, sure token of her absolute content; the pair were seated exactly opposite to Mrs. Dawson, who looked depressed and commonplace in an old-fashioned brown tussore garment. The child contemplated her gravely, with a mysteriously complacent expression in her large eyes; her stare exasperated the lady to such a pitch that more than once she was on the point of addressing her; the hot weather has a knack of warping people's tempers and reducing their nerves to fiddle-strings, and the combination of Angel's curious gaze and her mother's "model gown" was almost too much for Mrs. Dawson's equanimity.
After dinner there were songs and games, and some wandered away in twos and threes down to the river. This was a tributary of Mother Gunga, a holy river, now much shrunken; its waters moved along with a deliberate solemnity befitting a sacred stream. The farther bank was clothed with tall reeds, and was the well-known haunt of alligators. Mrs. Wilkinson and Mr. Shafto were looking for one in company, and as they gazed up and down the banks more than one grey log of wood had misled them. Had Mrs. Wilkinson's doctor been of the party, he would have assured her that in those thin shoes and transparent dress, as she stood breathing malaria on the brink of the sluggish stream, she was boldly courting death.