CHAPTER II.
A COMMUNITY OF INTERESTS.
About noon the next day Dick North left his uncle’s house with the intention of going to his club. It was a rough windy morning, with occasional scuds of rain, and when one of these overtook Dick as he was crossing the street, he found to his disgust that from the force of habit he had come out without an umbrella. Taking refuge in a doorway, for the shower proved to be a sharp one, he discovered that his asylum was already in the possession of a lady, in whom he quickly recognised Miss Keeling. She was looking very smart in a business-like ulster and a neat little felt hat, from the brim of which the rain-drops were falling on her wind-blown hair, for the umbrella she held in her hand—a mere mass of metal spikes and shreds of silk—could only be called an umbrella by courtesy, and had evidently given way before the force of the gale.
“Any port in a storm!” she said, merrily, as she shook hands with Dick.
“I am sorry I can’t offer to lend you an umbrella,” he remarked, “for I am worse off than yourself.”
“No, I think you are more sensible,” she replied, “for an umbrella is sure to be turned inside out in this wind. You see I am prepared for rain, and I have no fear of getting wet, but I do dislike it when the rain-drops trickle down my neck.”
“Pray allow me to run across and get you an umbrella from one of those shops over there,” he said stiffly, annoyed to find his resentment against her melting under the influence of her friendly manner.
“Oh no, thank you, I couldn’t think of it,” she replied, surveying him carefully, and taking due note of his curly-brimmed hat, his long coat, the huge carnation in his buttonhole, and the immaculate spats protecting his equally spotless boots. “You are not quite dressed for running anywhere, are you?”
The resentment returned promptly in full force.
“I am sorry my appearance is displeasing to you,” he said, in a tone which he tried vainly to make a light and sportive one.
“Oh, but it isn’t at all. It is most correct—unimpeachably correct.”
“Then what is the matter with it, if I may ask?”
“I don’t want to hurt your feelings.”
“Thank you, I think my feelings are proof against injury.”
“It is only that I was thinking it was a pity to expose such a complete get-up to the dangers of a muddy walk. A hansom would have taken you straight from General North’s door to your destination. I could imagine you a walking advertisement of the Army and Navy Club, and why aren’t you gracing one of the windows there, as a sort of sample, you know, to show the kind of goods within?”
“Bother the girl! She sees I don’t like her, and she is taking it out of me,” was his mental comment, as he glanced at her composed face and caught a twinkle of fun in her eyes. Aloud he said, rather lamely, “You don’t know what a luxury it is to be able to array oneself in the garments of civilisation once more, after spending years, as one might say, in uniform. But I see the rain has stopped. May I call you a cab, or walk with you?”
“Oh no, thanks; I am only going to one of those shops.”
“But you will allow me to see you across the street?”
This time his escort was not refused, and he left her at the entrance of the shop to which she was bound, and in which, as he noticed with a shudder, the wares displayed were chiefly surgical instruments. As he lifted his hat and turned away, he found his state of mind not at all in accordance with the serene calm of his destination. Everything Miss Keeling had said seemed to be rankling in his breast, and he anathematised her mentally as he walked. What business had the girl to say such things? Nay, rather, what did it signify if she did say them? Why in the world should it affect him? And yet, here he was wasting his time and spoiling his short leave at home by thinking about her. It was bad enough that they were doomed to be fellow-travellers all the way to Kubbet-ul-Haj, but at least he would dismiss her from his mind while he was in England; and by way of making a beginning he would burn that photograph which he had cherished so long.
The consciousness of this heroic resolution upheld him during the day, and when he returned home to dress for dinner his first action was to take the photograph out of the drawer of his desk in which it had been wont to repose ever since he had stolen it out of Mabel’s album. He held it in his hand with mingled feelings, remembering the time when he had lifted it out and looked at it reverentially every night, although of late years it had remained altogether undisturbed. Georgia appeared in it with short hair, which made her look like a very nice boy. Dick remembered that Mabel had come home from school one day in tears because, in the ardour of preparing for the London Matriculation, Georgia had had all her hair cut off. He remembered also how he had begged, as urgently as he dared, for one of the severed locks, and how Georgia had refused it with disdain. In those days he was under the impression that it was rather pleasant than otherwise to be called “silly boy!” by Miss Keeling’s lips. What a young idiot he must have been! And what a senseless fool he was now, to be recalling the absurdities of those past years in this way! After all, he would not burn the photograph, lest he should forget what an ass he had once succeeded in making of himself. It should occupy its old place still, not for Miss Keeling’s sake, but for auld lang syne, and as a memento and a warning.
