A Bottle in the Smoke Part 22

"Oh, but he told me he was so happy with you, Mr. Worsley. I think it made me feel a little jealous, as I was his only friend here at first."

"That's where we stand, is it? All the more reason we should make it up, Mrs. Rayner. Nothing is more conducive to driving away evil spirits of all kinds than a walk on the sea-sh.o.r.e."

Mr. Worsley smilingly offered his hand to Hester to help her to alight.

"Cheveril, we're off for a stroll," he said, looking back at the young man, who still stood by the side of Mrs. Fellowes' carriage; and he now suggested that she should imitate the example of her friend. She acquiesced, and they were soon following the other pair of walkers.

"I always know from the pose of my chief's head whether he is happy with his companion or not. Unfortunately he too often shows that he is not so," said Mark.

"You seem entirely satisfied with the result in this instance, Mr.

Cheveril," returned Mrs. Fellowes, with a frank smile. "But who could be otherwise? She is so dear and sweet."

"Well, the fact is there is triumph to me as well as satisfaction. I didn't exactly have a bet with Mrs. Rayner, but I prophesied that when she met Mr. Worsley she would come under his spell; while she evidently thought the reverse would happen. I feel quite easy in my mind now. I can see the spell is mutual."

"I expect Mr. Worsley is not a man who always does himself justice by any means. The Colonel sometimes deplores that he gives so much more encouragement to the Mahomedans than to the Hindus at Puranapore. The Campbells are friends of ours, so perhaps we hear most on the other side."

"Yes, that's a vexed question," replied Mark gravely. "But the Collector is getting his eyes opened to some things that were hidden from him for a time. Events are marching. You see he is so often away on tour. The town of Puranapore is but a very small corner of his dominion. His District is immense, and he takes as much interest in it as an English squire does in his acres--very much the same kind of interest too. His pride in land reclaimed and made to blossom is delightful to see. He has often made me ride miles out of the way with him to show me such a tract with its changed face. He would have made an ideal Forest Officer if he had not been Collector of the Revenue. Lately when we were camping, he pointed to a once fever-haunted jungle he had redeemed by draining the dreaded area. He smiled and said, 'I was just thinking last night as I read Tennyson's "Northern Farmer," that I could point to this bit of land made wholesome as my only good deed, like the old farmer who pinned his hope of salvation to his "stubbing of Thornaby waste!"'"

"You speak of his reading Tennyson, Mr. Cheveril? I thought one of his peculiarities was that he never read--that there wasn't a book to be picked up in his house? I've heard his bungalow at Puranapore described as the most dismal of abodes."

"Oh, yes, the Collector does read at times, and he does what is better, he thinks. He has a more original mind than most people, I a.s.sure you,"

argued Mark, not willing to admit the truth of the a.s.sertion concerning the absence of anything like a library from the Collector's shelves.

"Pity he doesn't hit it off with his wife, isn't it?" remarked Mrs.

Fellowes, who, Mark could see, was one of those who had imbibed a prejudice against the man he had come to love. "Perhaps you didn't know he was married, Mr. Cheveril, but he is! His wife lives in Belgravia and he here. It is said he didn't even go to see her the last time he was at home, and yet they are not legally separated, and I believe, he sends her heaps of money!"

"Well, you see, I don't know the Honourable Mrs. Worsley," said Mark shortly. In one of his rare moments of self-revelation the elder man had laid bare to the younger the history of an ill-a.s.sorted marriage and its consequences, which, Mark decided, more by inference than from details, was the source of much that had warped a life, which Felix Worsley himself described as like "a blasted jungle tree"; though Mark thought he could still trace in it the n.o.blest characteristics of the English oak.

"Well, I must say the Collector of Puranapore has a warm partisan in you, Mr. Cheveril," returned Mrs. Fellowes warmly, "and I like you for it!"

The pair in front had now turned their steps and came towards them.

"I'm reminding Mrs. Rayner that if I walk her off her feet she won't be able to dance so lightly with you to-night as I desire to see, Cheveril," said Mr. Worsley, with a smile which his a.s.sistant had learnt to love.

On being introduced to Mrs. Fellowes he seemed to find that he had various links with her and they paired off together, leaving the two old friends in company.

"Oh, Mark, how delightful he is," exclaimed Hester, her face all aglow.

"I haven't seen anybody so nice since I parted with my father!"

"Ah, then you have capitulated, just as I hoped. But I'm not going to be hard on you for your former state of siege. I knew the victory was sure, and it has come partly because he took to you at once, I could see. My chief is sometimes rather bearish, I admit. I tremble for the offences he may give at the gathering to-night. He's a grand bit of marble, Hester--to take up our simile of St. Thomas's Mount!"

"But has the chipping process begun, Mark? Though he was so nice to me I confess he talked very hopelessly, very cynically, about some things."

"Oh, yes, the process is going on! But we must not forget in that process one day is as a thousand years with the Great Sculptor," said Mark softly, as he glanced up at the dark blue vault where the great moon was already rising, silvering the vast expanse of waters.

"But, Mark," said Hester, suddenly preparing to plunge into the topic which he fain would have avoided, "how can you meet me like this--how can you ever speak to me again after what happened that morning? Oh, the shame, the misery of it," she added, her voice faltering. "And I was so anxious that poor Alfred should come under your influence! You remember I was pleading for that on our ride home, little thinking that all was going to end as it did--that things were going to happen so soon that would make a great gulf between you. Will you try to believe that really he was not himself that morning? Something at Palaveram must have upset him dreadfully or he could never have spoken so to you. Can you ever forgive him?"

