Star of India by Alice Perrin (ereader ebook txt) 📗

of the table staff; while Stella, unable for very fatigue to swallow food, sipped her tea and looked about her with dazed interest.... What high walls, washed a pale brick colour; how bare the great room, just a big table and clumsy wooden chairs with arms and cane seats. On the floor was a sort of thick drugget; it felt hard beneath her feet. A wood fire had been lighted in a wide open grate; it smelt fragrant, comforting.... Stella's eyes drooped; the white-clad figures of the servants grew blurred to her vision; Robert himself, still eating heartily, seemed to recede in a mist. Then suddenly there arose, from somewhere outside, a succession of blood-curdling yells, and she started, wide awake, laid hold of Robert's arm. "Oh, what is it?" she cried in alarm. "Someone is being killed!"

He laughed and patted her hand reassuringly. "It's only hyenas and jackals," he told her; "you'll hear it every night—soon get used to it."

[Pg 77]

Hyenas and jackals! Wild beasts she would have gazed at in a zoo with wondering interest were here, close by, and no more to be heeded than if they had been stray dogs! She remembered that this was India; the weird noise fired her fancy, and mingled with her dreams that night.

She awoke next morning to a very different sound, the cooing of doves; bright, hard sunlight streamed through the long door-windows. She found she had slept late; Champa, bringing tea, said the Sahib had already gone out, had left orders that the memsahib was not to be disturbed. Then she bathed—in a bathroom that resembled a prison cell; the tub was of zinc, and there was a row of red earthenware vessels for the cold water. Stella thought them very artistic; how Mrs. Daw would love to paint on them, paint storks and sprays of apple-blossom, and fill them with dried bulrushes—the very thing for a bazaar!... But there was nothing that could by any possibility be considered artistic about the bedroom: the beds were just wooden frames, not even enamelled or painted; two enormous cupboards stood against the walls; the fireplace was a cavern; the dressing-table was more suited to a kitchen; and there were a few clumsy chairs matching those of the dining-room. It was with a slight feeling of desolation that she began to explore the house; in the drawing-room was a certain amount of wicker furniture, with loose cretonne covers of an ugly pattern, a pair of handsome screens, and two or three richly carved tables; the dining-room she avoided, having caught sight of[Pg 78] servants laying the table; she felt shy of encountering them. She peeped into other rooms, all of them equally bare and enormous, comfortless—even the one she supposed must be Robert's study, since it had a business-like table in the centre, covered with papers.

And yet there was something exhilarating in the airiness, in the sense of space, the hard brilliance of the sunshine outside, the unfamiliar scents and sounds that seemed to float everywhere. Her spirits rose as she wandered out on to a balcony almost wide enough for a dog-cart, and gazed over a limitless landscape studded with low bushes, and in the foreground a few ruins of what might have been mosques or dwellings or tombs. The flat country, stretching for miles to the dusty horizon, was impressive in its very persistence and sameness, that was without relief, save for here and there a pillar of dust that swirled upwards, waltzing madly for a moment as though demon-possessed. Then she watched a more steady dust-cloud, of a different form, that was wending its way slowly among the clumps of scrub and stunted bushes; and presently there came into view a string of camels led by a great beast hung with gaudy trappings, ridden by a figure swathed in white garments, heavily turbaned. On they came, a silent, stately procession, moving as though to the rhythm of a funeral march, men striding beside them in flowing garments or seated between the great bales slung on either side of the camels' humps. One or two baby camels shambled along by their mothers—awkward, woolly creatures, the size of colts, with legs that appeared too long for their bodies.

[Pg 79]

Fascinated, Stella watched the cavalcade till it vanished in a cloud of dust; then she walked to the end of the balcony and looked over the parapet, down a drop that made her feel giddy. There was nothing below but heaps of rough stones and bricks, coarse grass, and thorn trees. Again she glanced over the waterless waste, burning drab and drear in the hot sunshine, and suddenly she thought of the Common at home, of the green turf, the gorse and the bracken, the blue distances; she wondered what grandmamma and the aunts were doing at that moment; she remembered the smooth lawn and the cedar tree, the little stream.... The unwelcome pang of home-sickness was discomforting, but it did not last long. As she turned away the realisation that she was in India, that the life she so desired had begun, came back to her forcibly; and soon she was finding pleasure in the garden, in watching the pair of small white bullocks that drew water from a well in a big leather bucket like a gigantic sponge-bag; in strolling among the shrubs that flamed with blossom, scarlet, yellow, pink. There was an orange grove, too, with real fruit on the trees gleaming golden among glossy foliage. Flights of green parrots flew screaming above her head; gay-crested little birds hopped and scuffled in the dust at her feet; small grey squirrels scampered in every direction. Was there anything at The Chestnuts to compare with it all?

Santa-Sahib was in good humour when he returned. They had a wonderful breakfast at midday: a curry of chicken, with snowy rice boiled to[Pg 80] perfection and served separately, not as a border round some réchauffé, which was old Betty's conception of a curry. Other dishes were numerous, and fruit was in abundance—oranges, custard apples, loquats; also delicious little scones. Afterwards Robert took her into the drawing-room, and told her she could spend what she liked on it; said he had ordered a piano from Calcutta; it ought to arrive in a day or two now. He was sure she would wish to have pretty chintz, and silk cushions, and new curtains. When she asked him if it would not all cost too much money, he laughed and kissed her, called her his baby. Sher Singh was summoned, and was bidden to send for a silk merchant from the bazaar, and to engage a "durzey"—a male person whose duty it would be to sit in the veranda all day and make curtains and cushions and chair covers, and anything else the memsahib might desire. Stella felt like a princess in a fairy tale.

