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

an area comprising numerous scattered villages, never prosperous, now on the verge of absolute ruin. Transport was the chief difficulty; it must be some time before the light railway that was being laid from the nearest junction could be completed. Cartage and bullocks were scarce, and though a certain stock of food and necessaries were already to hand, there were many to be fed, clothed, accommodated, and the numbers increased day and night. The hospital sheds, in charge of a native doctor, were filling rapidly; further medical help would be needed. Flint had been thankful to hear from his senior subordinate that recently a Zenana Mission lady had arrived with a fair supply of comforts. He was familiar with the invaluable work of such women; it was beyond all praise. As yet he had not had the time to visit the little encampment pointed out to him on the far side of the works; all day he had been too busy superintending transport, checking stores of grain, considering applications for financial assistance, while it was his duty, as well, to detect and guard against imposition, to sift demands, even to appear callous, that the ready cunning of those who sought to benefit by help intended for their suffering brethren might be frustrated. Only this afternoon he had been nearly outdone by an old fellow who presented himself among a gang of emaciated villagers clamouring that he had no plough-bullocks, no seed, nothing—that he and his descendants were ruined.... At first Flint had listened with sympathy until[Pg 185] something in the demeanour of the bystanders aroused his suspicions; a few of the less distressed members of the crowd were covertly smiling as though in amused admiration of the patriarch's powers of persuasion, and a little adroit inquiry disclosed the fact that the supplicant was none other than the moneylender of the village whence they had all come.

In contrast with this example of rascality a man of low caste in obvious need had stoutly refused assistance other than in the form of a loan from the Government to be repaid with reasonable interest when times should improve. So it had gone on from the first—patience and pride, heroic endurance, a fine sense of fair play, in company with avarice, fraud, evil intention. Ignorance, stupidity, superstition had to be reckoned with as well, allowed for; the problems were endless, for, while the people must be tended and fed, money could not be wasted or misapplied.

At last Flint laid down his pen and leaned back in his chair to relax muscles and mind. Had he been called upon to define his condition, he would have summed it up simply in the one word "cooked." He lit a cigarette and allowed his thoughts liberty, it was seldom he permitted them to dwell upon the past, but to-night he was too tired for self-discipline. On leaving Rassih he had volunteered for famine work as a desperate antidote to his sickness of heart and spirit; this in face of the knowledge that the decision had probably cost him a chance of important advancement, but the future for him had been shorn of attraction, and the sight of wretchedness and want, his passionate pity for the helpless, the strain and the[Pg 186] stress of the work had, he knew, preserved him from despair as no official promotion could have preserved him at the time.

All the same Stella had never been far from his memory, and to-night she seemed to him painfully near. Again he went over that last scene in the Commissioner's house, saw Crayfield standing grim and contemptuous in the big drawing-room, Stella weeping and helpless, himself worsted, ashamed, without honest claim to defence. "Slink, you young hound!" The sentence forced itself backwards and forwards through his brain, hitting his pride each time like a shameful blow.... In his weak selfishness what misery he had brought upon himself and the woman he loved, would never cease to love. Where was she now? What was she doing? He pictured her at the piano accompanying the self-satisfied vocal performance of her husband! He visioned the light on her hair, the delicate outline of her neck, and he writhed as the memory tortured his heart. What devilish fate had taken him to Rassih! Yet he had a feeling that in any case he and Stella must ultimately have met, and that some day, somehow, they must meet again. The refrain of a cheaply sentimental little ballad he had heard her sing came back to him: "Some day, some day, some day, I shall meet you"—he could almost hear the clear, chorister-like voice.... Of a certainty the day would come, and then? He smiled with a sweet bitterness as he recalled her faith in his work, in his usefulness to India; she had said: "Without men like you the wheel would not go round." Well, he was doing his best in his own way[Pg 187] to act up to her trust; and for her sake he would stick to the wheel, humbly, unswervingly, though the zest and the savour of ambition had gone, wiped out by unlawful love....

A cold muzzle crept into his hand that hung listless at his side—Jacob, diffident, sensitive, asking attention; Jacob had loved her too, with all his tender dog-heart. On that terrible evening Jacob had sat shivering on the edge of her skirt, conscious of trouble, until he followed his miserable master from the room.

Suddenly he became aware that someone was speaking; he looked up to see an apologetic peon standing at his elbow.

"Sahib, there is a memsahib without."

For one wild second he fancied it might be Stella, his mind was so full of her. Had she fled to him, sure of his love and protection, willing to give herself into his care? He felt as though aroused from a distressing dream, perhaps to find that all the pain and the longing had passed——

"A memsahib is without," repeated the peon resentfully. "She will not depart, though this slave hath told her that the sahib is busy."

Flint rose mechanically, his reason flouting the fancy that Stella could be "the memsahib without." A tall figure was framed in the doorway of the tent.

"Yes?" he said with tentative politeness.

"I won't keep you long." The voice was brisk and high. "I've come from the Zenana Mission camp, where I'm helping Miss Abigail on behalf of the Charitable Relief Fund Committee."

[Pg 188]

"Indeed!" murmured Philip, inwardly apprehensive. The Charitable Relief Fund Committee sometimes added heavily to his work and responsibilities, admirable though its purpose, welcome though its help.

