Part 19 (1/2)
There is always a suspense about that moment of search among the bundles of official correspondence, the files, the cases which fill up the camp mail, for the thin packet of private letters which is the only tie between you and the world; but when hopes of home news is superadded, the breath is apt to come faster. And so a scene, trivial in itself, points an inexorable finger to the broad fact underlying all our Indian administration, that we are strangers and exiles.
”Not in!” announced the Resident, studiously cheerful. ”But there are heaps of letters for everybody. Did the mem-sahib come in the carriage, Gamu?” he added as he sorted out the owners.
”Huzoor!” replied the head orderly, who was also his master's factotum, thrusting the remainder back in the bags. ”And the Major sahib also. According to order, refreshments are being offered.”
”Glad Erlton could come,” remarked a voice to its neighbor. ”We want another good shot badly.”
”And Mrs. Gissing is awfully good company too,” a.s.sented the neighbor.
Jim Douglas, who was sitting on the other side, looked up quickly. The juxtaposition of the names surprised him after what he had seen, or thought he had seen at Christmas time.
”Is that Mrs. Gissing from Lucknow?” he asked.
”I believe so. She is a stranger here. Seems awfully jolly, but the women don't like her. Do you know anything of her?”
Jim Douglas hesitated. He could have easily satisfied the ear evidently agog for scandal; but what, after all, did he know of her?
What did he know of his own experience? It seemed to him as if she stood there, defiantly dignified, asking him the question, her china-blue eyes flas.h.i.+ng, the childish face set and stern.
”Personally I know little,” he replied, ”but that little is very much to her credit.”
As he relapsed into silence and smoke he felt that she had once more walked boldly into his consciousness and claimed recognition. She had forced him to acknowledge something in her which corresponded with something in him. Something unexpected. If Kate Erlton's eyes with their cold glint in them had flashed like that, he would not have wondered; but they had not. They had done just the reverse. They had softened; they had only looked heroic. Underneath the glint which had sent him on a wild-goose chase had lain that commonplace indefinable womanhood, sweet enough, but a bit sickly, which could be in any woman's eyes if you fancied yourself in love with her. It had lain in the eyes belonging to the golden curl, in poor little Zora's eyes, might conceivably lie in half a dozen others.
”By George!” came an eager voice from the group of men who were reading their letters by the light of a lamp held for the purpose by a silent bronze image of a man in uniform. ”I have some news here which will interest you, sir. There has been a row at Dum-Dum about the new Enfield cartridges.”
”Eh! what's that?” asked the Brigadier, looking up from his own correspondence. ”Nothing serious, I hope.”
”Not yet, but it seems curious by the light of what we were discussing, and what Mr.--er--Capt----”
”Douglas,” suggested the owner of the name, who at the first words had sat up to listen intently. His face had a certain antic.i.p.ation in it; almost an eagerness.
”Thanks. It's a letter from the musketry depot. Shall I read it, sir?”
The Brigadier nodded, one or two men looked up to listen, but most went on with their letters or discussed the chances of slaughter for the morrow.
”There is a most unpleasant feeling abroad respecting these new cartridges, which came to light a day or two ago in consequence of a high-caste sepoy refusing to let a lower caste workman drink out of his cup. The man retorted that as the cartridges being made in the a.r.s.enal were smeared with pig's grease and cow's fat there would soon be no caste left in the army. The sepoy complained, and it came out that this idea is already widely spread. Wright denied the fact flatly at first, but found out that large quant.i.ties of beef-tallow _had_ been indented for by the Ordnance. And that, of course, made the men think he had lied about it. Bontein, the chief, has wisely suggested altering the drill, since the men say they will not bite the cartridges. If they do, their relations won't eat with them when they go home on leave. You see, with this new rifle it is not really necessary to bite the cartridge at all, so it would be a quite natural alteration, and get us out of the difficulty without giving in. The suggestion has been forwarded, and if it could be settled sharp would smother the business; but what with duffers and----” The reader broke off, and a faint smile showed even on the Brigadier's face as the former skipped hurriedly to find something safer--”Old General Hea.r.s.ey, who knows the natives like a book, says there is trouble in it. He declares that the Moulvie of Fyzabad--whoever that may be----”
The faces looked at Jim Douglas curiously, but he was too eager to notice it.
”Is at the bottom of the _chupatties_ we hear are being sent round up-country; but that he is in league also with the Brahmins in Calcutta--especially the priests at Kali's shrine--over _suttee_ and widow remarriage and all that. However, all I know is that both Hindoos and Mohammedans in my cla.s.ses are in a blue funk about the cartridges, and swear even their wives won't live with them if they touch them.”
”The common grievance,” said Jim Douglas, in the silence that ensued.
”It alters the whole aspect of affairs.”
”Prepare to receive cavalry?” yawned the man who had suggested betting on the chance of the home-mail. What was the use of a week's leave on the best snipe jheel about, if it was to be spent in talking shop?
”No!” cried the man in black, not unwilling to change the subject of which he had not yet official cognizance. ”Prepare to receive ladies.
There is Mrs. Gissing, looking as fresh as paint!”
She looked fresh, indeed, as she came forward; her curly hair, rough when fas.h.i.+onable heads were smooth, glistening in the firelight, the fluffy swansdown on her long coat framing her childish face softly.
Behind her, heavy, handsome, came Major Erlton with the half-sheepish air men a.s.sume when they are following a woman's lead.