Flora Annie Webster Steel

“ Wind sufficient to warrant a trifle of ballast, perhaps, to these light creatures of his. He had one afloat already, on trial, just above the top of the houses, where, gay in the sunlight, it hung tilted to leeward almost motionless. Lateefa tested the strain on the cord with a finger, as if it had been a violin string, and as he did so his high trilling voice warbled over one of those ingenious versicles that are more of a puzzle than of poetry--seeing that almost every letter in them has a mathematical value--which the idle in India love to turn and twist. ”

“ Miss Leezie fell on her knees and shrieked.
'Huzoor! I can prove her thief. She hath pearls like the Lady-sahib's pearls. She offered them to me as a bribe to take her into my house this very day, and I, dissembling, said I would see, and kept the pearls to show the police. I have them. She is thief for sure!'
'Touch me not! I am no thief; they are mine!' panted Sobrai as the policeman dragged her forward. Then, as the sense of indignity came to her, she fought desperately. 'I am no thief--I am no common woman. Touch me not, I am Sobrai of the Nawâb's house! The pearls are his. ”

“ So, one morning, Lesley drove down to the Garden. Jack Raymond met her, riding, at the gate, and together they strolled along that wide cross of water and marble and flowers, and climbed the dark stair which led to the little square of roof and the little slip of room that were only just large enough for Auntie Khôjee and the helplessness for which she cared; for Khôjee, helpless as she was, had always stood between some one still more helpless and the buffets of fate, and would have felt lost without the occupation. ”

“ She caught Sa'adut to her sharply, making that claim her own; for now, thinking only of his helplessness, his cries hurt her physically, making prudence impossible.
'Yea, give it him, Jehân Aziz, Son of Kings!--give it him in jest for a while. It is easy for a father to steal his son's right from him while he sleeps!'
Jehân sprang to his feet with a fearful curse; for the tempest of ungovernable anger which had come to that elemental group in the still sunshine, had brought with it the usual sense of personal outrage on personal virtue which alone makes quarrel possible. ”

“ There was a light-hearted laugh round the table which, for the time being, focussed all the qualities which go to make empire; not the least of which is the faculty for such laughter. Laughter which comes to the West, sometimes, to be celebrated in song and story, like that of the ball before Waterloo, or of the French noblesse in the conciergerie, but which is ever present in India, giving to its Anglo-Indian society an almost wistful frivolity, studious in its gay refusal to take anything aux grands sérieux till the stern necessity of doing so stares it in the face. ”

“ Perhaps once or twice a day some gad-about neighbour in passing would look in, and for half an hour or so after she had left, Noormahal's big brooding black eyes would be on the door of the women's courtyard, with a fierce fear in them. The fear lest she should see the shadow of another new-comer on the angled brick screen before the door; the screen built on purpose to show such warning shadows. In other words, the fear that those strange eyes should have thought it worth while to send other eyes to look on a sight that would not be long seen, either in sunshine or shadow. ”

“ With an easier code and a greater inclination to scorn it, Sobrai Begum was finding the same thing in the half-empty bazaar, where she had been left in charge of a toothless old hag who had once enjoyed the doubtful dignity of Miss Leezie's position, but who, having grown too old for the post, had remained on in the house as a domestic drudge of the most exemplary pattern. The poor old soul, however, suffered from an all too intimate acquaintance with the gutters as they lay reeking in the chill dawns, when those for whom she worked lay still curled up in their wadded quilts. ”

“ Khâdjee had succumbed to sorrow, and sought seclusion. Even Jehân had gone; the last to go, save Lateefa, who lingered half-indifferent, half-compassionate, impatient of poor Khôjee's tears over a loss that had been inevitable for months, yet not liking to leave them to be shed in absolute solitude.
'Thou art kind, Lateef,' she said at last. ''Tis woman's work, not man's: yet without thee, brother----' Her soft old eyes met his, and the tears in them seemed to find their way into his heart and melt it. ”

“ And now the races were over, where Jehân said he had lost all. All the more reason the ring should come quickly. So, when Sobrai, from above, challenged Jehân's leer by peeping and nodding, there was no need for Aunt Khôjee to sidle between the mistress of the house and the flagrant impropriety, like a hen between her ducklings and the water. Noormahal would have allowed more insult than that to pass unnoticed. She sate passive, brooding, wondering when Jehân would begin on the subject. And all around the group the still sunshine burdened the half-ruined courtyard with a cruel light. ”

“ He looked savagely round the glowing gloom--for the attractions of a musical ride by torchlight kept even the shopkeepers late, and so the cavernous shadows of their squalid shops were still unlit--and swore under his breath at India, and all its ways and works. No fun, no music-halls, no anything. Nothing worth being wicked about, even.
He gulped down the vile mixture of flat soda and bad brandy, turned his chair round to face the houses, and cocking his feet up on the plinth before the stairs which led up to Miss Leezie's balconies, settled himself to wait till the bazaar became lively. ”

“ Lo! canst thou forgive thy mother, child; thy mother who denounced thee, not knowing that thou hadst returned--that thou hadst come back?'
'Come back?' he echoed.
Her face was as the face of an angel over the sinner that repenteth. She reached her thin arm from her shroud, and laid her finger on his lip.
'Hush, child! Let it be forgotten. Let it be as if it had never been. Thou canst tell me, after, why thou saidst no word. Yet Krishn, how could I tell? But for the old pujâri who laid the caste mark on thy forehead again, I might never have known.'
He understood then ”