“Are you nearly ready, Dick?” said Mabel’s voice at his door. “The carriage has come round.”
Hastily thrusting the photograph back into the desk, Dick made his toilet at lightning speed and hurried down-stairs. Mabel was waiting in the drawing-room with an aggressive expression of resignation, and General North, whose gout kept him at home, was fretting and fuming over the tardiness of his nephew’s appearance.
“This is the way in which you young fellows make ducks and drakes of all your chances!” he remarked, irascibly. “Here you are appointed to this Mission, which is a piece of luck for which most men would give their ears, and you are late the first time you have to meet your chief. In my young days such behaviour would have lost you your post, but there’s nothing that can be called discipline now.”
“And how much happier the world is!” said Mabel, flippantly, stooping to arrange General North’s footstool more comfortably. “Now take care of yourself, uncle, and don’t think of waiting up for us. Come, Dick, we must really go.”
“I say,” said Dick, as he followed her into the carriage, “I wish you would just cram me up a bit about this affair to-night. I know that we are to dine with the Egertons, and that the Kubbet-ul-Haj people will be there, but who the Egertons are, or why they should be mixed up with the Mission, I haven’t an idea.”
“Dick, if I had such a bad memory as you, I would—study somebody’s system of mnemonics, I think. I have mentioned the Egertons in my letters again and again. Don’t you remember that I pointed out Mrs Egerton to you at the hospital yesterday—a pretty, rather worn-looking woman, with a black lace dress and pink roses in her bonnet?”
“I apologise humbly for my forgetfulness. Forgive me, and instruct me.”
“Well, don’t you remember that just after you first went out, I told you that Cecil Anstruther, one of our girls at the South Central, had taken high honours in the London B.A., and we were all so proud of her? She went out to Baghdad as governess to the Pasha’s little boy, when Sir Dugald Haigh was Resident there. The Haighs were very kind to her, and she became engaged to Lady Haigh’s cousin, who was surgeon at the Residency. He got into trouble in some way with the Turkish Government, and had to be sent home, and I believe they were separated for a long time. But they were married at last, and came home and settled down. Dr Egerton has a large property in Homeshire, and sits in Parliament for the eastern division.”
“What, the member for Adullam?” cried Dick.
“Yes, that’s what they call him, because he is said to be always in a minority of one. You know how the name was fixed upon him? Of course he was often called by it in private conversation, but one day Sir James Morrell, who is rather absent-minded, had to answer one of his questions in the absence of the Secretary for India, and in his flurry he alluded to ‘the honourable member for the Adullam division of Homeshire.’ The next week ‘Punch’ improved it into ‘the member for the Cave division of Adullamshire,’ and since then it has stuck. What do you know about Dr Egerton, Dick?”
“Merely that he is one of the faddists who pose as authorities on India and the East generally.”
“Ah, you should hear Sir Dugald Haigh on that point. His sneer is positively terrific. He can only comfort himself by remembering that here, as in other cases, the critics of the East are the men who have failed in the East.”
“Better that than never to have been there at all,” said Dick. “It has struck me more than once that there is a good deal of sense in some of Egerton’s crotchets, but he destroys the effect by his way of forcing them upon people. The things he says would put any one’s back up.”
“Yes, poor Cecil’s life is spent in explaining away his blunders and apologising for them. He could do nothing without her, for she is such a favourite that she can often manage to put things right when he has muddled them. Every one wonders that she doesn’t coach him beforehand, and teach him to avoid these dreadful faux pas; but I know that she does, and that he forgets all her advice as soon as he gets excited in debate.”
“But how is it that these people are mixed up with the Kubbet-ul-Haj affair?”
“They are great friends of the Haighs, of course, and besides, Cecil’s brother is going out as the junior member of the Mission. He is a most absurd boy—always going wild about something or other—and just now he is deeply in love with Rosaline Hervey, the beautiful girl in the picture hat who was with Mrs Egerton yesterday. She is to be there to-night, and her sister, and old Mr and Mrs Anstruther, Mrs Egerton’s parents, who are anxious to see what Sir Dugald is like before confiding their boy to his care. Then there is Mr Stratford, a cousin of Dr Egerton’s and second in command of the Mission.”
