THE RESCUE OF PLUFFLES.
Thus, for a season, they fought it fair-- She and his cousin May-- Tactful, talented, debonnaire, Decorous foes were they; But never can battle of man compare With merciless feminine fray.
Two and One.
Mrs. Hauksbee was sometimes nice to her own sex. Here is a story toprove this; and you can believe just as much as ever you please.
Pluffles was a subaltern in the "Unmentionables." He was callow, evenfor a subaltern. He was callow all over--like a canary that had notfinished fledging itself. The worst of it was he had three times as muchmoney as was good for him; Pluffles' Papa being a rich man and Plufflesbeing the only son. Pluffles' Mamma adored him. She was only a littleless callow than Pluffles and she believed everything he said.
Pluffles' weakness was not believing what people said. He preferred whathe called "trusting to his own judgment." He had as much judgment as hehad seat or hands; and this preference tumbled him into trouble once ortwice. But the biggest trouble Pluffles ever manufactured came about atSimla--some years ago, when he was four-and-twenty.
He began by trusting to his own judgment, as usual, and the resultwas that, after a time, he was bound hand and foot to Mrs. Reiver's'rickshaw wheels.
There was nothing good about Mrs. Reiver, unless it was her dress.She was bad from her hair--which started life on a Brittany's girl'shead--to her boot-heels, which were two and three-eighth inches high.She was not honestly mischievous like Mrs. Hauksbee; she was wicked in abusiness-like way.
There was never any scandal--she had not generous impulses enough forthat. She was the exception which proved the rule that Anglo-Indianladies are in every way as nice as their sisters at Home. She spent herlife in proving that rule.
Mrs. Hauksbee and she hated each other fervently. They heard fartoo much to clash; but the things they said of each other werestartling--not to say original. Mrs. Hauksbee was honest--honest as herown front teeth--and, but for her love of mischief, would have beena woman's woman. There was no honesty about Mrs. Reiver; nothing butselfishness. And at the beginning of the season, poor little Plufflesfell a prey to her. She laid herself out to that end, and who wasPluffles, to resist? He went on trusting to his judgment, and he gotjudged.
I have seen Hayes argue with a tough horse--I have seen a tonga-drivercoerce a stubborn pony--I have seen a riotous setter broken to gun by ahard keeper--but the breaking-in of Pluffles of the "Unmentionables" wasbeyond all these. He learned to fetch and carry like a dog, and towait like one, too, for a word from Mrs. Reiver. He learned to keepappointments which Mrs. Reiver had no intention of keeping. He learnedto take thankfully dances which Mrs. Reiver had no intention of givinghim. He learned to shiver for an hour and a quarter on the windward sideof Elysium while Mrs. Reiver was making up her mind to come for aride. He learned to hunt for a 'rickshaw, in a light dress-suit undera pelting rain, and to walk by the side of that 'rickshaw when he hadfound it. He learned what it was to be spoken to like a coolie andordered about like a cook. He learned all this and many other thingsbesides. And he paid for his schooling.
Perhaps, in some hazy way, he fancied that it was fine and impressive,that it gave him a status among men, and was altogether the thing to do.It was nobody's business to warn Pluffles that he was unwise. The pacethat season was too good to inquire; and meddling with another man'sfolly is always thankless work. Pluffles' Colonel should have orderedhim back to his regiment when he heard how things were going. ButPluffles had got himself engaged to a girl in England the last timehe went home; and if there was one thing more than another which theColonel detested, it was a married subaltern. He chuckled when he heardof the education of Pluffles, and said it was "good training forthe boy." But it was not good training in the least. It led him intospending money beyond his means, which were good: above that, theeducation spoilt an average boy and made it a tenth-rate man of anobjectionable kind. He wandered into a bad set, and his little bill atHamilton's was a thing to wonder at.
Then Mrs. Hauksbee rose to the occasion. She played her game alone,knowing what people would say of her; and she played it for the sake ofa girl she had never seen. Pluffles' fiancee was to come out, under thechaperonage of an aunt, in October, to be married to Pluffles.
At the beginning of August, Mrs. Hauksbee discovered that it was time tointerfere. A man who rides much knows exactly what a horse is going todo next before he does it. In the same way, a woman of Mrs. Hauksbee'sexperience knows accurately how a boy will behave under certaincircumstances--notably when he is infatuated with one of Mrs. Reiver'sstamp. She said that, sooner or later, little Pluffles would break offthat engagement for nothing at all--simply to gratify Mrs. Reiver, who,in return, would keep him at her feet and in her service just so longas she found it worth her while. She said she knew the signs of thesethings. If she did not, no one else could.
