The Path to Honour

by Sydney C. Grier

"The mother of Kharrak Singh clasps the feet of Jirad Sahib, and entreats that in the evil day his virtue may be a high tower in which she and her son can take refuge."

Gerrard sought vainly for a suitably self-deprecatory reply, but the Rajah was equal to the occasion, and rendered his disjointed murmurs into a polite desire that he might serve as a sturdy elephant to carry the Rani and her son over a flooded river. The voice spoke again, and Partab Singh turned to Gerrard.

"Is my friend yet wedded?" Gerrard shook his head. "Then the mother of Kharrak Singh desires to be informed when he brings home a wife, that she may send the bride her clothes and jewels."

In response to this very high honour Gerrard could only bow low, and promise to send the desired information when the time came, and then the appearance of the inevitable attar and pan in the hands of thickly veiled women of apparently most discreet age announced the termination of the interview. Partab Singh maintained his hold on Gerrard's arm until they had returned to the hall of audience, and then detailed an escort to guard him back to his own quarters. It was a most dissipated hour to return home, but when Gerrard mounted to the roof, where his bed was spread, he felt no inclination for sleep, and stood leaning on the parapet, thinking over the events of the evening. It must be his first care to find out what attitude Colonel Antony would adopt towards the arrangement desired by Partab Singh, since the workings of the Resident's mind were by no means easy to forecast. If he could meet the Rajah face to face and hear his story, Gerrard was inclined to think he might acquiesce. True, the addition of another infant heir and female regent to his burden of cares would not be agreeable to him, but the Rajput lady of royal ancestry would be a very different person to deal with from the low-born little upstart who kept the palace and city of Ranjitgarh agog with her stormy and transitory love affairs. Still, if Sher Singh should have the brilliant inspiration of seeking an interview with Colonel Antony, and having learnt a lesson from his previous failure, present himself merely as a disinherited innocent of pacific tendencies, it was quite likely that he would establish in the Resident's mind a prepossession in his favour which would tell heavily against little Kharrak Singh. Gerrard found himself planning the letter in which he would describe the state of affairs, placing things in their proper perspective and omitting no detail of importance, not putting himself forward, and yet not concealing his readiness to accept the post of Resident at Agpur if it should be thought fit to offer it him. Both in importance and responsibility it would be considered quite unsuitable for so young a man, he knew; but after all, Partab Singh had chosen him, and given him unsolicited two aids to success which were not, and could not be, in the power of any other man on earth.

Gerrard lost himself in dreams. This miniature palace, sheltered within the fort walls, yet standing by itself in its own garden, remote from the rambling pile of buildings occupied by Partab Singh and his court, would make an ideal Residency. Not for a solitary man, of course, but the Resident at Agpur could well afford to marry. Gazing down into the inner courtyard he saw it in the light of a shrine for Honour. Honour walked up and down the flagged paths in her white gown, Honour sat on the broad stone margin of the fountain and raised serious eyes from her book at his approach—and her whole face lighted up with a flash of welcome to him, such a flash as he had caught in Lady Cinnamond's eyes when Sir Arthur returned unexpectedly from a distant expedition. What blissful evenings they would spend on that broad pillared verandah, Honour working and he reading to her, or both together reading, writing, talking, as Colonel and Mrs Antony were wont to do, two minds working as one, so quickly and naturally did each supply the deficiencies of the other.

He pulled himself up sharply. Not so very many miles away was another man dreaming similar dreams—and yet not similar, since the charms of history and poetry and romance held no place in them. Gerrard himself might have pleaded guilty to the charge of allowing no opening for the cultivation of the good works which meant so much to Honour, but he would probably have defended himself with the not uncommon maxim of his day that looking after a husband was sufficient good works for any woman. But Bob Charteris—who was utterly incapable of appreciating the real Honour, who had no idea of her absolute uniqueness, and might have fallen in love with any other woman with equal satisfaction to himself! Bob—who could make a joke of his love and even laugh at his lady, who would probably not mind smoking while he thought about her! (In those days the smoker was largely considered as a pariah, if not an enemy of the human race. Gerrard himself smoked, but he was properly conscious that it was a weakness, and not an amiable one, and nothing would have induced him to set himself to think of Honour with a cheroot in his mouth.) It was Bob's rivalry that had driven him to put his fortune to the touch by proposing to Honour when patience would better have served his turn, and it was Bob to whose pleasure, by his own suggestion, he must defer before speaking to her again, were he ten times Resident at Agpur. Worst of all, it was Bob who was only too likely to win her in the end, and not undeservedly, Gerrard knew his friend's good points as few others did, and he did not deceive himself as to his chances of success. At this point he broke off his musings abruptly, and went to bed. Bob was not only superfluous, but a positive nuisance.

