"I believe you are right, Mrs. Fellowes," returned Mark. "My father's people happen to live in Shropshire, not far from Styche Hall, Clive's birthplace, and I always regretted he should have replaced the old black-timbered house by a mansion with verandahs."
"Yes," said Colonel Fellowes, who had joined them, "I once made a pilgrimage to see that house—Clive being one of my heroes. We should have worshipped that simple black-timbered house if it had still been extant. All the same, the present one isn't the gorgeous palace Macaulay would have us believe. Poor Clive, he was much maligned, as many of the makers of India have been! What would the Carnatic, for instance, be now, but for Clive? A tiger jungle—only the tigers two-footed instead of four, and tearing each other to bits!"
"The result has been good, certainly," replied Mark, "but are you sure it was not the hungry mouth of the rapacious West, craving for pepper and cardamoms, and hankering after the fabled gold and gems of Hindustan, that brought the white men? Remember he came as a suppliant trader to these shores and first begged for crumbs!"
"Granted!" returned Colonel Fellowes. "Just as the Israelites came to the land of Canaan—sent by the same Hand. Depend upon it the hosts of our forefathers were the hosts of God, as Kingsley says. But talking of reproducing chunam palaces at home, I was amused to hear Rayner saying the other day at the Club that he had got a plan of his house in Clive's Road, and meant to reproduce it in Belgravia! 'First catch the standing room,' said I. He's an ambitious young fellow that, and a pushing one! I wish his ambition would take the form of giving his wife a good mount. I told him of a perfect one to be had at Waller's stables, but he wouldn't hear of it."
"But Mrs. Rayner used to be a keen horsewoman," said Mark, recalling vividly some pleasant rides in Worcestershire lanes.
"Well, strange as it may seem, he has an unaccountable prejudice against riding, though he is a good whip and has several pairs of fine Arabs besides the two Walers. I begged him, if he wouldn't come himself, to let Mrs. Rayner ride of a morning with my wife. She was most keen, but he wouldn't hear of it. Selfish, I call it! She is so charming, quite the nicest of our brides this season," added the colonel, his eyes following Hester's slender figure as she strolled along the lawn walk with his wife.
Mark fully endorsed his remark though he did so silently, inwardly commenting on the personal note which all conversation seemed to take in his new social surroundings. He had observed it on the previous evening when more than one of those to whom he had been introduced made comments more frank than friendly concerning his future chief and others which, in home circles, would have been considered somewhat out of taste. Perhaps it was a trait of this Anglo-Indian society, bred of the narrowness of its range of topics. It was perforce illuminating to a new-comer, though he felt that the suggestion of selfishness in Hester's husband was painful when he recalled the parting words of her mother on the Pinkthorpe Rectory. "We would fain that Hester had chosen one of whom we knew more than Alfred Rayner. As her father says, he is still an unknown quantity. In fact, the dear child's choice was too hurried. You will do much to reassure us, Mark, if you can tell us that the man of her choice is strong to lean on, tender and true!"
Even already from his few hours' acquaintance, Mark felt by no means sure that he could banish Mrs. Bellairs' anxiety by the assurance for which she longed. There seemed to him a curious hardness about Rayner, combined with a lack of manliness, making visible shallow ambitions. He wore them "on his sleeve" in fact, and Colonel Fellowes had not far to probe in putting his finger on such weaknesses. But Mark hoped that Hester had not discovered any such flaws, and he desired, brother-like, to shield her from the knowledge of them. Rayner could hardly live beside one so true and sweet as she was without being influenced for good. Whenever he could get release from his duties at Puranapore he would surely be able to trace her ennobling influence on her husband, and till then he must forbear to sound any note of trouble to the anxious mother far away.
"Ah, here comes someone we don't see every day," exclaimed Mrs. Fellowes, going forward to greet a visitor who came slowly along the shady walk. He was a man about Colonel Fellowes' age, tall but not so erect and with less broad shoulders. His face was not so bronzed as the soldier's, but his skin had a more withered look, and there was a pathetic light about his deep, penetrating grey eyes. The curves of his thin lips betokened a settled sadness, though his face lit up with a rarely pleasant smile as he returned Mrs. Fellowes' greeting.
"Welcome, Mr. Morpeth, you are a sight for 'sair een,' as my old Scots aunt used to put it."