‘My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, Mr Gayerson,’ she said.
‘Your what?’ said he.
‘Daughter,’ said the Venus Annodomini. ‘She’s been out for a year at Home already, and I want her to see a little of India. She is nineteen and a very sensible nice girl I believe.’
‘Very Young’ Gayerson, who was a short twenty-two years old, nearly fell out of his chair with astonishment; for he had persisted in believing, against all belief, in the youth of the Venus Annodomini. She, with her back to the curtained window, watched the effect of her sentences and smiled.
‘Very Young’ Gayerson’s papa came up twelve days later, and had not been in Simla four-and-twenty hours, before two men, old acquaintances of his, had told him how ‘Very Young’ Gayerson had been conducting himself.
‘Young’ Gayerson laughed a good deal, and inquired who the Venus Annodomini might be. Which proves that he had been living in Bengal where nobody knows anything except the rate of Exchange. Then he said boys will be boys, and spoke to his son about the matter. ‘Very Young’ Gayerson said that he felt wretched and unhappy; and ‘Young’ Gayerson said that he repented of having helped to bring a fool into the world. He suggested that his son had better cut his leave short and go down to his duties. This led to an unfilial answer, and relations were strained, until ‘Young’ Gayerson demanded that they should call on the Venus Annodomini. ‘Very Young’ Gayerson went with his papa, feeling, somehow, uncomfortable and small.
The Venus Annodomini received them graciously and ‘Young’ Gayerson said, ‘By Jove! It’s Kitty!’ ‘Very Young’ Gayerson would have listened for an explanation, if his time had not been taken up with trying to talk to a large, handsome, quiet, well-dressed girl – introduced to him by the Venus Annodomini as her daughter. She was far older in manner, style, and repose than ‘Very Young’ Gayerson; and, as he realized this thing, he felt sick.
Presently, he heard the Venus Annodomini saying, ‘Do you know that your son is one of my most devoted admirers?’
‘I don’t wonder,’ said ‘Young’ Gayerson. Here he raised his voice, ‘He follows his father’s footsteps. Didn’t I worship the ground you trod on, ever so long ago, Kitty – and you haven’t changed since then. How strange it all seems!’
‘Very Young’ Gayerson said nothing. His conversation with the daughter of the Venus Annodomini was, through the rest of the call, fragmentary and disjointed.
‘At five tomorrow then,’ said the Venus Annodomini. ‘And mind you are punctual.’
‘At five punctually,’ said ‘Young’ Gayerson. ‘You can lend your old father a horse I daresay, youngster, can’t you? I’m going for a ride tomorrow afternoon.’
‘Certainly,’ said ‘Very Young’ Gayerson. ‘I am going down tomorrow morning. My ponies are at your service, Sir.’
The Venus Annodomini looked at him across the half-light of the room, and her big grey eyes filled with moisture. She rose and shook hands with him.
‘Goodbye, Tom,’ whispered the Venus Annodomini.
His Wedded Wife1
Cry ‘Murder!’ in the market-place, and each
Will turn upon his neighbour anxious eyes
That ask – ‘Art thou the man?’ We hunted Cain,
Some centuries ago, across the world.
That bred the fear our own misdeeds maintain
Today.
Vibart’s Moralities.
Shakespeare says something about worms, or it may be giants or beetles,2 turning if you tread on them too severely. The safest plan is never to tread on a worm – not even on the last new subaltern from Home, with his buttons hardly out of their tissue-paper, and the red of sappy English beef in his cheeks. This is a story of the worm that turned. For the sake of brevity, we will call Henry Augustus Ramsay Faizanne, ‘The Worm’, though he really was an exceedingly pretty boy, without a hair on his face, and with a waist like a girl’s, when he came out to the Second ‘Shikarris’3 and was made unhappy in several ways. The ‘Shikarris’ are a high-caste regiment, and you must be able to do things well – play a banjo, or ride more than little, or sing, or act – to get on with them.