CHAPTER VII.

ON GUARD.

A haunting, half-superstitious dread beset Gerrard as he dressed the next morning, the presentiment that he would hear that Partab Singh had died in the night. After the determination the old man had shown in laying his plans, and the earnestness with which he had impressed them upon the Englishman, it would be eminently suitable dramatically, if absolutely fatal practically, that he should die before the steps could be taken to carry them out. But the foreboding proved to be baseless, and during the next few days Gerrard spent a good deal of time in close converse with the Rajah. The first step to be taken was undoubtedly to secure the approval of Colonel Antony, without whose active sympathy the great scheme would not have a chance of success. In his anxiety to assure the succession to his favourite child, Partab Singh had seriously compromised the jealously guarded independence of his state by his advances to the English as represented by Gerrard, and there could be no doubt that Granthis and Mohammedans would unite in resenting this betrayal. Hence, when the day of reckoning came, it was all-important to have not only the moral, but the physical support of the British secured, and it would be all the better if the agreement could be announced as an accomplished fact before the need arose to put it in practice. The Rajah had indeed confided his wishes to his most trusted councillors, but it was highly probable that in case of a popular rising these worthy gentlemen would find it more convenient, as it would certainly be safer, to forget the exact nature of the charge committed to them.

Adhering to his opinion that a personal interview between the Rajah and the Resident would be the surest way of enlisting Colonel Antony's sympathy for Kharrak Singh and his future, Gerrard now bent his efforts towards bringing this about. The disputed boundary between Agpur and Darwan afforded an excellent excuse for the Rajah to journey to his frontier and meet Charteris, who would hold the brief for Darwan, and if it could be so arranged that Colonel Antony should accidentally be in the neighbourhood, the thing would be done. Gerrard wrote urging his chief's presence with all the earnestness he could command, suggesting that if he could not come himself, he should depute his brother James to represent him. He then turned to the task of inducing Partab Singh to undertake the journey—a difficult endeavour, since he could not promise the desired interview at the end of it. A change had come over the Rajah since the evening when he had bestowed his confidence, and there was no doubt that he was failing. It seemed as though his vigour of body and mind had given way when he had once entrusted the care of his son to other hands, for Gerrard could distinctly trace the progress of decay in the short time he had known him, and the exertion of planning a move on such a large scale appeared to be too much for his strength. Since it was not to be supposed that this was a mere flying visit to the frontier, undertaken for a purpose, it must have all the characteristics of a royal progress, court, zenana, troops, elephants and guns, all accompanying their lord. The trusted councillors looked unutterable things at all Gerrard's suggestions, and military and civil officials combined to defeat all his arrangements by means of the dead weight of their inertia. The Rajah was willing to go, provided he had not to take any trouble, but he criticised freely all the points submitted to him, indicating how much simpler and less laborious it would have been if Gerrard had accepted his offers without insisting on referring things to his superiors. However, by dint of patience and resolution, the long train of men and baggage-animals was got under way at last, and with thankfulness Gerrard left the minarets of Agpur behind him. It was arranged that during the first day's journey, which was a very short one, he and his men should march with the Rajah's cavalcade, that he might notice anything neglected or forgotten and set it right, but that afterwards he should press on by forced marches, so as to meet Colonel Antony's returning couriers on the Darwan frontier, and if the tenor of the letters they bore should be disappointing, make a flying journey to Ranjitgarh itself, and urge his views upon the Resident. That this might be necessary he gathered from the latest instructions he had received—written, as he guessed, just before the arrival of his detailed report, and containing stringent warnings against committing the British Government on his own responsibility to any particular plan in dealing with Agpur.