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

been prompted solely by a sense of duty; yet to tell them the truth was beyond him. He pictured the old people in their comfortable South Kensington home; his father always busy over local charities and municipal boards and councils. Major-General Sir[Pg 210] Philip Flint had not shed his energy and public spirit with his retirement from Indian service. Dear old chap!—white haired, courtly, ever ready to listen when people came to him with grievances, real or imaginary; and the mater, with her large circle of old Indian friends, her bazaars, and her tea parties, and the never ending stream of visitors she was always so ready to "put up," people just arrived from India, old friends settled in the country who were intent on a week's shopping; hospitality was in her bones. She would have loved to harbour grandchildren. Philip knew how she regretted that his sister was not the wife of an Indian civilian, or an Indian Army man, though her marriage to a prominent specialist in Harley Street had been highly satisfactory, as Lady Flint admitted; of course, she would say, it was a comfort to feel that Grace was so well provided for, but Grace lived in such a different world from their own—a world composed of public people, people connected with the stage, and literature, and art, politics, the law; no dull old Generals, or members of the Indian Council, and so on for Grace! and there were no babies to come and spend the day with Granny, to be taken to the seaside, to be fussed over and spoiled.... Her great hope now, as she told him in her letters, was that Philip would marry some dear girl whose family, like his own, had served the Indian Government for generations, so that they would all understand each other and carry on the old traditions comfortably, friends in every sense. Grace's friends and in-laws were a sort of nervous terror to poor Lady Flint. What[Pg 211] would be her feelings, questioned her son as he sat dreaming of his mother in his tent, so far away from her, could she know the truth, could she realise that her hopes of such a daughter-in-law would never be fulfilled so long as Stella Crayfield claimed his heart; and that would be for always—till he died....

The pen dropped from his fingers, he leaned back in his chair, drowsy, inert. Jacob was snoring in a corner; from without came the ceaseless murmur of the concourse awaiting his decisions, and on his table lay such piles of papers still to be examined. From sheer weariness he fell asleep and dreamed of Stella, of their hopeless love, and mingled with it all was the memory of Dorothy Baker, vigorous, purposeful, arresting. He seemed to be standing between the two girls at the base of a long flight of steps; they were urging him upward, but he felt tired, slack-limbed, heavy-hearted; he wanted to rest. The steps were so steep, high as a pyramid of Egypt; he could not see the top, it was lost in a haze of luminous light. "Go on, go on," they were saying; they were holding each other's hands, as it seemed to him conspiring to urge him forward. "Go on; they have all gone up in their turn—look! some are already at the top, some have died on the way, some have lost everything, but never mind—go on, go on...."

And he struggled, lifting his feet to the steps that were rough and burning, to find himself in the midst of a ghostly pageant. Near him was a little old man with dim tragic eyes, dressed in a blue coat and knee breeches. Where had he seen him before? There was a world of sorrow, of bitter disappointment in[Pg 212] the small, bowed figure, so pathetic, yet breathing a spirit of wisdom and untiring tenacity. "Who are you, little old man, tell me who you are?" Philip heard himself asking. And faintly, as though borne on the hot west wind, came the whisper of a name—was it Warren Hastings? A wrinkled yellow hand was raised, pointing upward.... A few more steps; now he was pushing through a motley host all strangely garbed. Some of them held up a Cross and a Book, some displayed tokens of trade; there were women with empty arms, weeping for the husbands and the children they had lost, yet glorying in the sacrifice; and a band of people, half English half Indian, who had given their lives in the cause of their great two parents. They were lining the ladder, the stiff, steep ladder.... Someone stepped out from the crowd and laid an encouraging hand on his arm: "Go on, my boy, fight! There is nothing like fighting!" and to his horror Philip saw that the speaker's throat was cut, that he held in his hand a little penknife and a pen, just a quill pen.... Who was it? Who was it had ended his life in a moment of mad impulse, the fine brain snapping with the strain and the fervour of work and responsibility? Ah, now he remembered; it was Clive, great Clive! so noble, so strong in his influence and judgment, in his making of Indian history. Always a fighter, even from his schoolboy days.... What a pitiful end to a brave career! and yet what matter when the task had been accomplished, victories won; at least he had but sought peace and repose in his own way and at his own time. The hand that held the fatal[Pg 213] little knife was also waving him upward, pointing to the top.... With him were others, ghosts from the past, whispering names, magical names, that lived not only in the memories of those of their own race and colour but in the hearts of the people they had served and fought for, and saved; also great fighters with dusky faces and flashing eyes, faithful supporters, fearless and fierce, without whose allegiance all the strife and the sacrifice might have been useless; one in spirit with their leaders, East and West bound together by one high aim—that of justice and right.... "Don't fail us," they chorused. "Keep going, give of your best as we did before you!" And they waved their swords and their scimitars, and the Cross, driving him upward, till at the summit he saw a speck of light that, as he climbed, grew in brilliance, took shape, and formed itself into letters of fire: Star of India."

