Alice Perrin

“ How slack I feel. Dances are the devil!" Maud Matthews yawned and stretched amid a nest of cushions in a long chair. "I'm sure I must look about sixty. Do I, Stella?"
She appealed to her friend who at that moment joined her in the veranda of the Swiss Chalet-like habitation perched on the hill-side. Clear midday sunshine blazed over the terraced garden thick with dahlias, crimson and purple, orange-red, yellow, a wild, luxuriant growth. Pots of chrysanthemums fringed the veranda steps, an autumn odour pervaded the atmosphere, a smell of ferns and moss and pungent evaporation. ”

“ Now they were out of the garden, out on a common that was ablaze with gorse—the spongy turf was silvered with dew, the air fragrant and fresh; birds' voices, the distant lowing of cattle, echoed in the sweet stillness.
"But some day you will marry," prophesied Colonel Crayfield, in a tone of encouragement.
"Marry!" derided Stella. "Who is there for me to marry?" She thought of Miss Spurt and of the young porter at the railway station. ”

“ She was a wicked creature! Oh, why had she married Robert? Why had she not stayed at The Chestnuts with grandmamma and the aunts, ignorant, safe, however dull? Nothing but evil had come of her yearnings for India, and there was no one to whom she could turn for help, for advice, for sympathy.
In trembling haste, but without purpose, she put on a hat and went out into the compound. Involuntarily she glanced around for Sher Singh, but for a wonder he was nowhere to be seen, and impulsively she decided to call on Mrs. Antonio—anything to escape from the harassing fancies that beset her. ”

“ Stella Carrington, for one, infinitely preferred the new seats. Though no longer a child—seventeen last birthday—she could never quite forget the hours of misery she had endured in the old pew; the smell of dust and hassocks, the feeling of captivity, the desperate impulse that would assail her to kick open the door, to fling a prayer-book over the barrier, to jump up on the seat; only the fear of grandmamma's wrath had restrained her from such antics. ”

“ The servants went off to their quarters in the compound for the customary midday meal and sleep, save for a couple of peons on duty who snoozed in the front veranda, and the ever present shift of punkah pullers. Since the downpour of rain the west wind had ceased to roar and rage over the land; Nature seemed motionless, as though waiting in patient expectance for the swollen clouds to discharge their burden of water.
Stella, torn with emotion, wandered from room to room, unable to rest, Jacob pattering at her heels. ”

“ 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." ”

“ The culprit was sent to the station in the village wagonette to meet her godfather, and she welcomed the distraction, awkward though it would be to face Colonel Crayfield in the uncomfortable circumstances. The situation struck her as almost grotesque; here she was, driving through the familiar lanes in the late July sunshine, as an outcast and a sinner, to meet an old gentleman who had been summoned to sit in judgment upon her! And, after all, she had done nothing worse, nothing half so bad, as Maud Verrall; and Maud had not been expelled from school as a sort of leper. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Charles's formal, austere old mother, his uninteresting sisters, the undrinkable wine, Charles's child of six or seven years old, who had sniffed and fidgeted and refused to make friends, and was no different from other children of her age; he even remembered that the village was a long distance from the station, and he hoped that neither of the Carrington spinsters had come to the station to meet him.
Stella, standing expectant on the platform, saw a powerful-looking man, clean shaven, blunt-featured, inclined to stoutness, who moved ponderously—rather like a big Chinaman, a mandarin. ”

“ Take what you can get out of life without losing your place in the ranks of the righteous, or you'll be trampled into the dust. Love as much as you like, but love wisely. Bide your time, Stella, my child; you'll forget this lover, whoever he is, and there'll be plenty more. Break hearts all over the place, they'll mend soon enough, and you'll have had your amusement without paying for it. ”

“ Stella! the granddaughter, the niece, the child they had cherished and guarded and reared with such care—to think that she should have been detected in a vulgar intrigue, and could no longer be harboured at Greystones lest she should contaminate her schoolfellows! It was almost too terrible to contemplate, and for once the three ladies permitted themselves the freedom of natural behaviour. Augusta very nearly stormed; Ellen wept bitterly; grandmamma said: "Like mother, like daughter," in an awful voice, and "What's bred in the bone will out in the flesh." The household was steeped in gloom. ”

“ Yet was the present order and prosperity doomed to pass in its turn, leaving even less traces of its influence than just ruins and remains and reminders? Would India seethe again with tyranny, murder, persecution, general insecurity of property and person, creed up against creed, custom against custom, avarice stalking the land to block and destroy all progress? Flint, she knew, feared for India's future, owing to the Western system of education that was being pursued without forethought, without judicious provision for employment that would guard against disaster. ”

“ As Stella and Sir George moved off together Maud and her husband went by; Dick Matthews had arrived at Surima the previous evening, and Bobbie Nash, as some wag had remarked, was nursing his nose in the background for the time being; the only individual, perhaps, who was not altogether enjoying the picnic.
"Don't attempt to follow us!" called Maud as she passed Stella and the General, and she looked back at them over her shoulder, pulled down her mouth, cast up her eyes, then tucked her arm into Dick's and stepped out beside him with an air of exaggerated virtue. ”

