CHAPTER IX.
DINNER AT THE GENERAL’S.
AS usual after the cool weather had begun, the river was beginning to go down, and it was no easy matter for the Nebula to pick her way up-stream. As her captain said pathetically, “If the sandbanks would only stay where they were, you’d know where you were. But when a great beast of a shoal was in one place when you went down the river, and on the return voyage you found it somewhere else quite different, where were you?” A further handicap was imposed by the necessity of towing two or three large flat-bottomed boats—carrying the fortunes of the Eurasian and native clerks, peons and other underlings, whom Sir Harry had selected for Sahar from the derelict staff of the Qadirabad Agency,—since these displayed a positive genius in fouling the bank, the shoals, the frequent islands, floating tree-trunks, one another, the ship herself, and everything else possible and impossible. But despite all obstacles, progress was made somehow, and Brian, who had come down by sailing-boat to meet the steamer a few miles below its destination, was able to assure his relatives that they would get in comfortably in time for dinner.
“Y’are to dine with us, by the way,” he said. “The General will take no denial. We tried to put it to him that you’d rather be getting comfortable in your own quarters the first night, but the old lad said that was just it—the servants would be settling your things for you while you were being properly fed. So we saw him safely established with dear Munshi—he always calls the chap that, as if ’twas his name—and Stewart started out to borrow crockery fit for a lady to eat off, while I came down to meet you.”
“Who will he be borrowing from?” asked Eveleen curiously.
“How’d I know? The Mess, I suppose, or some of the civilians—they’re the boys for style. Don’t be afraid—Stewart will do things for you as they ought be done, or die.”
“Has the General picked up the country talk yet?”
“Has he not, indeed!—in spite of all his sarcastic remarks! He came out t’other day with bundibus—meaning bandobast, I suppose as pat as you please, and Stewart and I winked the other eye behind his back till we nearly burst. But listen now, how he’ll be leaving his mark on the map. There’s some forsaken place up beyond Pagipur, where the Khemistan Horse are to have a post to keep the tribes in order. Just a heap of ruins—old fort and so on, but I suppose it had some sort of name once. Anyhow, the General says it shall have a new one now, and he’ll compliment Gul Ali Khan by naming it after him. Quite so—Gul Aliabad; everybody agreeable—most neat and appropriate. ‘Not a bit of it!’ says the old lad; ‘far too long; call it Alibad and be done with it.’ Munshi and your humble servant venture to point out that ain’t grammar—or whatever you call it. Quick as lightning the old fellow barks out, ‘The Lennoxes make their own grammar. Alibad’s the name, and be hanged to it and you!’ So there you are, hukm hai, [it is an order] unless future ages dare to correct old Harry’s grammar—which the present one won’t while he’s alive.”
“D’ye expect us to believe that yarn, Brian?” asked Richard, shifting his cheroot lazily for an instant.
“Just as you please. Sure it won’t hurt me if you don’t—only yourself. Now, Evie, be on the watch for the first sight of your new home. Between this island and the next you’ll get the full view of it in all its sandiness.”
Undoubtedly the prospect was a sandy one—particularly so after the rich black soil of the Qadirabad district, with its countless villages embowered in the vivid green of the nîm groves. Immediately ahead was a long low island—fortified within an inch of its life, as Brian pointed out; the great battlemented walls and bastions rising from the very edge of the water—to the right a shapeless collection of mud hovels straggling out into the desert, and to the left an assemblage of similar buildings, not quite so aimless-looking, since it centred round a more or less ruinous fort on a low hill. This was Sahar, the fortified island was Bahar, and the native town on the farther bank Bori—a name which naturally lent itself to innumerable puns on the lips of the young gentlemen quartered at Sahar. If military exigencies left any room on Bahar for vegetation, it did not venture to show itself over the battlements, but the plumes of scattered date-palms mitigated a little the prevailing sand-colour of the buildings on either bank.
