Part 5 (1/2)
In a quarter of Madras where dwelling houses were not separated by so many acres of garden ground as in the more fas.h.i.+onable suburbs, there stood, at the corner of a shady road, a white wooden gate. It was a feature rare in the Belgravia of the town where peeling chunam posts with rusty iron sockets were often the only traces of the departed gate; one of the changing tenants having probably demanded that it should be dispensed with, another that it should be replaced, to be a.s.sured by the obsequious landlord that the order would be executed at once, though the gate in question was most likely broken up for firewood or eaten by white ants, the polite Mussulman not having the remotest intention of replacing it, however much he might a.s.sure successions of tenants that the gate was on its way to be fitted to the old posts.
But what mattered such traces of dilapidation to those often changing inmates? Were not pleasant homes, trim gateways, verdant lawns, awaiting them across the sea when the requisite number of rupees had been ama.s.sed, the years of service expired, and the exile only a memory?
Within the precincts of this white gate, however, no change of owners had interrupted its careful tendance for many a year. No period of rankness had intervened in the trim compound. Under the tall grey pillar-like stems of the cocoanut-tope behind the bungalow, the gra.s.s, by means of much watering, was almost as green as an English lawn.
Shapely tamarinds, dark mango, and neem trees brooded over the garden where a wealth of old-fas.h.i.+oned flowers grew and prospered, sheltered by various ingenious contrivances from the scorching rays of the sun and the devastation of the monsoon. Green colonnades of broad-leaved plantains, with their curious spikes of fruit, made a dividing line between the flower-beds and the well-kept vegetable garden at the end of which, beside the tank, a _picotta_ was mounted, where an agile coolie swung on the primitive pump, propelling the water from below and sending it along a labyrinth of little intersecting mud-channels percolating the thirsty earth.
The visitor, who was now opening the white gate, had sprung from his bandy at the entrance to the avenue, evidently electing to walk towards the house, a proceeding as novel as it was distasteful to the syce, who sat sulky and inanimate on his perch for some moments before he decided to seek the shelter of a shady nook on the road. In fact, he had been led to expect from Dorai Cheveril's butler--the result of crumbs of news picked up from the breakfast table--that he was to have a succession of lively doings; a call at Government House to begin with, then a round of gay compounds where there would be many of his own species to fraternize with. But this 'Morpeth house,' he knew, did not offer such possibilities.
No feature of the carefully-tended garden escaped Mark Cheveril's keen eye as he made his way to the peaceful bungalow. Its verandah looked invitingly cool even in the noontide glare, overhung as it was by graceful creepers. The visitor thought he might see his new friend seated in its green recesses, but all seemed empty and silent. He was too recent an arrival to know that bells and knockers are conspicuous by their absence from an Indian abode. All beyond the verandah was open, revealing vistas of cool darkness within, but he decided that to enter unannounced would hardly be permissible even in this land of open hospitality. Recalling that Mrs. Fellowes had told him Mr. Morpeth was a lonely bachelor, he came to the conclusion that both he and the servants must be absent, and was turning to go when he heard a sign of life. A rich baritone voice broke the silence. Mark could detect in its timbre the speaking voice of the old East Indian, who, since his arrival in Madras, had twice cast his spell upon him. The air he was singing was melodious, and the words fell with clear cadence on the still noontide:
”Light of those whose dreary dwelling Borders on the shades of death, Come and all Thy love revealing, Dissipate the clouds beneath.”
Mark listened fascinated. It seemed to him like a solemn invocation, a pa.s.sionate prayer uttered by the lonely man. The echo of those simple words was to come back to him in after years, recalling the day he stood a young hopeful civilian at the entrance of his life in the land, new and wonderful to him, listening to the cry of the old pilgrim who had borne the burden and heat of that land all his years, and whose dearest aim had been to bring light to some of those ”dreary dwellings”
bordering on the shadow of death.
The singing ceased, and Mark mounted one or two of the flat entrance-steps, deciding to make his way through the open doors and announce himself. But the old man's sense of hearing was quick.
”I thought I heard a step,” he said, coming from the darkness within, a welcoming smile on his face. ”My boys are all away at rice and siesta, no doubt.”
”I hope I'm not intruding, Mr. Morpeth. I thought I should like to begin my calls by taking advantage of your kind invitation to come and have a talk with you.”
