'Wise or not,' said Grace, her every word falling clearly on the ears of the tall Indian in the background who did not think it wrong to listen now, 'I am bound to go. My poor little cousin—you will remember her, by the bye; she married Captain Richardson——'
'Yes; I remember—a muff! I beg your pardon, Miss Elton. I mean the gentleman, not the lady. She was an angel. I hope nothing is wrong with her.'
'I hope not, too; but we have been receiving rather miserable letters lately, and Uncle is going to see her, and I have promised to go with him, and stay with poor little Lucy for a week or two.'
The quadrille had at last been got together, and Grace and her partner were called to attention; but the Indian had heard enough. When the dance was over he left the hall.
[CHAPTER XIV]
A MODEL STATE
Acting on the urgent recommendation of Hoosanee, who saw reason to fear for his master's safety, should he continue any longer in this dangerous locality, Tom and his servants left the neighbourhood of Lucknow early the next morning. Two days' march of a perfectly uneventful character brought them to the English port and station of Futtehgur. There they crossed the Ganges and travelled on quietly over roads shaded with acacia, pipul, and cork trees, into the wide and fertile plains of Central India. Gumilcund was included within the bounds of what was called the Central Indian Agency, a district more or less under the Company's control. Like several other small native states that lay clustered together in this region, and that formerly had lived a life of pillage and internecine warfare, it had acknowledged the British as the paramount power, and an English resident had been accredited to its court. The government of the little State had, however, been so wise, just, and beneficent, that the position of the Resident was a mere sinecure. During the late reign his chief function had been to supply the rajah, whom he, in common with the rest of the world, admired and revered, with European society.
There were few amongst the English who did not enjoy a visit to Gumilcund. The courtesy and urbanity of the rajah, in whose manners the grace of the Asiatic and the simple dignity of the well-bred Englishman seemed to meet, with the novelty of the life to which he introduced his own and the Resident's guests, made the city popular. Some said that nowhere on the face of the earth was there a place to compare with it. Such statements, no doubt, savoured of extravagance; but Gumilcund did certainly possess certain advantages that are not to be met with elsewhere. For fifty years—ever since the son of Sir Anthony Bracebridge was given the title and dignity of rajah—it may be said to have been governed by one man, for although in that period son had succeeded to father, the ideas of the two, with regard to government, were practically identical.
The first rajah was a man of experience. He knew not only the barbarities of Indian social life, but also the plague-spots of Western civilization. He was, moreover, a strong man. When he undertook to weld the chaos of the State that had been given to him to govern into the ideal that lived in his imagination, every one of his measures, planned out beforehand with deliberateness, was carried through unflinchingly. He had wealth, which was one great factor in his success. He had besides—and this quality his son inherited—a power over men almost amounting to fascination. Reforms which, if introduced by any other ruler, would have certainly induced rebellion, were accepted from him without a murmur. When, after an unusually long reign, he left the State to his son, it was already well started on the path of progress.