The Worm did nothing except fall off his pony, and knock chips out of gate-posts with his trap. Even that became monotonous after a time. He objected to whist, cut the cloth at billiards, sang out of tune, kept very much to himself, and wrote to his Mamma and sisters at Home. Four of these five things were vices which the ‘Shikarris’ objected to and set themselves to eradicate. Everyone knows how subalterns are, by brother subalterns, softened and not permitted to be ferocious. It is good and wholesome, and does no one any harm, unless tempers are lost; and then there is trouble. There was a man once –
The ‘Shikarris’ shikarred The Worm very much, and he bore everything without winking. He was so good and so anxious to learn, and flushed so pink, that his education was cut short, and he was left to his own devices by everyone except the Senior Subaltern, who continued to make life a burden to The Worm. The Senior Subaltern meant no harm; but his chaff was coarse and he didn’t quite understand where to stop. He had been waiting too long for his Company; and that always sours a man. Also he was in love, which made him worse.
One day, after he had borrowed The Worm’s trap for a lady who never existed, had used it himself all the afternoon, had sent a note, to The Worm, purporting to come from the lady, and was telling the Mess all about it, The Worm rose in his place and said, in his quiet, lady-like voice – ‘That was a very pretty sell; but I’ll lay you a month’s pay to a month’s pay when you get your step, that I work a sell on you that you’ll remember for the rest of your days, and the Regiment after you when you’re dead or broke.’4 The Worm wasn’t angry in the least, and the rest of the Mess shouted. Then the Senior Subaltern looked at The Worm from the boots upwards, and down again, and said – ‘Done, Baby.’ The Worm held the rest of the Mess to witness that the bet had been taken, and retired into a book with a sweet smile.
Two months passed, and the Senior Subaltern still educated The Worm, who began to move about a little more as the hot weather came on. I have said that the Senior Subaltern was in love. The curious thing is that a girl was in love with the Senior Subaltern. Though the Colonel said awful things, and the Majors snorted, and the married Captains looked unutterable wisdom, and the juniors scoffed, those two were engaged.
The Senior Subaltern was so pleased with getting his Company and his acceptance at the same time that he forgot to bother The Worm. The girl was a pretty girl, and had money of her own. She does not come into this story at all.
One night, at the beginning of the hot weather, all the Mess, except The Worm who had gone to his own room to write Home letters, were sitting on the platform outside the Mess House. The Band had finished playing, but no one wanted to go in. And the Captains’ wives were there also. The folly of a man in love is unlimited. The Senior Subaltern had been holding forth on the merits of the girl he was engaged to, and the ladies were purring approval while the men yawned, when there was a rustle of skirts in the dark, and a tired, faint voice lifted itself.
‘Where’s my husband?’
I do not wish in the least to reflect on the morality of the ‘Shikarris’; but it is on record that four men jumped up as if they had been shot. Three of them were married men. Perhaps they were afraid that their wives had come from Home unbeknownst. The fourth said that he had acted on the impulse of the moment. He explained this afterwards.
Then the voice cried, ‘O Lionel!’ Lionel was the Senior Subaltern’s name. A woman came into the little circle of light by the candles on the peg-tables, stretching out her hands to the dark where the Senior Subaltern was, and sobbing. We rose to our feet, feeling that things were going to happen and ready to believe the worst. In this bad, small world of ours, one knows so little of the life of the next man – which, after all, is entirely his own concern – that one is not surprised when a crash comes. Anything might turn up any day for anyone. Perhaps the
Senior Subaltern had been trapped in his youth. Men are crippled that way occasionally. We didn’t know; we wanted to hear; and the Captains’ wives were as anxious as we. If he had been trapped, he was to be excused; for the woman from nowhere, in the dusty shoes and grey travelling-dress, was very lovely, with black hair and great eyes full of tears. She was tall, with a fine figure, and her voice had a running sob in it pitiful to hear. As soon as the Senior Subaltern stood up, she threw her arms round his neck, and called him ‘my darling’, and said she could not bear waiting alone in England, and his letters were so short and cold, and she was his to the end of the world, and would he forgive her? This did not sound quite like a lady’s way of speaking. It was too demonstrative.
Things seemed black indeed, and the Captains’ wives peered under their eyebrows at the Senior Subaltern, and the Colonel’s face set like the Day of Judgment framed in grey bristles, and no one spoke for a while.