“Yes, I know Stratford. We met in Kashmir one year, when he was taking his leave in India, and I saw him the other day at the Foreign Office. He is a good sort of chap.”
“You come next in rank, I suppose, and then there is the doctor.”
“Ladies first, please—or what doctor do you mean?”
“Dr Headlam, of course, the surgeon of the Mission.”
“Oh, I beg your pardon. I was afraid you meant Miss Keeling.”
“Oh no,” said Mabel, but her face wore a peculiar smile as she gathered her cloak around her preparatory to leaving the carriage. The reason for her unusual taciturnity became evident to Dick a little later, when he found that he was expected to take Miss Keeling in to dinner.
“You are old friends, I think,” said Mrs Egerton, pleasantly, and Dick perceived by her tone that she imagined she had done him a kindness in arranging her guests in this way. It was clear that she remembered the old days, even if Miss Keeling had forgotten them. But no, doubtless Mabel had given her the hint.
If Dick had only known it, Georgia was in a much softer mood to-night, for all day long her conscience had been pricking her for her share in the conversation of the morning. She was indignant with herself for the things she had said, and it did not render them more excusable in her estimation that pique at Dick’s attitude towards her was not by any means the sole motive that had actuated her in uttering them. What in the world did it signify to her if the hero of the Khemistan Frontier chose to make himself look absurd in clothes which the idlest stay-at-home of a club-lounger could wear with far more pleasure to the beholder and satisfaction to himself? If the poor man thought that he looked well in them, why not leave him to enjoy his delusion, instead of rudely shattering his dream, and letting him know that his appearance, in the opinion of one person who knew him, verged on the ridiculous? Miss Keeling felt uncomfortably conscious that, after all, pique had had something to do with, at any rate, the terms of her remonstrance. She had even been led into vying with her opponent in cool rudeness, and for this she could not forgive herself. It was no excuse for her that she found most men so easy to get on with, when once they had laid aside the mock deference or the real antipathy with which they were wont to greet the lady doctor on their first introduction to her. She could not help knowing, for admiring female friends kept her informed of the fact, that it was the mingled graciousness and dignity of her manner which converted these adversaries and scoffers into firm allies and champions, and yet she had so far forgotten herself and her sense of what was becoming as to chaff Major North on his appearance, just as any ordinary fast girl might have done, and the fact humiliated her. A younger or less experienced woman, feeling as she did, would have precipitated matters by an apology, but Georgia was too wise to introduce any further complication into her difficulties. There could be no advantage in putting herself into North’s power in such a way, when it was undeniable that he had invited a snubbing by his perplexing conduct the day before. No, if he was to be won back to friendliness it must be by letting bygones be bygones, and accepting the situation as it presented itself.
Dinner was considerably delayed, owing to the fact that the Miss Herveys were late, and Georgia had some time in which to try her skill upon Dick. Her task was more difficult than she had anticipated, for he manifested an abiding resentment which irritated her as being quite out of proportion to the circumstances which had called it forth, and he answered her only in frigid monosyllables. Georgia talked on bravely, resolved not to appear to notice his lack of responsiveness, although she could not but feel slightly aggrieved by her failure to soften him. When Sir Dugald Haigh crossed the room to speak to Dick, and, with an apology to Georgia, carried him off to be introduced to Lady Haigh, she heaved a little sigh.
“He was such a nice boy!” she said to herself, “and I think he would be nice now, if he would only let his better side show. I like his face so much.” She glanced across the room at him, and marked appreciatively the thin brown face, on which the fair moustache looked almost white, the firm chin, the keen grey eyes, and the brow set in the habitual frown produced by the constant watching of distant objects under a burning sun. “He looks like a ‘man and a leader of men,’” she went on slowly, “but why should he behave in this way? It is so small, so petty, to keep up a grudge for so many years, and how could I have done anything but refuse him? It would have been absurd to do anything else, even if I had cared for him, and he was such a boy. He must be at least two years older than I am, but I always felt then that he was years younger. At any rate, he ought to be grateful to me, instead of sulking like this.”
At this moment a diversion was created by the entrance of the beautiful Miss Hervey, a vision of loveliness in rose-coloured silk; while behind her came her sister, a smaller, plainer, and, so to speak more shadowy, edition of herself. Mabel gave Georgia a look which implied that the young lady was by no means averse to making herself the observed of all observers in this fashion, but if such was the case, her triumph was short, for every one resented the delay which had been caused by her non-appearance. The host marched up Dr Headlam and presented him to Miss Hervey, to the intense disgust of Fitz Anstruther, Mrs Egerton’s brother, who found himself put off with the younger sister instead of the lady he adored, and a move was made into the dining-room.