“I wonder why would it all look so dead and ruined?” said Eveleen, in some dismay, as they drew in to the shore. “Like some place in Egypt that nobody has lived in for two thousand years.”
“Pray, my dear, say something original,” said her husband impatiently. “It’s impossible for anybody to mention Khemistan without comparing it with Egypt.”
“But if it’s not like anything but Egypt, how would I say it was?” she demanded triumphantly. “Tell me now, Brian—this place which I mustn’t say is like Egypt, whereabouts in it do we live?”
“Ah, not here, I tell you! Sure the new town is a mile out. The General was to send horses for you, that you mightn’t be delayed while they landed your own. He wanted to puckerow [commandeer] a side-saddle from one of the ladies in Cantonments, but I told him you’d be just as happy with a stirrup thrown over a man’s saddle, and he listened to me for once.”
Eveleen was quite satisfied, but her husband was not, unless his expression belied him. The horses were duly waiting, and she flew into the saddle with all the ease of past disgraceful experience—so Brian declared,—to the great interest of her fellow-passengers. It would have been too much to expect Richard to be pleased at this unconventional method of travelling, but she did think he need not have muttered something that sounded like “Circus tricks!” as he gathered up the reins and put them into her hand. When Brian had directed the servants where to go, they rode out of the town—which looked more than ever like one of those deserted cities one reads of in the Nearer East, uninhabited, but as habitable as it ever was. As the sun neared the horizon, however, the inhabitants began to show themselves lazily at their doorways, and children came scrambling over the rubbish-heaps, on which everything seemed to be built, to stare at the riders. Beyond stretched a sea of sand dotted with tombstones, which seemed to extend as far as eye could reach, and then they came suddenly upon a great cantonment, with solid houses covered with shining chunam, and gay with rows of bright-coloured chiks, and long ranges of “lines,” large enough to accommodate several regiments.
“Somebody’s folly!” remarked Brian sententiously, pointing with his whip. “They’ll have sunk a pretty penny in building this big place, and it’s said the neighbourhood ain’t healthy, though we haven’t found anything wrong with it as yet. This way, Evie!”
Passing two sentries, they rode into a compound which was a miniature of the desert without—so wide was it and so sand-swept,—with an enormous house at the far end, like a small town in itself. The chiks were being drawn up now that the heat of the day was over, and on the verandah stood a small spare figure with grey beard blowing about in the breeze.
“Why, there’s my old lad—loose!” said Brian, much perturbed. “I hope he’ll not have been getting into mischief. Stewart will be certain to say ’twas my fault. But I ask you, could I have locked him into the office, and told Munshi to sit on him? That’s the only thing would really keep him quiet. Happily there’ll be three of us to look after him next week, if his nephew who’s on sick leave turns up all right. Now what has he been after, I wonder?”
“Welcome, a thousand times welcome, Mrs Ambrose!” cried Sir Harry, hobbling with perilous haste down the steps. “These young fellows call this place a desert, but it blossoms like the rose to-night. Allow me!” he lifted her paternally from the saddle. “Oh, fie, fie! what an uneasy journey you must have had on that contrivance! Ambrose, I am very glad to see you. Plenty to do, believe me—start to-night. But first we’ll have dinner—at once.”
“I beg your pardon, General, but ’twas not to be for an hour yet,” put in Brian.
“Don’t trouble yourself about that, my lad. I have put it forward an hour—bustled the cook a bit.” The General’s voice was happy and triumphant. “Knew your sister would be starving. It’s coming in now.”
“Ah, Sir Harry, but you’ll let us have a second to make ourselves respectable and get the sand off?” urged Eveleen.
“Sand, ma’am? I’ve been out in it a good part of the day, and look at me! No, no; come to dinner.”
“Ah, but you were born tidy!” she sighed, giving her clothes furtive shakes and pulls, and hoping fervently it was not to be a dinner-party. In this she was reassured when Sir Harry led her into a vast dining-hall, with one absurdly small table spread in the midst. The servants hovering about looked unhappy, and Brian said something under his breath.