Mark felt glad that Hester should treat the episode in this light and not as a proof of her husband's utter unworthiness.

"Surely we must make allowance for others when we need so much forgiveness for ourselves," said Mark, in a moved tone. "I saw your husband was much unnerved. I hardly think our morning ride could be the cause. Try to forget it, Hester! Treat it like a bad dream--we awake and it is gone."

"Oh, thank you! You don't know how your words comfort me. I thought you would never speak to me again. Now I must tell you what it was that brought me any comfort. It was that poem--'Rabbi Ben Ezra'--in the book you sent me. That it should come from you, who I feared would not look at either of us again, seemed to me the doing of an angel!"

"A very earthly messenger, I a.s.sure you," said Mark, shaking his head.

"But I'm glad you came on that poem. It has been a possession to me for long."

"It will be a possession to me always," returned Hester in a moved voice. "But what am I thinking of? I must really be off home at once.

Alfred may be there and wondering what keeps me," she added, with a frightened air which went to the young man's heart.

He led her at once to her carriage, and saw the lamps duly lit; then after a hurried good-bye to Mrs. Fellowes and the Collector, she was driven swiftly away.

CHAPTER XXIII.

The Banqueting Hall, as that important adjunct of Government House, Madras, is called, scintillated with light. The lower branches of the n.o.ble trees which line the approach were hung with innumerable lamps of variegated colours, while the great white building gave forth a resplendent glow from its many windows. The colonnades of pillars at its entrance were reached by an immense flight of steps, the centre of which was covered by a broad strip of crimson cloth. Along either side were ranged rows of peons in long scarlet coats, their sashes belted crossways on their chests, ornamented by bright badges, their neatly folded turbans, their dignified and deferential mien, all contributing to the impressive effect of the scene.

Through the wide open doors one caught glimpses of more pillars in the entrance hall. The banisters and staircase landings were decorated with great pots of glossy greenery. Peons were flitting about; an aide-de-camp, gorgeous in gold lace, his nether man cased in tights and Hessian boots, was in waiting in the hall; while groups of gentlemen, both civil and military, stood talking together preparatory to making their entrance.

The fas.h.i.+onable unpunctuality of arrival which prevails at home functions did not at this period find favour at Government House. Most of the guests of the evening were now streaming in as quickly as the thronging of their equipages on the great gravel sweep outside would permit. The ladies cloak-rooms were vocal with a chorus of English voices as Hester Rayner entered. It seemed to her a happy babble as she smilingly returned the greetings of various acquaintances, while she was being divested of her cloak by one of the many Eurasian attendants.

Miss Clarice Glanton, robed in iridescent filmy gauze, glided dragon-fly-like towards Hester, with a gracious smile on her face.

"Got your card full up, of course, Hester? Your husband says I may call you so, and I mean henceforth to avail myself of his permission. Well, how stands your card?"

"My card! I'm afraid I haven't even thought about it yet," replied Hester simply.

"Why, I thought you were looking so happy that you must surely be in luck! I think I know somebody who will be having many favours from you to-night, but he didn't rise to my bait, though I showed him I had still one or two blanks to fill."

Hester looked so evidently uncomprehending that she added:

"After all, it's only t.i.t-for-tat! If you are to have possession of the Puranapore a.s.sistant, I'm going to have pity on your forsaken husband! I was actually benevolent enough to promise him not less than three dances when he came a-begging to my door this afternoon"; and Miss Glanton glanced with a malicious smile at the young wife.

Her tone and her information both jarred on Hester. She recalled that her husband had pleaded a business engagement as his reason for not accompanying her to the beach, but she held her peace; indeed there was no pause for further talk. Both ladies were swept forward to join their gentlemen in the corridor and take their places for presentation.

Alfred Rayner had been waiting all impatience. Casting a rapid glance on his wife, the result of which seemed satisfying to his vanity, he offered his arm with a gratified smile.

"Come, my English rose is bound to win the prize," he whispered.

Taking their places in the long stream of guests, they moved slowly along a side aisle under the gallery till they reached the neighbourhood of the dais, then their turn came to ascend the flat crimson steps. The A.D.C.-in-waiting stood receiving the cards of the guests and announced their names.

Hester, with a grace which few could equal, at length made her curtsey to the Queen's representative, His Excellency the Governor of Madras, a stout-built, elderly man with scanty dark hair, a bushy grey beard, a pair of keen, shrewd eyes which seemed to take in all his surroundings at a glance. His hostess-daughter stood by his side receiving the guests, while near by were two younger daughters who bowed and smiled in recognition of acquaintances and chatted with members of the house-party gathered on the dais; while the presented guests took their places among the surrounding groups who stood watching the ceremony in progress.

None did so with more pleasure than Hester, whose artistic eye was glamoured by the beautiful blending of colours throughout the stately hall which would have made a worthy setting for any pageant. Every style and colour of uniform was represented, from the brilliant scarlet and gold of the Staff to the pale blue and silver of the Madras Cavalry, the drab of some of the Native Infantry corps, and the artillery officers from the Mount whose uniform was the short, slashed jacket, which, though becoming to tall, slender figures, was by no means so to the fat old Artillery colonels stepping about, serving as foils to the slim young men.

The presentation now seemed at an end except in the case of a few late-comers. His Excellency had turned to talk with some members of the house-party. The regimental band, stationed in the front gallery, was giving forth its first strains of music with stirring effect. A distinguished soldier visitor from North India led forth the hostess-daughter of the Governor, who, etiquette demanded, should open the ball. The beautiful s.h.i.+ny parquet floor was presently peopled with couples, and from the band came the favourite waltz air of the period, "The Blue Danube."