The cantonment was just a comfortable size for a sociable community—and luckily the community was sociable; it numbered about fifty men and fifteen ladies, but the latter fluctuated. Sometimes they numbered as many as thirty, sometimes but three.
The station was situated in the midst of a great flat grain country, diversified by fine groves or topes of forest trees, and scattered over with red-roofed villages of immemorial antiquity. Riding along the well-kept pucka roads, with ripe, yellow corn waving at either side, the cool November air and the noble timber would deceive one into believing that they were in the south of Europe, until a Commissariat elephant lumbering along, or a camel carriage and pair, or a four-in-hand of hideous water buffaloes, dragging a primitive wain laden with sugar-cane, dispelled the idea. Besides the level roads bordered with Neem, Shesum, Sirus, and Teak trees, there were smooth, green parade grounds and comfortable bungalows, standing in the midst of luxuriant gardens, where roses, passion-flowers, oranges and strawberries, mangoes and mignonette grew in sociable abundance.
There was a picturesque church and an excellent station club, where all the community assembled to read the papers, play tennis, drink tea, and hear the news; but invariably, by the middle of April, the tennis courts were deserted, the chairs round the tea-table were vacant, and the gallop of ponies was no longer heard cutting up the adjacent polo ground. All those who could command money and leave, had promptly fled away to various hill stations.
George Holroyd was not among the exodus, he remained to do duty—the little that is possible with the thermometer at 104—and to sit behind a “Khus-khus” tattie, while the hot west wind came booming through the mango trees—and fought with the drowsy, stifling hours, and the weary pages of the Bagh-o-Bahar. Captain La Touche had gone to Simla, where he was a conspicuous member of the clubs, and an esteemed customer at Peliti’s, and gave recherché little dinners at the châlet; he had done his utmost to carry his friend with him, and had used arguments, bribes, and even threats.
“You will go mad, my dear fellow, you will certainly go mad, staying down here, and grinding your brains away; you will feel the effects before another week goes over your head. Come up for a couple of months at least; come and stay with me; come, my dear boy, and see Simla. Come! I’ll mount you at polo, come!”
“Not I—thank you; if I went anywhere I would go into Cashmere. I have no taste for sticking myself over with patent leather and peacock’s feathers, and riding beside a woman’s rickshaw.”
“It would depend upon who was in the rickshaw, I suppose. Eh? Well, if you don’t mind yourself, it’s my opinion that one of these days we shall be riding after your coffin! Promise me before I go, that if you feel at all seedy you will send me a wire, and follow it at once.”
As he was very pertinacious, George gave him the required promise, solely for the sake of peace.
Early in June he went up for his examination, and, whilst he awaited the result in miserable suspense, he received a letter from his uncle Godfrey, who, through the family lawyer, had recently discovered the state of his money affairs. After upbraiding him angrily for keeping the matter from him, and for allowing himself to be stripped to his last shilling in order to support Major Malone’s family, he went on to say that he would make him an allowance of five hundred a year, in order that he might live like a gentleman, and as became his heir, and if he would only come home, and settle down, and marry some nice girl, he would do a great deal more for him.
“And if I settle down, and marry a nice girl out here, I wonder what he will say to that?” said his nephew to himself, as he tried to realise his unexpected good fortune. He did not spend much time in reflection, but galloped over to the Colonel’s bungalow, and asked that amazed officer “if there was any chance of his getting three months’ leave to England, and to start at once.”