“Will I go and look for Stewart, General? Sure he mayn’t know of the change of hour.”
“No, no, lazy fellow! he must put up with a cold dinner. These youngsters are apt to grow negligent where there are no ladies—eh, ma’am?”
Gathering from Brian’s silence that she must not attempt to defend the maligned Stewart, Eveleen found herself gallantly placed at the head of the table, and heard her husband and brother warned they would be put under arrest forthwith if they let her so much as touch a carving-knife. While they wrestled with the dishes placed before her, in silence save for the enquiries necessary to the polite carver of the day, Eveleen looked down the table at the General, beaming through his glasses opposite her.
“It’s a big house you have here, Sir Harry! Sure it must feel like living in a church.” Her eyes wandered round the huge room.
“Glad it inspires you with such creditable sentiments, ma’am. There’s another about the same size waiting for you. These Khemistan Politicals knew how to make the money fly. No reflection on you, Ambrose—it was before your day. Besides, they needed a big place to house the establishment. A hundred and fifty souls in this house alone, besides the servants—until Lord Maryport’s order came. Now there won’t be forty, when we have you all at work.”
“But how will you get the work done by such a few, with so much fever about?” asked Eveleen in dismay.
“Fever, ma’am? there’s no fever! What put that into your head?”
“Why, all the talk at Qadirabad was that you had half the army in hospital!” she cried. Her husband came to her help, for the General was looking wrathful.
“That was undoubtedly the impression when we left, General. I believe the Khans shared it.”
“They did, did they? And that’s why they have been so impudent, I haven’t a doubt! Well, the next Vakils they send shall have a nice little bone-shaking ride over the hills, and see two or three thousand men trotted about—just to show ’em. My beautiful camel battery will open their eyes a bit, I promise them. D’ye ever see a camel battery, ma’am?—the dear solemn beasts looking so philosophical with their noses up in the air, and dragging the nine-pounders as if they were feathers!”
“Have you ever been with camels on the march, General?” asked Richard, bitter reminiscence in his voice.
“Never, but I shall try ’em on my little trip to Pagipur. Why, ain’t they satisfactory?”
“Sure you’ll find you can’t get fond of a camel, Sir Harry,” said Eveleen. “You couldn’t have one tied up outside your tent, as you would Black Prince and Dick Turpin, the way they’d put their noses in and ask for a bit of biscuit. A camel would take a bit of you instead—without asking.”
“One for me!” chuckled Sir Harry. “What nice beasts horses are, ain’t they? But this husband of yours is looking mighty superior over my follies, ma’am. It’s high treason—or ought to be—to hold up a commanding officer to the contempt of his subordinates. Don’t you do it again!”
“Never—till the next time!” Eveleen assured him. “And did you get the third horse you were thinking of?”
“I did—worse luck! The uneasiest beast in creation, I believe. Selima is her name officially, but that ribald brother of yours dubbed her Tippetywink—how he spells it I don’t know—and now she answers to nothing else.”
“Because you’d not dare even wink when you’re riding her, General. She takes it as an invitation to dance—you’ll see, Evie.”
“Not with me on the lady’s back she won’t,” grumbled Sir Harry. “Any little frivolity of that sort Miss Selima and I will have out by ourselves in private. She’s as undependable as—the Khans. D’ye ever hear of the dodge, Ambrose”—turning suddenly on Richard—“of having two seals, one for ordinary use, and t’other just a little different, so that if you want to deny it you can point out that it can’t be yours? That’s what it seems to me our friends have been up to just lately.”
“Yes, General; I have heard of the trick.” Richard spoke with notable lack of enthusiasm. How was he to fulfil his pledge to Colonel Bayard to do his best for the Khans if the fools were up to these dodges already? Sir Harry caught him up eagerly.
