A Bottle in the Smoke: A Tale of Anglo-Indian Life

by Janet Milne Rae

With renewed hope she set about preparations for the journey. Soon all the household at Clive's Road were sharing the exciting news that Dorai and Dosani were going on a holiday, and the ayah and the dressing boy were to accompany their master and mistress. Hester had written to Mrs. Fellowes to tell her of the pending departure, and all preparations were well advanced when her husband, returning on the following evening at a late hour, announced with hesitating mien that he feared the sea journey must be given up, that he was obliged for business reasons to include Bombay in his trip, and five days in the train, which was then the length of the journey, was unthinkable for such a frail creature as she was. Moreover, he had that day met a friend whom he desired, also for business reasons, to have as his companion, and he being a bachelor preferred to travel en garcon. This they could do much more cheaply than if they "were hum-bugged by wives," as his friend elegantly expressed it.

So it came about that Hester's quick hope came to a sudden end. For a little she felt keen disappointment, enhanced by the knowledge that in her husband's change of plans there was a large element of wilful selfishness. She accepted the decision without a murmuring word, and felt almost surprised to perceive the strain of penitence which marked his manner as she cheerfully busied herself in making all preparations for his journey.

"I don't half like leaving you alone like this," he remarked on the morning of his departure. "I've been thinking of a nice plan for you. Suppose you write to Mrs. Fellowes and suggest a visit to her!"

Hester, however, declined to fall in with the proposal, assuring her husband that she would find plenty to occupy her during her solitary weeks. But on the same afternoon when Mrs. Fellowes called to say farewell to her friend, and found to her astonishment that the hoped-for holiday was abandoned as far as Hester was concerned, she at once insisted that she should take up her abode at Royapooram during her husband's absence. Thither Hester went on the day after Mr. Rayner's departure to find rest and solace in the companionship of these good friends.

Alfred Rayner's purpose in going to Calcutta was not very definite in his own mind. He looked on it in the light of an experiment—a gamble. It was, in fact, the need of money which urged him to try to gauge the capacities of Truelove Brothers, and to make the attempt to bleed them more heavily. Zynool's loan had tided him over a period, but financial embarrassments were becoming pressing, and he decided to exhaust the possibilities of help from the quarter from whence help had come with such unfailing regularity longer than he could remember. It is true his aunt had always volubly assured him that his allowance was all the firm of Truelove Brothers had in store for him. But what were the assertions of a woman like Aunt Flo, he thought with scorn, so ignorant, so prevaricating, as he knew her to be. More than likely he had been up to this date the victim of a cruel conspiracy to defraud him of his legal rights as the son of one of the late partners of the firm. He had, however, to remind himself that his recent endeavours to probe the matter by a sharp query in a letter had elicited a firm though courteous reply that the allowance which he received was the limit of his claim. But now, since his financial condition was becoming desperate, unless indeed he changed his whole scale of living, he had resolved to make the attempt to sift the matter in person. The dètour to Bombay might indeed have been well dispensed with, and had only been yielded to at the solicitation of one of the most worthless of his recent acquaintances.

So it happened that when Alfred Rayner took his seat in the crowded train en route for Calcutta his purse was more empty than he liked to contemplate. Prudence had even dictated that he should stoop to a seat in a third-class carriage. He sat in a corner wedged in between closely packed natives, his sun topee drawn over his eyes, the lower part of his face covered by his pocket-handkerchief. But he could not shut his ears to the discordant babel of voices round him, for every third-class passenger in the East is nothing if not vociferous. His elegant person was continually prodded by angular packages, his delicate nostrils, in spite of all precautions, assailed by the most forbidding odours.

The journey seemed interminable. The slight refreshment he had been able to secure as the train was in motion he could hardly eat in such repulsive surroundings. At last the express swung into Howrah station, but even then Rayner's gnawing discomfort was not at an end.

He had been congratulating himself that as he had not mentioned the hour of his arrival, he would not be met at the station. But he reckoned too much on Mr. Melford's ignorance of the time-table. On peering out of his box-like carriage window, he caught sight of his friend in eager search after his smart acquaintance of Piccadilly days, while that gentleman lurked in a third-class carriage, choke full of natives.

Rayner decided that the only thing left for him to do was to secrete himself in the grimy comer which he had longed to leave, till he could guarantee that his friend's back was turned. When that moment arrived he jumped with alacrity to the platform and hurried to report himself.

"Ah, here you are, Rayner—thought you were going to cheat us too! My wife and I are awfully sorry Mrs. Rayner's heart failed her at the last moment. Carrie has been making great moan about her disappointment since your letter came. Stupid of me not to have caught sight of you before! I thought I searched every carriage!"