Next the Colonel said, very shortly, ‘Well, Sir?’ and the woman sobbed afresh. The Senior Subaltern was half choked with the arms round his neck, but he gasped out – ‘It’s a damned lie! I never had a wife in my life!’ – ‘Don’t swear,’ said the Colonel. ‘Come into the Mess. We must sift this clear somehow,’ and he sighed to himself, for he believed in his ‘Shikarris’, did the Colonel.
We trooped into the ante-room, under the full lights, and there we saw how beautiful the woman was. She stood up in the middle of us all, sometimes choking with crying, then hard and proud, and then holding out her arms to the Senior Subaltern. It was like the fourth act of a tragedy. She told us how the Senior Subaltern had married her when he was Home on leave eighteen months before; and she seemed to know all that we knew, and more too, of his people and his past life. He was white and ashy-grey, trying now and again to break into the torrent of her words; and we, noting how lovely she was and what a criminal he looked, esteemed him a beast of the worst kind. We felt sorry for him, though.
I shall never forget the indictment of the Senior Subaltern by his wife. Nor will he. It was so sudden, rushing out of the dark, unannounced, into our dull lives. The Captains’ wives stood back; but their eyes were alight, and you could see that they had already convicted and sentenced the Senior Subaltern. The Colonel seemed five years older. One Major was shading his eyes with his hand and watching the woman from underneath it. Another was chewing his moustache and smiling quietly as if he were witnessing a play. Full in the open space in the centre, by the whist-tables, the Senior Subaltern’s terrier was hunting for fleas. I remember all this as clearly as though a photograph were in my hand. I remember the look of horror on the Senior Subaltern’s face. It was rather like seeing a man hanged; but much more interesting. Finally, the woman wound up by saying that the Senior Subaltern carried a double F. M. in tattoo on his left shoulder. We all knew that, and to our innocent minds it seemed to clinch the matter. But one of the bachelor Majors said very politely, ‘I presume that your marriage-certificate would be more to the purpose?’
That roused the woman. She stood up and sneered at the Senior Subaltern for a cur, and abused the Major and the Colonel and all the rest. Then she wept, and then she pulled a paper from her breast, saying imperially, ‘Take that! And let my husband – my lawfully wedded husband – read it aloud – if he dare!’
There was a hush, and the men looked into each other’s eyes as the Senior Subaltern came forward in a dazed and dizzy way, and took the paper. We were wondering, as we stared, whether there was anything against anyone of us that might turn up later on. The Senior Subaltern’s throat was dry; but, as he ran his eye over the paper, he broke out into a hoarse cackle of relief, and said to the woman, ‘You young blackguard!’ But the woman had fled through a door, and on the paper was written, ‘This is to certify that I, The Worm, have paid in full my debts to the Senior Subaltern, and, further, that the Senior Subaltern is my debtor, by agreement on the 23d of February, as by the Mess attested, to the extent of one month’s Captain’s pay, in the lawful currency of the Indian Empire.’
Then a deputation set off for The Worm’s quarters and found him, betwixt and between, unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, and serge dress, on the bed. He came over as he was, and the ‘Shikarris’ shouted till the Gunners’ Mess sent over to know if they might have a share of the fun. I think we were all, except the Colonel and the Senior Subaltern, a little disappointed that the scandal had come to nothing. But that is human nature. There could be no two words about The Worm’s acting. It leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as anything this side of a joke can. When most of the Subalterns sat upon him with sofacushions to find out why he had not said that acting was his strong point, he answered very quietly, ‘I don’t think you ever asked me. I used to act at Home with my sisters.’ But no acting with girls could account for The Worm’s display that night. Personally, I think it was in bad taste. Besides being dangerous. There is no sort of use in playing with fire, even for fun.
The ‘Shikarris’ made him President of the Regimental Dramatic Club; and, when the Senior Subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at once, The Worm sank the money in scenery and dresses. He was a good Worm; and the ‘Shikarris’ are proud of him. The only drawback is that he has been christened ‘Mrs Senior Subaltern’; and, as there are now two Mrs Senior Subalterns in the Station, this is sometimes confusing to strangers.
Later on, I will tell you of a case something like this, but with all the jest left out and nothing in it but real trouble.
In the Pride of his Youth1
‘Stopped in the straight when the race was his own!
Look at him cutting it – cur to the bone!’