“ Noormahal could not fail to see the reassuring message there when she woke, and began to wonder where Auntie Khôjee had gone.
As she straightened herself from stooping to the padlock, she felt, giddily, that she had locked herself out of life. She had but a few hours left of seclusion, and then--the streets.
But those few hours she might surely claim. So she closed and barred the wicket in the outer door, and dragging a string bed into the scant shade cast by the naubut khana, found rest for her aching limbs. ”

“ So, many a one might have been dressed, so they might have danced, and flirted, and chattered, on the very night when John Ellison ended that gay life and called them to death, with a brief order to close in on the Garden Mound and defend the flag that floated from its central tower. And Grace, more imaginative, more fanciful than Lesley, found her thoughts wandering more than once in a wonder whether some call to show themselves worthy of that past might not come again, come there in the midst of the lights and the laughter. ”

“ The people know their friends, know themselves safe! Not that the tales of poison at the hospitals are true; but what will you? These poor folks are ignorant, and we have promised----'
What the promise was, Khôjee did not catch; nor did she care to know. All her thoughts were with Khâdjee's pink satin trousers. Therefore she felt as if the whole round world had slipped from under her feet when Mittun, the pawnbroker, from the midst of the miscellaneous collection of rubbish in which he sat like a tame magpie possessed by the nest-building instinct, told her calmly that he had just sold them! ”

“ Chris gave back the stare defiantly. 'That is my wife, Thakoor-sahib.'
The old chieftain stood bewildered for a moment; then he gave a scornful laugh.
'Men of thy sort are no friends to India, baboo-jee,' he said. So, with a twirl of the straight grey moustache, he strode away, leaving Chris more lonely than ever.
So absolutely alone, that the sheer physical pain of his loneliness drove him on towards the sound of laughter and voices, the popping of champagne corks, which came from the marble-screened verandah where the refreshment-tables stood. ”

“ The jingle of anklets brought a man's face to a neighbouring balcony. A face hollow-cheeked, haggard, with dissipation written on it. Brought thither by curiosity, it remained in approval of the studiously-posed figure in the creased shawl. Jehân's face, too, showed a like attraction, and Burkut Ali, the nail-paring over, lounged up with a savage sort of discontent at his own inward admiration--a regret, as it were, for the vices of his ancestors. As a rule, Dilarâm and her dancing did not amuse him in the very least. ”

“ In the silence that followed, Chris Davenant, who had so often ridden in a Hammersmith 'bus, was conscious of but two things in the wide world. That thrill to his finger-tips, and the scarlet stain of a woman's petticoat passing templewards beyond the arches; the only scrap of colour in the strange shadowless light which comes to India before the sun has risen over the level horizon. ”

“ We of the bazaar lead the world by the nose! Govind may blacken what he likes with ink. Burkut's craft may spend itself in spider's webs. The plague may come. Yea! even the sniffing out of other folk's smells--ay! and the payment for silence!--may be taken from the Mimbrâns-committee, and yet the world will wag peaceful. But touch us and it is different. Let none meddle with the men's women or with our will, or they meddle to their cost!'
She tucked the creased shawl closer around her, and squatted down once more in the sunshine ”

“ You know he would, Lady Arbuthnot--there would be a fuss, and every one would talk, and he would hate it--almost worse than Mr. Raymond. Why not leave it alone--if we can--what harm does it do?'
'You have grown very wise, Lesley,' said the elder woman after a pause. 'Love, they say, has eyes----'
'Love!' Lesley flashed round on her like a whirlwind. 'Ah! I wish there was no such thing in the world. Then we women would have a chance of being sensible. Love! ”

“ THE TOTALISATOR
'What's the big blackboard with white sums?' asked little Jerry Arbuthnot.
Jack Raymond, who was holding the child's hand, looked down at the six-year-old figure in the natty riding-suit so like his own, save for the racing silk which he himself wore half-hidden by a covert coat.
'It is the map of India,' he began, then pulled up at the sight of Jerry's face. 'You shouldn't believe everything you're told, young man--it hampers the sense of humour! No, Jerry, that's the totalisator--a calculating machine for doing sums in the compound rules. ”

“ The days and nights were cloudless, the air kindly and warm, and in the silence which comes with the darkness--even to a large town when there is no wheeled traffic in it, and the footsteps of men have ceased from going up and down the city--the only sound which came to disturb the courtyard was the shriek of the railway whistle,--an almost incredible sound in that environment. ”

“ Hands unable to grasp the fact that five lesser gains may equal one greater gain; an inability provocative of much needless discontent all over the world.
Lesley Drummond's eyes, as she walked across the lawn, grew dazzled at the unusual glitter and colour of the crowd, her ears grew confused by the gamut of civilisation struck by the varying costumes. There, was the first note of Western influence in a pair of patent-leather shoes; yonder, the last echo of the East in a white turban above a frock coat.
'It's a queer crowd,' said Jack Raymond suddenly, as if in explanation of her look. ”

“ Well, his answer was: "The sahibs had nothing to do with it. It was the dead women and the dead babies. Every one knows that the strength of the strongest man is water before the ghost of a mother and child."'
They had reached the slope of that gentle hollow where, even in their bitterest stress, the living had crept obstinately, under cover of night, to lay their dead to rest in the shadow of the deserted church, and he paused to point downwards to a tall cypress and add, 'There is John Ellison's grave.'
Lesley paused too. ”