“Well, you shall see after dinner. I am practically convinced, but I won’t act unless I’m positively certain. The Governor-General is very strong on that, too, and I’m glad of it, for I was afraid he was unjust about poor Bayard, and whatever happens to these chaps ought to be absolutely clear and above-board.”
Talking, as he did, continuously and at railroad speed, it might have seemed difficult for the General to satisfy his hunger, but he ate as fast as he talked, with a kind of mechanical action. Presumably some one had instructed him in the deadly nature of bazar pork, for that delicacy did not appear on the menu. Though the table service came obviously from one or more canteens, the dinner had evidently been carefully chosen, and a lady’s probable tastes consulted in the selection of sweet dishes; but it was naturally not improved by being put forward—the only wonder was that it was not worse. Bad or good, however, there was little time to savour it, for Sir Harry set the pace, and allowed no pauses. It did not strike Eveleen at first that he was mischievously determined to get the meal over before the absent Stewart could return, but she realised it when, just as the dessert was put on the table, a worried face appeared for an instant in the doorway, with two laden coolies dimly visible behind. The one word “Jungly!” floated bitterly to the ears of the diners, and the General exploded in such a paroxysm of mirth as might have betrayed into unfair suspicions those who had not seen that he drank nothing but water.
“And now he’s cursing me in blackfellows’ talk!” were the first coherent words to obtain utterance. “Why don’t he use the Queen’s English like a gentleman? Captain Stewart, come and apologise to Mrs Ambrose for being absent all dinner-time. Make no mistake; I am very seriously displeased with you.”
But the unhappy Stewart had betaken himself out of hearing, probably to dismiss his useless coolies, and the General chuckled himself silent again. When Eveleen rose, he sent Brian to join her on the verandah, and carried off Richard to his office, there to set to work with compasses and spaced rulers to investigate various impressions and drawings of seals, each with its more or less legible inscription in beautiful but intricate Persian characters. Richard’s expression made Brian exclaim discontentedly as soon as he had his sister to himself—
“I hope to goodness Ambrose ain’t going about for ever with that glum phiz! What’s the matter with the fellow?”
“Sure he’ll be sorry to lose his friend Bayard, and afraid things are going to be different,” said Eveleen wisely.
“But why wouldn’t they be different? Can’t go on always in the same old rut. It ain’t as if his place was going begging. The General has a step-grandson or something that he would have liked greatly to put into it.”
“D’ye tell me that, now? But of course I knew he only appointed Ambrose because he felt he would be unfairly treated otherwise, and to please Bayard.”
“Well, then, if Ambrose knows ’twas not for his sweet face nor his charming manners he got it, will you tell me why he wouldn’t try to make himself agreeable at all? Sure it reflects on me—the way he looks and talks.”
“Reflects on you?” said Eveleen, in amazement.
“Well, and why wouldn’t it? Wasn’t it a compliment to me his getting the post? You don’t think the old lad would have picked out Ambrose out of all the unjustly treated men in Khemistan if you were not my sister? Then don’t my fine Major owe it to me to look a bit grateful—whether he is or not?”
Amazement had kept Eveleen silent for the moment, but now she descended on him crushingly. “I never heard anything like it!” she declared indignantly. “A little weeshy bit of a boy like you to dare to criticise Major Ambrose! A compliment to you, indeed! I’d have you know, my bold fellow, that Ambrose stands on his own feet, and needs no help from you or anybody. Why would he look grateful to you, pray, when he owes you nothing, nothing in the wide world? I’d advise you be ashamed of yourself to be talking such nonsense.”
“Oh, all serene,” growled Brian, considerably taken aback. “Don’t think I want to put you under an obligation, I beg of you. And if you prefer Ambrose to go about with the face he has, sure I’d be the last to wish it altered! Some people would say his manner to you would be the better of a little change too, but——”
“You dare! Brian, you dare!” Eveleen’s eyes flashed fire, and once more her brother withdrew discreetly.