‘Ask, ere the youngster be rated and chidden,
What did he carry and how was he ridden?
Maybe they used him too much at the start;
Maybe Fate’s weight-cloths2 are breaking his heart.’
Life’s Handicap.
When I was telling you of the joke that The Worm played off on the Senior Subaltern, I promised a somewhat similar tale, but with all the jest left out. This is that tale.
Dicky Hatt was kidnapped in his early, early youth – neither by landlady’s daughter, housemaid, barmaid, nor cook, but by a girl so nearly of his own caste that only a woman could have said she was just the least little bit in the world below it. This happened a month before he came out to India, and five days after his one-and-twentieth birthday. The girl was nineteen – six years older than Dicky in the things of this world, that is to say – and, for the time, twice as foolish as he.
Excepting, always, falling off a horse there is nothing more fatally easy than marriage before the Registrar. The ceremony costs less than fifty shillings, and is remarkably like walking into a pawn-shop. After the declarations of residence have been put in, four minutes will cover the rest of the proceedings – fees, attestation, and all. Then the Registrar slides the blotting-pad over the names, and says grimly with his pen between his teeth, ‘Now you’re man and wife’; and the couple walk out into the street feeling as if something were horribly illegal somewhere.
But that ceremony holds and can drag a man to his undoing just as thoroughly as the ‘long as ye both shall live’ curse from the altar-rails, with the bridesmaids giggling behind, and ‘The Voice that breathed o’er Eden’ lifting the roof off. In this manner was Dicky Hatt kidnapped, and he considered it vastly fine, for he had received an appointment in India which carried a magnificent salary from the Home point of view. The marriage was to be kept secret for a year. Then Mrs Dicky Hatt was to come out, and the rest of life was to be a glorious golden mist. That was how they sketched it under the Addison Road Station lamps; and, after one short month, came Gravesend3 and Dicky steaming out to his new life, and the girl crying in a thirty-shillings a week bed-and-living-room, in a back street off Montpelier Square near the Knightsbridge Barracks.
But the country that Dicky came to was a hard land where men of twenty-one were reckoned very small boys indeed, and life was expensive. The
salary that loomed so large six thousand miles away did not go far. Particularly when Dicky divided it by two, and remitted more than the fair half, at 1–,4 to Montpelier Square. One hundred and thirty-five rupees out of three hundred and thirty is not much to live on; but it was absurd to suppose that Mrs Hatt could exist forever on the £20 held back by Dicky from his outfit allowance. Dicky saw this and remitted at once; always remembering that Rs. 700 were to be paid, twelve months later, for a first-class passage out for a lady. When you add to these trifling details the natural instincts of a boy beginning a new life in a new country and longing to go about and enjoy himself, and the necessity for grappling with strange work – which, properly speaking, should take up a boy’s undivided attention – you will see that Dicky started handicapped. He saw it himself for a breath or two; but he did not guess the full beauty of his future.
As the hot weather began, the shackles settled on him and ate into his flesh. First would come letters – big, crossed, seven-sheet letters – from his wife, telling him how she longed to see him, and what a Heaven upon earth would be their property when they met. Then some boy of the chummery wherein Dicky lodged would pound on the door of his bare little room, and tell him to come out to look at a pony – the very thing to suit him. Dicky could not afford ponies. He had to explain this. Dicky could not afford living in the chummery, modest as it was. He had to explain this before he moved to a single room next the office where he worked all day. He kept house on a green oilcloth table-cover, one chair, one bedstead, one photograph, one tooth-glass very strong and thick, a seven-rupee eight-anna filter, and messing by contract at thirty-seven rupees a month. Which last item was extortion. He had no punkah, for a punkah costs fifteen rupees a month; but he slept on the roof of the office with all his wife’s letters under his pillow. Now and again he was asked out to dinner, where he got both a punkah and an iced drink. But this was seldom, for people objected to recognizing a boy who had evidently the instincts of a Scotch tallow-chandler, and who lived in such a nasty fashion. Dicky could not subscribe to any amusement, so he found no amusement except the pleasure of turning over his Bank-book and reading what it said about ‘loans on approved security’. That cost nothing. He remitted through a Bombay Bank, by the way, and the Station knew nothing of his private affairs.