"Yes, I've been hoping all day to get hold of you, but you were always somewhere else."

"Please come in." He glanced around dubiously, for the interior of the tent seemed hardly fit for the reception of a lady; files and papers heaped on the table, on the chairs, even on the floor; dust, cigarette ends, everywhere; camp equipage, boxes, books and boots, in a hopeless jumble.

"I'm afraid it's all very untidy," he added as he cleared a seat.

The brisk, high voice responded: "What does it matter! Who can hope to be tidy in these horrible circumstances. I feel very untidy myself."

She did not look it, whatever she felt. Here was no typical Zenana Mission female, but a long-limbed, well-built girl, garbed in a neat holland frock, brown shoes, wash-leather gloves, and an obviously English felt hat, bound with a blue puggaree, that proclaimed itself "Indispensable for travel in the East." All very plain and serviceable, but to an experienced eye undoubtedly expensive.

To Flint's astonishment she took off her hat, carelessly, as any man might have done, and dropped it beside her chair. He saw that her hair was cropped short, a thick mop of curling, fox-coloured hair; that her eyes, clear and shining, were grey (and truculent), that her freckled irregular nose and rather large mouth[Pg 189] had a certain charm. He felt faintly scandalised when she proceeded to help herself calmly to a cigarette from his box, lighting it with an accustomed air. Smoking among ladies was not general in India at that period. Seated, she crossed her legs, showing slim ankles and neatly-turned calves in brown stockings.

"Well," she began, "I thought someone ought to come and tell you that a lot of people have bolted from the relief works."

"Yes, I know——"

"And you don't care, I suppose," she interrupted.

He stared at her, puzzled; why this unprovoked attack? "We shall get them back. Perhaps you don't realise the reason——"

Again she broke in: "It's because you officials inspire no trust!"

What on earth was the matter with the girl—was she a lunatic?

"I'm afraid superstition is more to blame," he told her patiently. "Some mischief-maker among them has probably started the report that they are all to be murdered in order to extract oil from their bodies for medicinal purposes."

"What nonsense!"

He wondered if she meant the report, or his explanation.

"Of course it's nonsense. But that kind of thing will happen, even nowadays. Superstition dies hard in India. Coolies often bolt wholesale when some important work has to be started, because in old times, before our occupation of the country, a human victim[Pg 190] was nearly always buried beneath the foundations of any big building as a sop to the gods!"

He could see she did not believe him. His anger rose. "How long have you been out here?" he inquired.

"Quite long enough to discover how little the people are considered. I think the Government ought to be hanged. Not a penny will you spend—on this famine, for example—without exacting the uttermost farthing in return. You make these wretched creatures work for a mere pittance, you force them into poor-houses when you know it lowers their self-respect, and many of them die because they would rather die than accept relief in the way you administer it!" She paused, breathless.

"And how do you propose it should be administered—indiscriminately, and no questions asked? That would be rather hard on the taxpayers, and bad for the people themselves. I think even the Charitable Relief Fund Committee would hardly work on those lines."

She ignored his argument. "It's appalling," she went on heatedly, "to find how badly private charity is needed. I came out a few weeks ago to see what I could do to help, and I'm horrified. Where would all these unfortunate people be without the Charitable Relief Fund!"

"If it comes to that," he retorted, "where would they be without all the Government machinery that is kept ready to be set going directly scarcity becomes serious—the means of transport, the linking up with unaffected Provinces, the loans for seed and cattle.[Pg 191] Good Heavens, you can have no conception of the work."

She opened her mouth to speak, but he stopped her with a peremptory gesture, and continued quickly: "Private charity is of the utmost value in a calamity of this kind, and we are only too thankful for it, especially in remote regions, but personal sacrifice and hard work isn't entirely confined to the non-official. The help would be simply a drop in the ocean if the way hadn't been prepared. Try to be just, Miss——"

He waited interrogatively.

"Baker—Dorothy Baker"—she waved her cigarette. "You may have heard of my father, Lord Redgate?"

So here was the solution of the girl's extraordinary antagonism. She was the daughter of a new-made nobleman whose apparent object in life, to judge by his speeches, was to disparage British administration in India, to discount the long years of effort and experience, to undermine confidence in honest rule. No doubt such an undertaking engendered a nice sense of superiority and importance that blinded its owner to the truth, if his eyes were not shut deliberately. This obtrusive young woman was clearly imbued with her parent's particular form of conceit. He would not trouble to wrangle with her further.

"Oh! yes," he said indifferently; "we have all heard of your father. Did he object to your coming out here alone?"

"Object? Of course not. He believes in the freedom of the individual. And if he had objected I[Pg 192] should be here all the same. I always do as I please."

"And it pleased you to come out and do famine work. How kind of you!"

She shot him a glance of contemptuous suspicion. He understood all that the glance implied; as a British official in India he was an enemy of the people, a bureaucrat, battening on the revenue wrung from a poverty-stricken land, one of the guilty gang that kept Indians from the possession of their country. Yet she seemed in no hurry to quit the presence of such a tyrant and oppressor; evidently she found his chair comfortable, was enjoying his cigarettes, and perhaps she was not altogether averse to a little change of companionship? It was conceivable that the privilege of constant intercourse with her