“ These letters, though Philip sometimes felt it an effort to answer them, were welcome during the dreary routine of duty, as inspection followed inspection, journey upon journey, by road or by rail, from one famine-smitten area to another. The battle with death and want continued through the long, hot days and nights, until, as though with belated compassion, nature at last stepped in, and a strong monsoon swept up from the coast, allaying epidemics, washing away disease and dirt, reviving energy and hope ”

“ Crossing a bridge, they rode to a village where Colonel Crayfield wished to make some inquiries connected with his administration; and Stella watched, keenly interested, while the headman, a patriarch with a long, henna-dyed beard, hurried forth to make his report, followed by a rabble of peasants who gathered at a respectful distance to gape at the spectacle of an Englishwoman on horseback. Now and then a naked child would run boldly into the open, only to be hauled back shrieking by relations whose reproaches were as piercing as the culprit's lamentations. ”

“ Augusta, the carving knife poised in her hand, looked at her mother; Ellen stared at her plate and extracted her salts-bottle with stealth from her pocket; Stella found her own gaze drawn helplessly to the expressionless old countenance at the end of the table, and, despite her new-born courage, she quailed.
"My dear," said grandmamma smoothly, "you had better go and lie down. The weather has upset you. I think you require a powder." ”

“ More than ever did she feel that congenial occupation of mind was a necessity, that if she could not satisfy her craving for knowledge of the country she would rather have stayed on at The Chestnuts. How could she hope to understand India, as far as it was possible for an Englishwoman to do so, till she was able to talk to the people? She had already discovered that India for its own sake did not interest Robert. He worked hard because he liked work. ”

“ To Stella it was like all she had heard about drowning, when a multitude of impressions and memories were said to invade the mind in a miraculously short space of time: Maud Verrall and her love adventures and engagement; the spotty youth outside the Greystones gate; young Capper the farmer; the lumber room at The Chestnuts, and her thirst for India ”

“ Privately Stella did not particularly care. "Don't let us look forward."
Yet his words gave her a sense of depression after all the gaiety and the glamour of the picnic luncheon [Pg 267] and the surface excitement of the tournament. She was tired, conscious of reaction; her spirits fell. She would have preferred to sit silent, listening to the music of the waterfall, the cheerful chirrup of the crickets, to be soothed by the scenery and the soft evening sunshine, the peace and the remoteness of the surroundings. ”

“ And all this though she was no older than her former playmate, [Pg 3] Stella Carrington, whose skirts even now barely reached her ankles, whose hair still hung in a plait, whose hat, in her own opinion, was more suited to a child in a perambulator than to a girl of seventeen. No wonder she felt stifled, cramped! She realised why the memory of her tortures in the old box-like pew had recurred to her mind; and then suddenly the hymn that she knew so well and had sung on such countless Sundays, paying no special heed to the words, struck her as the acme of hypocrisy. ”

“ In his mind Philip called to her: "Stella! Stella!"; he felt as if the whole room must hear him.... The pair halted at the opposite side of the room. The man was bending his iron-grey head towards her; there was force, personality in the well set-up figure and the bold features that but just escaped coarseness. He was taking Stella's fan from her hand with a familiar, proprietary air that to Philip was maddening; he lost hold of his high intentions and crossed the room deliberately, making his way among the dancers regardless of their indignant protests, the collisions he caused ”

“ This line of conversation was pursued whenever Stella was invited to The Court as company for Maud, and when Maud visited her friend at The Chestnuts. What, oh! what would have been the feelings of grandmamma and the aunts could they have overheard such vulgar, pernicious talk? To women of their type and upbringing this dawning of the most powerful of all instincts would have seemed a matter for the severest censure—not a natural symptom to be guided into safe and open channels, but a danger to be dealt with as sinful, corrupt. ”

“ Stella knew well enough that Maud loved her husband, and that once he was on the spot she would be happy in his company, though in his absence the attentions of a herd of irresponsible young men was as the breath of her nostrils. ”

“ He wants to get over it too. I don't say he has, any more than you have, altogether, but you both will, given the chance. Isn't it best? You can't deny it, Stella."
"Oh, Maud, what have you done?" Stella's voice rang sharp with pain and reproach. Her disappointment was poignant. She had expected some message, she hardly knew what, but something of solace and reassurance, at the least that Philip wanted to see her alone. She had never dreamed that he would not wish to see her. ”

“ I'm afraid you would not be much good as a missionary or a governess. What do you think yourself?"
"I shouldn't care. I'd do anything to get to India."
"Well, we shall see. Don't be too hopeful," he looked at his watch. "What time is breakfast?"
"Half-past eight—prayers first."
"Then step out!" Enough had been said for the moment.
"Oh! dear," complained Stella, "what a bother things are; you are as bad as Aunt Augusta about being in time. Why don't you marry Aunt Augusta?"
"She mightn't appreciate India," he said with a grin.
Grandmamma seldom came down to breakfast. ”