During the next few days the ladies of the station called on the Commissioner's bride. Mrs. Cuthell, wife of the Deputy Commissioner, came first; she was a homely human being, anxious to be kind; but her good-natured intentions were leavened by a natural resentment that her husband's superior in the service should have married anyone so junior in years to herself. She said she hoped Mrs. Crayfield would not find her position too difficult; of course, she would have much to learn.

"Hitherto," she remarked, "I have been the principal lady!" She forced a smile. "Now I shall be obliged to take a back seat! We were all so [Pg 81]surprised when we heard that Colonel Crayfield was bringing out a wife. We had looked on him as a confirmed bachelor. Certainly we did not expect a wife as youthful as yourself!"

"It's a fault I shall grow out of, perhaps," pleaded Stella meekly; and afterwards Mrs. Cuthell told Mrs. Piggott, the police officer's wife, that she thought the new bride was rather a cheeky chit. Mrs. Piggott made haste to ascertain the truth of this opinion for herself. Stella found her a more entertaining visitor than Mrs. Cuthell, though perhaps less likeable; Mrs. Cuthell, she felt, meant to be motherly, whereas Mrs. Piggott, who also seemed quite middle-aged to Stella, assumed the attitude of a contemporary. She had sharp eyes, a sharp tongue, and endless stories to tell of the other folk in the station; how the Paynes (Post Office) brought up their children so badly, talked nothing but Hindustani to them; what a lot of money the Taylors (Canals) wasted, getting their stores from Bombay, and things out from home—if they ever paid for them at all! And had Mrs. Crayfield seen the Antonios—Dr. Antonio and his wife and daughter? Old Antonio had been an apothecary at the time of the Mutiny, and had somehow hung on to the position of Civil Surgeon ever since—he had been years and years at Rassih; the Government was only too glad to leave him there, regardless of the feelings of the rest of the station. Why, they were practically natives! And it was believed they smoked hookahs—certainly their house smelt like it. Pussy, the daughter (no chicken), had been doing her best to marry young Smithson,[Pg 82] the Taylors' assistant; but she, Mrs. Piggott, had warned the young man, with the result that just as the Antonios were expecting him to propose every moment, he had fled into camp. If only the Antonios could know! They would never speak to her again.

"And no great loss," added Mrs. Piggott, "except that in such a small station it's a pity to have rows. Then there are the Fosters (railway people); they are inclined to give themselves airs because they have a little money of their own, which is unusual in India. But you will see them all for yourself, my dear. Of course, you will come to the Club? We all play tennis there every evening, and have tea and pegs, and look at the English papers."

"I suppose so," said Stella doubtfully; "but my husband hasn't said anything about it."

"You must cure him of his dull habits. Hitherto he has only had some of the men to play tennis with him on his own courts, which, of course, are first-rate, but it's rather unsociable of him. He must not expect you to hold yourself aloof from the rest of us. Now if he won't bring you himself to the Club just let me know, and I can always pick you up on my way."

Mrs. Piggott saw herself envied by the station as young Mrs. Crayfield's bosom friend. She took the first opportunity of telling Mrs. Cuthell, whom she detested, that Mrs. Crayfield had been perfectly sweet to her when she called, had asked her advice on all kinds of points, and had taken her into her bedroom to show her the trousseau and the jewellery, etc.[Pg 83]—all of which, by the way, was untrue; but Mrs. Piggott considered the falsehoods worth while, since it annoyed Mrs. Cuthell and made her jealous.

Stella thought she would like to belong to the Club; but, to her surprise, when Robert came to the drawing-room for tea, and she mentioned the subject, he said he did not wish her to "make herself cheap"; he disapproved of the Club gatherings—a lot of gossiping women and silly young men. Once a week—whichever day she liked to select—she could be "At Home" to the whole station. Their own tennis courts were in excellent order, and there was no occasion to become intimate with anyone.

"You will return their calls, of course," he continued, "and we must give a couple of dinner parties, and there will be your weekly reception. That will be quite enough. Now go and get on your habit and we'll have a ride."

Stella obeyed, feeling rather crestfallen. The programme sounded dull. Was she never to make any friends? And what was Robert's objection to all these people? Surely she and Robert were not so superior themselves as to warrant such splendid isolation! However, for the moment she made no protest; the recollection of her husband's violence on the night of their arrival was still with her; she feared to provoke him. But there would seem to be drawbacks to the position of "chief lady of the station," according to Robert's idea of its fulfilment!

She forgot her vexation in the delight of mounting the handsome chestnut mare that was to be her own property, and in the softening sunshine they[Pg 84] skirted the high wall of the city and trotted along the unmetalled footway of the main road beneath splendid trees planted at equal distances apart. They passed a few compounds with thatched bungalows standing well back from the dusty road; these dwellings looked humble in comparison with the palace on the old fort walls that commanded the huddled bazaar and the scattered European habitations beyond. They met native vehicles