“Ah, then, don’t destroy me entirely! As I say, if you like it, it’s your business it is, not mine.”
“And for once in your life y’are right! Take this from me, Brian Delany: if ever you dare speak against Major Ambrose again, I declare to you I’ll make you sorry y’ever were born! Is that clear to you?”
“It is, it is! ’Pon my word, old Evie, I never meant to rile you like this. ’Twas just that I felt——”
“Take care!” warningly.
“I will, indeed. Sure I ought remember that only a fool would go interfering between a man and his wife. ’Twas none of my business, and I ask your pardon.”
“Well, be careful, then.” But Eveleen’s wrath, never very long-lived, was melting like snow at the sight of her boy’s penitence. “Listen, then, Brian”—in a burst of confidence,—“Ambrose is English. That’s what gives him the manner you think I’d dislike. But I don’t, because it’s his. I’ll tell you this now—it did take me by surprise at first, but now I’m accustomed to it I wouldn’t know him without it. Indeed—and this is more I wouldn’t have him different, because it wouldn’t be him, d’ye see?”
“So long as you can stand it—— I mean,” hastily, “as you like it—it’s no business of mine. I suppose I ought be thankful you take it this way, for what would I do if you didn’t? Call him out—eh? and you running in between to try and reconcile us at the last moment.”
“No, too late, and receiving the fire of both parties, and with my last breath joining your two hands, and vowing you to eternal friendship in memory of the hapless Eveleen! There’s tragedy for you! But talking of tragedy, what’s happened that poor Captain Stewart of yours? I declare he looked so crushed when he put his head in at the door I was afraid of something terrible.”
“Will I go and see? He takes these things to heart greatly. He had made up his mind to have a dinner worthy of you, and now he’s touched in his tenderest point.”
“Yes, do go. Bring him here to have a talk, and we’ll make him laugh till he forgets all about it.”
But when Brian returned he shook his head.
“No go, Evie! He’s holding his head and groaning, and vowing he’ll resign and go back to his regiment if Freddy Lennox don’t keep the General in better order than we can. His heart is broken entirely, I tell you.”
“The poor fellow! Will we go and dig him out, Brian?”
“I believe you’d do it! ’Twould shock him horribly—do him all the good in the world! We will. Come along—no, hist, we are observed! Here’s my old lad and your good man.”
“You are sure of the writing?” Sir Harry was demanding eagerly of Richard as they came towards the others.
“Absolutely certain, General. I’ve seen enough of it!”
“You have specimens you can produce?”
“Dozens, sir—the moment I can get my papers unpacked.”
“Good. That settles his hash, I think. Now, Mrs Ambrose, I’m not going to keep your husband longer to-night. Your brother will take you round to your quarters, and if you find anything wrong with ’em, let me know at once, d’ye see?”
“Indeed I will, Sir Harry, but it’s too good and kind y’are to us. Sure we’ll be spoilt!”
“There ain’t many people to call me good and kind—outside my own family and the private soldiers,” chuckled Sir Harry. “But listen a moment, ma’am.” Richard and Brian had gone down the steps to the horses, and he held her back. “I have asked Lord Maryport for Bayard as my Commissioner in settling the new treaty, so if all goes well he will be coming back here almost as soon as he sets foot in Bombay. What d’ye think of that?”
“Ah, now, how pleased Ambrose will be! You have told him?”
“Nay, I leave that for you to do, when you can speak to him quietly. I can see he finds it difficult to work under any one but his ill-used friend, and I honour him for it.”
“Sure y’are too good to us entirely, Sir Harry!” and the General was well pleased with voice and look. But it is probable he did not intend the news to be reserved, as Eveleen did reserve it, until she and her husband, having been duly inducted by Brian into the palatial quarters reserved for them, were in bed on opposite sides of a room which looked about half a mile across. Richard was just dropping asleep when he heard his wife’s voice.
