His cousin was more at home these latter days; he was packing and preparing for a move.
“I say, Mark,” he said, “your wrist will be all right in about ten days, so Kane says. I advise you to think better of it, and follow on to Simla. It’s a ripping place—very different to dead-and-alive Shirani—I must go to-morrow, you know. I’ve promised to escort Mrs. Atherton and Miss Potter; the roads between this and the station are broken, and they are in a deadly fright. We shall do the whole journey together, and I have now only to ask and have.”
“That is satisfactory, but as far as I’m concerned I’m a fixture here,” replied Mark, “and you know why. I wrote to my father again urgently, and told him that time was flying, that I was going back in October, but I would wait here till then.”
“So you may! I know the style your father is, Mark. He is a man who has lived so long out here, he has become fossilized—nothing outside India appeals to him, not even his son. There are dozens like him; the easy-going life has penetrated to their very bones. He has his well-trained servants, his excellent food and liquor, his cheroots or his huka, his Pioneer, his long armchair, his pet grievance; he wants no more, least of all a smart young chap, with all sorts of advanced fin-de-siècle ideas, to come and rout him out.”
“This is a fancy sketch, Clarence.”
“Well, grant it! I will draw you a true portrait from life, and I could draw you half a dozen.”
“We will have one to begin with—don’t be too long about it, for I have promised to meet Scrope at four o’clock sharp; and I see Dum Sing waiting with the grey pony.”
“Once upon a time I knew an old colonel (retired) who lived in the Nielgherries,” began Waring. “All his family were out in the world, sons in the service, daughters married, and he was left stranded. He had his garden, his ponies, some ancient chums and old retainers, and though all his relations were at the other end of the world, he would not budge. No less than three times he took his passage home; twice he went down to Madras, bag and baggage, accompanied by his servants. Once he was actually on board ship and in his cabin, but when they said, ‘Any one for the shore,’ he bundled his kit together and went back in a Massulah boat. He is out here still. I recollect another instance, an old general, a regular old derelict, clinging, as to a spar, to the last station he commanded. I saw him—and this was in the plains, mind you—going for his evening drive in his old carriage, with a pair of antediluvian horses—all alone, too. He had a venerable, long white beard, and was eighty-six years of age, and fond of saying, ‘Thirty years ago, when I commanded this station!’ The authorities and folks in general humoured him—people are not so much hustled out here, and have time to indulge old folk’s fancies. He came to all the field days, and drew up behind the saluting post in his old barouche. He thought the army was going to the dogs, I can tell you, and white helmets, white clothes, and canes, so many scandalous innovations. He had a heap of relations in England, never wrote to one of them, and left all his money to the grandson of his first love and the Friend in Need Society! Your father is just another of these people, as you will see.”
“Time will tell; and, talking of time, Clarence, I think it is time that we should put an end to our little farce.”
Clarence, who was sitting opposite to his companion, and leaning his arms on a rickety writing-table, raised his head and gazed at him rather blankly.