Dick North’s temper seemed to have improved in some measure since his conversation with Lady Haigh, and Georgia smiled inwardly over the change, gathering that a few kind things said by his chief’s wife would go far to soothe the ruffled susceptibilities of even so sensitive an individual, but she was not long in discovering that he had by no means forgiven herself. True, he was willing to talk, but with great persistence and considerable skill he kept the conversation directed to the ordinary trifles which form the staple subjects at most London dinner-tables. He might never have been further from Pall Mall than to Paris in his life, thought Georgia, with increasing irritation, while he was favouring her with his views on the Eton and Harrow match, and the iniquity of the vestries in taking up the principal thoroughfares in the height of the season. To add to her resentment, she saw, or believed she saw, that he was perfectly well aware of her eagerness to hear about his life in India and Khemistan, and that he was rejoicing in her unavailing disgust. Miss Hervey, his left-hand neighbour, claimed his attention at last, and Georgia found an attraction of greater power in the talk of Sir Dugald Haigh, a small, neutral-tinted man, with grey hair, grey eyes, grey moustache, and a greyish-brown skin, who was telling Mrs Egerton of various changes which had taken place in Baghdad, whence he had lately returned, since the days of her residence there.
“I was not sorry to wash my hands of the place,” he said. “Very likely I belong to an old, worn-out school, and my ways are too rough and ready for the kid-glove methods of to-day. Our rule was always to ask only for what we meant to have, but never to recede from a demand once made. ‘Hold on like grim death,’ was our motto, and we followed it out. The method had this advantage, that every one knew we meant what we said. It’s a great thing not to be afraid of bringing on war if it’s necessary, but you are too squeamish for that nowadays.”
“Why, Sir Dugald,” said Mrs Egerton, laughing, “any one hearing you would think you were a perfect firebrand, and ferociously bloodthirsty, but I remember that when I was at Baghdad there was nothing you dreaded so much as the slightest complication. I believe you would have done anything, short of hauling down the flag, to avert a disturbance.”
“Don’t believe her, Miss Keeling,” said Sir Dugald. “Behind my back she will be telling you that I am a regular Jingo.”
“And besides,” said Mrs Egerton, “why you should talk as though you were a failure, I don’t know. You are trying to make Miss Keeling think that you have been ordered to Kubbet-ul-Haj as a punishment.”
“Not quite,” said Sir Dugald, his eyebrows twitching a little.
“No, indeed, when you know that you are looking forward confidently to a K.C.B. or a peerage when you come home.”
“No, Mrs Egerton, I must draw the line there. I confidently expect nothing but to be disowned by the Government and denounced by the papers. We are told by a high authority that the inhabitants of these islands are mostly fools, as you know. That is my consolation.”
“Sir Dugald considers all mankind fools, Georgie,” remarked Mrs Egerton. “If they don’t agree with him, that stamps them at once, naturally; and if they do adopt his views, he feels sure that they must be fools to be so easily taken in.”
“You would not have ventured to say that in my presence at Baghdad,” said Sir Dugald, mournfully. “Miss Keeling, let me warn you in time. Don’t be tempted to presume upon my forbearance by the liberties this lady takes in her own house. I assure you that at Kubbet-ul-Haj you will find me a terrible martinet.”
“Oh, Sir Dugald, you are going to Ethiopia, aren’t you?” asked a new voice, that of the younger Miss Hervey, who had tired at length of her vain attempts to propitiate her sister’s sulky and disappointed lover.
“I believe so,” answered Sir Dugald, looking at his questioner in some surprise.
“Oh yes,” with a little gasp. “I thought I had heard Mr Anstruther say so, but he doesn’t seem to know very much about it. Where is Ethiopia, please?”
“Opinions differ on that point,” returned Sir Dugald, not unconscious of the listeners round the table, who were laughing inwardly at the temerity of the girl who thought she could get the Chief to talk “shop” to her. “Herodotus says it is in Africa, but Sir John Mandeville declares that he heard of it in Asia. We are going to see which is true.”
“Oh!” with a blank stare of surprise. “But why don’t you know?”
“I was not aware that I had said I did not know. The information is within the reach of any one possessed of an ordinary school atlas.”