“Ambrose! Ambrose! Are y’asleep already? Listen to me now.”
“What is it? A snake? a lizard?” he asked drowsily.
“Neither—nothing of that sort. Why will y’always be thinking of such horrid things? No, the General bid me tell you he has asked to have Bayard sent back to help him with the treaty, and he expects him here in no time.”
The news was so unexpected that it woke Richard effectually. “I wonder whether he is wise,” he said, without any of the enthusiasm Eveleen had looked for.
“And is that all you have to say? I thought you’d be jumping out of bed and dancing on your head for joy!”
“Really, my dear! Have you ever known me do——”
“No, never! never anything of the sort!” Eveleen was sitting up in bed, and her voice floated over to him in a bitter wail. “Always and always y’are the most disappointing creature ever I saw in my life!”
“I am sorry. If you had let me know beforehand——”
“And then where would be the surprise—the delightful surprise?—and y’are not a bit delighted, or surprised either. And I saving it up since the moment he told me——”
“Perhaps you had better have told me at once, my dear. You are rather like the General——”
“Like the General!” burst forth Eveleen. “If you think it polite to tell your poor unfortunate wife she’s like an ancient old man with a nose as big as the Hill of Howth and a beard like a billy-goat! You told me before I was as ugly as sin, but I thought you maybe didn’t mean it—but now you’ve said it again——” a sob.
“Mrs Ambrose, will you be good enough to tell me when I said anything so preposterous?”
“When I was ill at Bab-us-Sahel. At least, I said ’twas what you thought about me, and you didn’t say no, so I had to think you did! And now you say I’m like the General!”
“If you will be quiet a moment and listen to me—— Now; do you seriously expect me to contradict all the absurd things you say every day? If you do, I will make a point of it, but it will add a good deal to my work—and shorten my life by some years, I imagine. But perhaps that——”
“I don’t—you know I don’t! Y’oughtn’t be so cruel, Ambrose! You know if you were ill I’d be nursing you day and night, and neither eat nor sleep till you were well again.”
“I am sure you would,” with a slight shudder. “Let us hope it won’t be necessary. At any rate, there seems no present likelihood of my inflicting such a task on you. As to my saying you were like the General, I apologise if it was the wrong thing. You are so fond of him, I thought it would rather please you than otherwise. Not like him in face, of course—you know very well I meant nothing of that kind,—but in saying or doing what you have in your mind without thinking a moment how it will affect other people.”
Eveleen sat silent a moment, somewhat dismayed. “Will I really be like the General in that way?” she asked at last in a subdued voice.
“Don’t be afraid I shall say you are. I have learnt my lesson.”
“But I see what you mean. That trick on poor Stewart to-night—I’d have done just the same. And——”
“Pray don’t task your memory.” Richard smothered a colossal yawn. “I haven’t said I mean that, you know.”
“But I know you did. Oh dear, how will I ever make you think differently? I don’t mean to be ill-natured, but when a thing comes to me—— If only there was something I could do to show you—something you wanted very much——”
“There is something I want very much,” in a ghostly voice.
“Ah, tell me now! tell me! Can I do it?”
“You could, but you won’t.”
“Ah, how can you say so? You know I’d do anything——”
“It ain’t great or grand enough—nothing heroic or romantic about it.”
“Just tell me—just let me hear.”
“Merely to let us both have a night’s rest—that’s all.”
“Oh!” in dismay. “Oh, you shocking tease!” in indignation. “But I’ll do it; I won’t say another word.” A pause, during which Eveleen lay down vigorously, and remained silent a moment. “Ambrose!”
“All present and correct, sir,” sleepily. “No—I mean, Yes.”
“What about those seals? Just tell me that.”
“Gul Ali’s without a doubt. One of the papers in the writing—of his Munshi—Chanda Ram—know his fist as well—as I do my own.” A snore.
“Oh!” said Eveleen again.