Then she went forth to capture Pluffles under the guns of the enemy;just as Mrs. Cusack-Bremmil carried away Bremmil under Mrs. Hauksbee'seyes.
This particular engagement lasted seven weeks--we called it the SevenWeeks' War--and was fought out inch by inch on both sides. A detailedaccount would fill a book, and would be incomplete then. Any one whoknows about these things can fit in the details for himself. It wasa superb fight--there will never be another like it as long as Jakkostands--and Pluffles was the prize of victory. People said shamefulthings about Mrs. Hauksbee. They did not know what she was playingfor. Mrs. Reiver fought, partly because Pluffles was useful to her, butmainly because she hated Mrs. Hauksbee, and the matter was a trial ofstrength between them. No one knows what Pluffles thought. He had notmany ideas at the best of times, and the few he possessed made himconceited. Mrs. Hauksbee said:--"The boy must be caught; and the onlyway of catching him is by treating him well."
So she treated him as a man of the world and of experience so long asthe issue was doubtful. Little by little, Pluffles fell away from hisold allegiance and came over to the enemy, by whom he was made much of.He was never sent on out-post duty after 'rickshaws any more, nor washe given dances which never came off, nor were the drains on hispurse continued. Mrs. Hauksbee held him on the snaffle; and after histreatment at Mrs. Reiver's hands, he appreciated the change.
Mrs. Reiver had broken him of talking about himself, and made himtalk about her own merits. Mrs. Hauksbee acted otherwise, and wonhis confidence, till he mentioned his engagement to the girl at Home,speaking of it in a high and mighty way as a "piece of boyish folly."This was when he was taking tea with her one afternoon, and discoursingin what he considered a gay and fascinating style. Mrs. Hauksbee hadseen an earlier generation of his stamp bud and blossom, and decay intofat Captains and tubby Majors.
At a moderate estimate there were about three and twenty sides to thatlady's character. Some men say more. She began to talk to Pluffles afterthe manner of a mother, and as if there had been three hundred years,instead of fifteen, between them. She spoke with a sort of throatyquaver in her voice which had a soothing effect, though what she saidwas anything but soothing. She pointed out the exceeding folly, not tosay meanness, of Pluffles' conduct, and the smallness of his views. Thenhe stammered something about "trusting to his own judgment as a man ofthe world;" and this paved the way for what she wanted to say next. Itwould have withered up Pluffles had it come from any other woman; butin the soft cooing style in which Mrs. Hauksbee put it, it only madehim feel limp and repentant--as if he had been in some superior kind ofchurch. Little by little, very softly and pleasantly, she began takingthe conceit out of Pluffles, as you take the ribs out of an umbrellabefore re-covering it. She told him what she thought of him and hisjudgment and his knowledge of the world; and how his performances hadmade him ridiculous to other people; and how it was his intention to makelove to herself if she gave him the chance. Then she said that marriagewould be the making of him; and drew a pretty little picture--all roseand opal--of the Mrs. Pluffles of the future going through life relyingon t
he "judgment" and "knowledge of the world" of a husband whohad nothing to reproach himself with. How she reconciled thesetwo statements she alone knew. But they did not strike Pluffles asconflicting.
Hers was a perfect little homily--much better than any clergyman couldhave given--and it ended with touching allusions to Pluffles' Mamma andPapa, and the wisdom of taking his bride Home.
Then she sent Pluffles out for a walk, to think over what she had said.Pluffles left, blowing his nose very hard and holding himself verystraight. Mrs. Hauksbee laughed.
What Pluffles had intended to do in the matter of the engagement onlyMrs. Reiver knew, and she kept her own counsel to her death. She wouldhave liked it spoiled as a compliment, I fancy.
Pluffles enjoyed many talks with Mrs. Hauksbee during the next few days.They were all to the same end, and they helped Pluffles in the path ofVirtue.
Mrs. Hauksbee wanted to keep him under her wing to the last. Thereforeshe discountenanced his going down to Bombay to get married. "Goodnessonly knows what might happen by the way!" she said. "Pluffles is cursedwith the curse of Reuben, and India is no fit place for him!"
In the end, the fiancee arrived with her aunt; and Pluffles, havingreduced his affairs to some sort of order--here again Mrs. Hauksbeehelped him--was married.
Mrs. Hauksbee gave a sigh of relief when both the "I wills" had beensaid, and went her way.
Pluffies took her advice about going Home. He left the Service, and isnow raising speckled cattle inside green painted fences somewhere atHome. I believe he does this very judiciously. He would have come toextreme grief out here.
For these reasons if any one says anything more than usually nasty aboutMrs. Hauksbee, tell him the story of the Rescue of Pluffles.