”A kind and gracious thought, Mr. Cheveril. You come to cheer a lonely old man.”
”But you have many interests, many solaces, Mr. Morpeth. I heard you singing like a true musician as I reached your verandah. In fact, I must plead guilty to eavesdropping. Both the air and the words were new to me and held me.”
”Yes, it's a favourite of mine. But you from England must be familiar with all Charles Wesley's hymns?”
”I fear you credit me with more knowledge about many good things than I can lay claim to, Mr. Morpeth. Hymnology has not been much of a study with me.”
”Ah, but you must make the acquaintance of Charles Wesley. There is real poetry in his hymns, much more than in his brother John's. They have a beautiful haunting power which the others lack. I was glad to find that pearl among English deans--Stanley--acknowledging this in one of his books lately. But what am I thinking about, Mr. Cheveril? This is not the hour to linger in the verandah! Come and seek the coolness of my homely den here.”
Mr. Morpeth led the way into the drawing-room of the house which had been fitted up as a library. In the rows of teakwood dwarf-bookcases, raised from the ground by carved lions _couchants_ high enough above the matting to protect them from the ravages of white ants, were well-filled shelves of books. A case from home lay half unpacked on the floor. A roomy writing-table with well-filled pigeon-holes showed traces of manifold labours. The furnis.h.i.+ng of the room evidently belonged to a period when it was possible to get good wood, before so many of the great forest trees were cut down. The polished chunam of the walls told of days when coolies were plentiful and lent the strength of their sinewy arms to rub the sh.e.l.l-lime till it gleamed like marble, even in the light of day.
”What a delightful room!” exclaimed Mark. ”It looks more English than anything I've seen here, and yet you've never been----” He paused without finis.h.i.+ng his sentence as he glanced at the brown-skinned man.
”Never been in England? No, and I fear I never shall be, though it used to be my dream in the years when I was too poor to carry it out. Yet I see now there came a time when I ought to have gone to England--but regrets are vain,” he added, and a look of trouble stole into his eyes.
Habituated from his childhood to respect the English as a superior race, David Morpeth had suffered himself to be perhaps unduly crushed by that aristocracy of colour which he had so long reverenced. He had bent the knee before the prejudice against those of mixed blood, conscious of having neither the will nor the power to contend against it. His life therefore had flowed into other channels. A solitary man, he had attached himself to the domiciled community with all the fervour of a true vocation. But for occasional friendly souls like Mrs. Fellowes, he had hitherto experienced a great loneliness. He had begun life in Calcutta attached to a wealthy merchant firm, and by virtue of his high character, was eventually received as a valued partner. When he retired from active business, he elected to make his home in an old family house in Madras which had long been let, and around which was a colony of his own people.
Freyville, Vepery, soon became a centre of kindly offices for the Eurasians. David Morpeth would indeed have been welcomed in other circles, but, as Mrs. Fellowes had explained to Mark that morning, he had given himself body and soul to the despised race.
Mark Cheveril had been quick to note the chivalry of his heart, and it found an echo in his own.
”Mrs. Fellowes told me you are so immersed in work for our people that you don't even take a holiday to the hills.”
”Ah, you see I have a large family to look after, but there is good cheer in the work. You must not believe all you hear about the inevitable degradation of the mixed race.”
”I should be the last to believe anything of the kind. It would be a death-knell to my hopes of helping them, but I must be a learner for some time to come.”
”Ah, but a sympathetic one! That makes all the difference! It is the cruel inveterate prejudice against the whole cla.s.s that has led to their degradation. They have accepted the verdict pa.s.sed on them by the pure races, and it has crushed them. Their tendency is to look down on manual labour, and yet in industrial callings they cannot hold their own with the inhabitants of the soil. The poor among them have sunk so low, wearing out hopeless lives in wretched crowded dens. Often only a shed with a mat as covering suffices for a home. They have neither physical nor mental energy to strike out careers for themselves. Inevitable pauperism we have, of course, as in England, and it is often encouraged by indiscriminate giving that plays into the hands of loafers, many of them pure Europeans who will not work, preferring to become beggars.
It's easy enough to throw a bone to a dog and be done with it, and the well-wishers of our people are well to watch with jealous eye those trouble-hating Europeans, ay, even among the clergy, who would salve their consciences by merely giving alms.”