Part 50 (1/2)

Her bitterest enemies--and she had many--could hardly accuse Mrs.

Hauksbee of wasting her time. Otis Yeere was one of those wandering ”dumb” characters, foredoomed through life to be n.o.body's property. Ten years in Her Majesty's Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part, in undesirable Districts, had given him little to be proud of, and nothing to bring confidence. Old enough to have lost the first fine careless rapture that showers on the immature 'Stunt imaginary Commissioners.h.i.+ps and Stars, and sends him into the collar with coltish earnestness and abandon; too young to be yet able to look back upon the progress he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the ”dead-centre” of his career. And when a man stands still, he feels the slightest impulse from without. Fortune had ruled that Otis Yeere should be, for the first part of his service, one of the rank and file who are ground up in the wheels of the Administration; losing heart and soul, and mind and strength, in the process. Until steam replaces manual power in the working of the Empire, there must always be this percentage--must always be the men who are used up, expended, in the mere mechanical routine. For these promotion is far off and the mill-grind of every day very near and instant. The Secretariats know them only by name; they are not the picked men of the Districts with the Divisions and Collectorates awaiting them. They are simply the rank and file--the food for fever--sharing with the ryot and the plough-bullock the honor of being the plinth on which the State rests. The older ones have lost their aspirations; the younger are putting theirs aside with a sigh. Both learn to endure patiently until the end of the day. Twelve years in the rank and file, men say, will sap the hearts of the bravest and dull the wits of the most keen.

Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a few months, drifting, for the sake of a little masculine society, into Simla. When his leave was over he would return to his swampy, sour-green, undermanned district, the native a.s.sistant, the native Doctor, the native Magistrate, the steaming, sweltering Station, the ill-kempt City, and the undisguised insolence of the Munic.i.p.ality that babbled away the lives of men. Life was cheap, however. The soil sp.a.w.ned humanity, as it bred frogs in the Rains, and the gap of the sickness of one season was filled to overflowing by the fecundity of the next. Otis was unfeignedly thankful to lay down his work for a little while and escape from the seething, whining, weakly hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its power to cripple, thwart, and annoy the weary-eyed man who, by official irony, was said to be ”in charge” of it.

”I knew there were women-dowdies in Bengal. They come up here sometimes.

But I didn't know that there were men-dowdies, too.”

Then, for the first time, it occurred to Otis Yeere that his clothes were rather ancestral in appearance. It will be seen from the above that his friends.h.i.+p with Mrs Hauksbee had made great strides.

As that lady truthfully says, a man is never so happy as when he is talking about himself. From Otis Yeere's lips Mrs Hauksbee, before long, learned everything that she wished to know about the subject of her experiment; learned what manner of life he had led in what she vaguely called ”those awful cholera districts”; learned too, but this knowledge came later, what manner of life he had purposed to lead and what dreams he had dreamed in the year of grace '77, before the reality had knocked the heart out of him. Very pleasant are the shady bridle-paths round Prospect Hill for the telling of such confidences.

”Not yet,” said Mrs. Hauksbee to Mrs. Mallowe. ”Not yet. I must wait until the man is properly dressed, at least. Great Heavens, is it possible that he doesn't know what an honor it is to be taken up by Me!”

Mrs. Hauksbee did not reckon false modesty as one of her failings.

”Always with Mrs. Hauksbee!” murmured Mrs. Mallowe, with her sweetest smile, to Otis. ”Oh you men, you men! Here are our Punjabis growling because you've monopolized the nicest woman in Simla. They'll tear you to pieces on the Mall, some day, Mr. Yeere.”

Mrs. Mallowe rattled down-hill, having satisfied herself, by a glance through the fringe of her sunshade, of the effect of her words.

The shot went home. Of a surety Otis Yeere was somebody in this bewildering whirl of Simla--had monopolized the nicest woman in it and the Punjabis were growling. The notion justified a mild glow of vanity.

He had never looked upon his acquaintance with Mrs. Hauksbee as a matter for general interest.

The knowledge of envy was a pleasant feeling to the man of no account.

It was intensified later in the day when a luncher at the Club said, spitefully, ”Well, for a debilitated Ditcher, Yeere, you are going it.

Hasn't any kind friend told you that she's the most dangerous woman in Simla?”

Yeere chuckled and pa.s.sed out. When, oh when, would his new clothes be ready? He descended into the Mall to inquire; and Mrs. Hauksbee, coming over the Church Ridge in her 'rickshaw, looked down upon him approvingly. ”He's learning to carry himself as if he were a man, instead of a piece of furniture, and”--she screwed up her eyes to see the better through the sunlight--”he is a man when he holds himself like that. Oh blessed Conceit, what should we be without you?”

With the new clothes came a new stock of self-confidence. Otis Yeere discovered that he could enter a room without breaking into a gentle perspiration--could cross one, even to talk to Mrs. Hauksbee, as though rooms were meant to be crossed. He was for the first time in nine years proud of himself, and contented with his life, satisfied with his new clothes, and rejoicing in the friends.h.i.+p of Mrs. Hauksbee.

”Conceit is what the poor fellow wants,” she said in confidence to Mrs.

Mallowe. ”I believe they must use Civilians to plough the fields with in Lower Bengal. You see I have to begin from the very beginning--haven't I? But you'll admit, won't you, dear, that he is immensely improved since I took him in hand. Only give me a little more time and he won't know himself.”

Indeed, Yeere was rapidly beginning to forget what he had been. One of his own rank and file put the matter brutally when he asked Yeere, in reference to nothing, ”And who has been making you a Member of Council, lately? You carry the side of half a dozen of 'em.”

”I--I'm awf'ly sorry. I didn't mean it, you know,” said Yeere, apologetically.

”There'll be no holding you,” continued the old stager, grimly. ”Climb down, Otis--climb down, and get all that beastly affectation knocked out of you with fever! Three thousand a month wouldn't support it.”

Yeere repeated the incident to Mrs. Hauksbee. He had come to look upon her as his Mother Confessor.

”And you apologized!” she said. ”Oh, shame! I hate a man who apologizes.

Never apologize for what your friend called 'side.' Never! It's a man's business to be insolent and overbearing until he meets with a stronger.

Now, you bad boy, listen to me.”

Simply and straightforwardly, as the 'rickshaw loitered round Jakko, Mrs. Hauksbee preached to Otis Yeere the Great Gospel of Conceit, ill.u.s.trating it with living pictures encountered during their Sunday afternoon stroll.