He cried: "What can I do? I am only one of a crowd, a fly on the wheel!" The sound of his own voice wakened him; he stood up, still dazed, haunted by the fantastic dream. Jacob was snoring in the corner; hoarse voices murmured outside; a swirl of hot dust and wind shook the tent. Mechanically Flint sorted his papers, put on his hat, and went forth into the hot stillness of the evening.

[Pg 214]

CHAPTER III

As was only to be expected, Miss Baker had brought a photographic outfit with her to the Zenana Mission camp. Flint came across her next evening endeavouring to snap a little bevy of "famine wallahs," new arrivals, squatting with their cooking vessels till their turn for attention should come. There seemed to be no extreme cases among them, and though all were obviously weary, in need of food, none were too exhausted to exhibit lively alarm at sight of the Feringhee woman who waved her hands and pointed her black box at them. They hid their faces, turned their backs, jabbered expostulations, finally rose and scattered like so many frightened fowls, leaving their utensils behind them.

Philip halted, just for a moment. He was in a hurry, on his way to take over a large consignment of incoming supplies.

"Illustrations for a book, I suppose?" he said, smiling at her annoyance with the fleeing little crowd; of course she was ignorant of the belief among the rustic population that when a picture is taken a portion of the spirit goes with it, causing calamity. "Take photographs when they're not looking," he advised.

She turned the camera on to him. "Let me take you. At any rate you can stand still, I imagine. I must take something. I don't know how many plates[Pg 215] I haven't wasted over these people. What on earth is the matter with them?"

"I can't stop to explain or to stand still at present. A lot of stuff is arriving and I must go and receive it."

"Come and have tea with us to-morrow, and I'll take you then. Miss Abigail told me to ask you, if you came along. She's over there."

Miss Baker indicated a temporary enclosure in the near distance, where he could see a short, substantial figure trundling about amidst a gathering of women and children.

"Thanks, I'd like to come. I ought to have paid my respects before now." He cantered off, leaving Miss Baker preparing to photograph the abandoned pots and pans.

When the time came for him to fulfil the engagement for the following afternoon he was surprised to realise how eagerly he had looked forward to it. Work and anxiety had slackened a little with the arrival of fresh supplies, and he felt almost light-hearted as he bathed and got into clean flannels; for the first time since he had left Rassih he caught himself singing in his bath. He walked the good half-mile that lay between his own encampment and that of the Zenana Mission lady, Jacob at his heels, well groomed like his master; they were a good-looking English pair.

Miss Baker was outside the living tent photographing Laban, the native Bible teacher, who posed in mingled pride and uneasiness—proud to be taken in his black alpaca coat and pork-pie cap, a shiny-bound Testament in one hand, a bulging umbrella in the other; uneasy because deep down in his mind, for all[Pg 216] his enlightenment, there lurked the same fear that had brought about the flight of the famine wallahs.

"One minute," Miss Baker called out to the approaching visitor; a click, and she raised her head triumphantly. "Thank you, Mr. Laban. That ought to be very good. You shall have some copies to send to your home, and I'll put your picture in my book."

"Mr. Laban" salaamed, and withdrew hurriedly. Then it was Flint's turn. He submitted while Miss Baker took him seated, standing, with Jacob, without Jacob; she fetched a larger camera from her own tent, and talked of head-and-shoulders, profile, full, and three-quarter face portraits. She commanded him to take off his hat.

"But I shall get sunstroke, and you would have to nurse me," he quibbled, rather bored with the performance, though Miss Baker's engrossment amused him, and she was a pleasant vision in her blue linen frock, a bright flush on her cheeks, her ruddy hair curling about her neck and ears and forehead beneath what might have been a boy's straw hat.

"Oh! Miss Abigail would do that!" she assured him. "I hate nursing. I know nothing about it. Come into the shade of the trees behind the tents."

The little camp was pitched close to a couple of mango trees, probably the sole survivors of a once flourishing grove, but as the space surrounding their trunks had been appropriated by the servants as an open-air kitchen, shared by the shigram bullocks, a goat and her kids, a collection of fowls, and a few sprawling children, Flint hesitated, compromised.

[Pg 217]

"Why not the big peepul tree further back?" he suggested.

The tree in question stood solitary and majestic between the camp and the adjacent village, a landmark in the wide flatness, mightier, far more ancient than the mango trees. No doubt it had once shaded a temple long since ruined and decayed.

"But it's such a way off," objected Miss Baker. "We'd better have tea first. The light will be better afterwards, too."

Miss Abigail settled the question for the moment. She emerged from the living tent, a stout, ungainly body, grey-haired, middle-aged, browned by exposure and innumerable hot weathers. But there was character in the blunt, homely features, courage in the small light eyes; a woman to be trusted and esteemed in spite of her unfortunate appearance. Philip liked her instinctively. She reminded him of a cottage loaf, rather overbaked, all knobs and crusty protuberances, spreading and wholesome.

Miss Baker introduced them with a proprietary air that included them both, and they entered the tent where tea was laid carelessly on an unsteady camp table. The spout of the teapot was broken, the plates were all chips and cracks, there was a pat of Danish butter, goat's milk, some slabs of thick toast, and a tin of jam roughly opened with some blunt implement.

He glanced at Miss Baker, saw her nose wrinkle ever so slightly, as though in