“Now, I’ll take you to your aunt at once,” said Krauss, descending heavily from the car, but making no effort to assist his niece. Then he led the way upstairs, striding along the veranda with a heavy, despotic tread, and through a large, dim drawing-room, where Sophy caught an impression of much carved furniture, the figure of a large alabaster Buddha gleaming through the shadows, and a stifling atmosphere of dust and sandalwood. Pushing aside a tinkling bamboo screen, they entered another apartment, which was yet gloomier and more obscure, and here on a wide sofa, propped, among large, silk cushions, lay a sick and wasted woman, who turned on Sophy a sallow face and a pair of drowsy, dark eyes.
“Here is your new treasure, mein schatz,” announced her husband! “I brought her straight up.”
“Oh, dear child,” she murmured, “this is one of my—my dreadful days; so sorry—so sorry—so sorry,” and she slowly closed her eyes upon her pretty niece.
Sophy stooped and lifted her hand (which was limp and clammy) to her lips, and said to herself, as she did so, that poor Aunt Flora was woefully changed. She recalled her as a beautiful vision, beautifully dressed, and so gay. Now her face was yellow and withered, and she looked positively old and gaunt.
All at once a buxom ayah advanced—-a stout, straight-backed Madrassi, with her black hair in a chignon, a ring in her nose, jewelled rings in her ears, wearing a handsome blue-and-gold saree, coquettishly draped round her ample form, the usual short silk bodice, or choli, and numerous heavy bangles. She salaamed to Sophy with both hands, and Sophy, who had never before beheld such an apparition, gazed in admiring silence; the ayah’s carriage, her gait and sheeny protuberance, recalled to mind a prosperous pouter pigeon.
“My missis plenty sick to-day,” said Lily, “never seeing people—that no good; to-morrow, she may be arl right, but now she must sleep, and I will take the new missy to her room.”
Sophy’s room, which was large and, rather bare, overlooked the stables, cook-house and servants’ quarters, and here she was introduced to her own attendant Motee, a timid creature in white, who seemed to rise, as it were, out of the floor.
“Motee is the best lady’s ayah in Rangoon,” explained Lily with an offhand air, “she understands Miss Sahibs, she will pack and unpack, dress hair—and hold her tongue.”
After giving Motee some directions, unpacking her favourite hats and changing her dress, Sophy went forth in order to explore her new home. The whole establishment had a squalid, neglected appearance and sadly lacked the eye of the mistress. The compound or garden, with its masses of gorgeous tropical trees and plants, was overgrown and jungly, poultry wandered about at their own sweet will, and even invaded the veranda—yet apparently there was no lack of staff. On the contrary, from her bedroom window she had observed groups of men talking and smoking, presumably servants, as several wore silver badges on their turbans, and soiled white linen coats, and among these were some jovial Burmans and one or two wide-trousered Chinamen.
No doubt Fernanda, the treasure, had kept the house in working order, and now that she had abdicated, her sceptre lay in the dust—in every sense of the word. Was it her, Sophy’s, duty to raise it? She noticed quantities of litter and cobwebs in the drawing-room, but there were no flowers or knick-knacks; the silver teapot that appeared with tea at five o’clock was nearly black. It was not a luxurious meal, a weak Chinese mixture, and a plate of fossilised biscuits.