“Oh, Sir Dugald, you say such funny things! But why are you going?”
“Because I am sent,” returned Sir Dugald, shortly, for he wished to return to his conversation with his hostess and Georgia. But the snub failed of its effect.
“Oh yes, of course. But what are you going to do there?”
With a sigh Sir Dugald resigned himself to answer the demands of this persistent young lady, and pushing his plate from him, arranged a plan with dessert forks and spoons.
“This space represents Ethiopia,” he said, “and this biscuit will show you roughly the position of Kubbet-ul-Haj, the capital. The country has been touched by European commerce only on its borders, but it contains vast grain-producing districts and enormous mineral wealth, which only needs being worked. Hence it offers a wide field for the employment of capital, as well as a practically untouched market for manufactured goods. For these reasons, and also on account of its situation, the great European powers all take a friendly interest in it, more especially Scythia and Neustria. Neustrian influence approaches it very closely on one side, and the Scythian sphere on another, but its eastern boundary is conterminous with our Khemistan Frontier, about which Major North or Miss Keeling could tell you a good deal more than I can. Unauthorised, or, at any rate, unrecognised and semi-private expeditions from all three countries have tried to reach Kubbet-ul-Haj, but have failed, and the King has always refused to receive a diplomatic mission, the object of which would be, of course, to conclude a commercial treaty. We have always contended that we had the best right to open up Ethiopia to European trade, and of course our being actually on the frontier gives us a start in the race. But just lately we gained a new advantage, for Rustam Khan, the King’s eldest son, who had been sent to put down a rising among the tribes near our frontier, fell in with one of our surveying parties, and took a great fancy to the officers. The errand on which he had been sent was a kind of honourable banishment, for it seems that he and the Grand Vizier are always at daggers drawn, and that the King sympathises with the Vizier, but when he was summoned back to Court he must have managed to gain his father’s ear again, for friendly overtures were made by the King to the Khemistan authorities for the settlement of some trifling boundary dispute. Unofficial journeys were made to Kubbet-ul-Haj by two or three of our frontier officers, and the last brought back word that the King would be willing to receive a mission and to enter into an alliance. Negotiations have since taken place, and preliminaries been arranged, and our business now is to conclude the treaty embodying the various provisions which have practically been agreed to on both sides—in the rough, of course. And I really must apologise,” said Sir Dugald in conclusion, “for the way in which I have been boring every one, but it is Miss Hervey’s commendable desire for information that is to blame.”
“I didn’t know that you were acquainted with the Khemistan Frontier,” said Dick to Georgia, under cover of the buzz of conversation which succeeded to the enforced silence.
“Although my father lived and died there?” asked Georgia, with a little resentment in her tone.
“What a fool I am! To think that I should have forgotten, even for a moment, that General Keeling was your father! Why, it was that which originally drew me to the Warden of the Marches—I mean—er—” Dick stumbled and hurried on—“well, I have worshipped him ever since I first went out. He is our patron saint out there in Khemistan, you know?”
“I know,” said Georgia. “I found it so when I was there.”
“But have you been in Khemistan? How is it that we never met?”
“It was the year you were on leave, when you went round the world with your uncle and Mabel. I visited Khemistan to see whether there was any chance of my being able to complete my father’s work.”
“How was that?”
“It was his great desire that missionaries should come and settle among the people, but the Government thought it would be dangerous, and forbade them to establish themselves permanently on the frontier. My father and I always hoped that when I went out to keep house for him, I might be able to do something, just in the way of making a beginning—but as you know, he died before I left school.”
“I know that it was while I was still in India,” said Dick. “It was reading the accounts of his life and work which first led me to make interest to get myself transferred to the Khemistan Horse, so as to be stationed on that frontier. But did you succeed in your mission?”
“No; I travelled with a missionary and his wife who were itinerating through the country, but though the people were friendly, especially when they heard who I was, they did not care to listen to us, and the Government were still so hostile to the establishment of a station, that the society to which I had offered myself would not take up the work. Then I came home and studied medicine, hoping that I might eventually do something in that way. I believe that a Zenana Mission has just been set on foot in Bab-us-Sahel, on the coast, so that perhaps I shall be able to join it when we return from Ethiopia. I only accepted the post that the Government offered me in the expedition in the hope that some good might result from the journey.”
“As regards Khemistan?” asked Dick.
“Yes. It was my father’s country, and it is mine.”
“And so it is mine!” said Dick, involuntarily.