Chapter XII: Front Matter (12)

“What can I do? They talk. I listen, and they vow that I am sympathetic. I know I always profess astonishment even when the plot is--of the most old possible.”

“Yes. Men are so unblushingly explicit if they are once allowed to talk, whereas women's confidences are full of reservations and fibs, except”--

“When they go mad and babble of the Unutterabilities after a week's acquaintance. Really, if you come to consider, we know a great deal more of men than of our own sex.”

“And the extraordinary thing is that men will never believe it. They say we are trying to hide something.”

“They are generally doing that on their own account. Alas! These chocolates pall upon me, and I haven't eaten more than a dozen. I think I shall go to sleep.”

“Then you'll get fat dear. If you took more exercise and a more intelligent interest in your neighbors you would--”

“Be as much loved as Mrs. Hauksbee. You're a darling in many ways and I like you--you are not a woman's woman--but why do you trouble yourself about mere human beings?”

“Because in the absence of angels, who I am sure would be horribly dull, men and women are the most fascinating things in the whole wide world, lazy one. I am interested in The Dowd--I am interested in The Dancing Master--I am interested in the Hawley Boy--and I am interested in you.”

“Why couple me with the Hawley Boy? He is your property.”

“Yes, and in his own guileless speech, I'm making a good thing out of him. When he is slightly more reformed, and has passed his Higher Standard, or whatever the authorities think fit to exact from him, I shall select a pretty little girl, the Holt girl, I think, and”--here she waved her hands airily--“'whom Mrs. Hauksbee hath joined together let no man put asunder.' That's all.”

“And when you have yoked May Holt with the most notorious detrimental in Simla, and earned the undying hatred of Mamma Holt, what will you do with me, Dispenser of the Destinies of the Universe?”

Mrs. Hauksbee dropped into a low chair in front of the fire, and, chin in band, gazed long and steadfastly at Mrs. Mallowe.

“I do not know,” she said, shaking her head, “what I shall do with you, dear. It's obviously impossible to marry you to some one else--your husband would object and the experiment might not be successful after all. I think I shall begin by preventing you from--what is it?--'sleeping on ale-house benches and snoring in the sun.'”

“Don't! I don't like your quotations. They are so rude. Go to the Library and bring me new books.”

“While you sleep? No! If you don't come with me, I shall spread your newest frock on my 'rickshaw-bow, and when any one asks me what I am doing, I shall say that I am going to Phelps's to get it let out. I shall take care that Mrs. MacNamara sees me. Put your things on, there's a good girl.”

Mrs. Mallowe groaned and obeyed, and the two went off to the Library, where they found Mrs. Delville and the man who went by the nickname of The Dancing Master. By that time Mrs Mallowe was awake and eloquent.

“That is the Creature!” said Mrs Hauksbee, with the air of one pointing out a slug in the road.

“No,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “The man is the Creature. Ugh! Good-evening, Mr. Bent. I thought you were coming to tea this evening.”

“Surely it was for tomorrow, was it not?” answered The Dancing Master. “I understood... I fancied... I'm so sorry... How very unfortunate!...”

But Mrs. Mallowe had passed on.

“For the practiced equivocator you said he was,” murmured Mrs. Hauksbee, “he strikes me as a failure. Now wherefore should he have preferred a walk with The Dowd to tea with us? Elective affinities, I suppose--both grubby. Polly, I'd never forgive that woman as long as the world rolls.”

“I forgive every woman everything,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “He will be a sufficient punishment for her. What a common voice she has!”

Mrs. Delville's voice was not pretty, her carriage was even less lovely, and her raiment was strikingly neglected. All these things Mrs. Mallowe noticed over the top of a magazine.

“Now what is there in her?” said Mrs. Hauksbee. “Do you see what I meant about the clothes falling off? If I were a man I would perish sooner than be seen with that rag-bag. And yet, she has good eyes, but--oh!”

“What is it?”

“She doesn't know how to use them! On my Honor, she does not. Look! Oh look! Untidiness I can endure, but ignorance never! The woman's a fool.”

“H'sh! She'll hear you.”

“All the women in Simla are fools. She'll think I mean some one else. Now she's going out. What a thoroughly objectionable couple she and The Dancing Master make! Which reminds me. Do you suppose they'll ever dance together?”

“Wait and see. I don't envy her the conversation of The Dancing Master--loathly man. His wife ought to be up here before long.”

“Do you know anything about him?”

“Only what he told me. It may be all a fiction. He married a girl bred in the country, I think, and, being an honorable, chivalrous soul, told me that he repented his bargain and sent her to her mother as often as possible--a person who has lived in the Doon since the memory of man and goes to Mussoorie when other people go Home. The wife is with her at present. So he says.”

'Babies?'

“One only, but he talks of his wife in a revolting way. I hated him for it. He thought he was being epigrammatic and brilliant.”

“That is a vice peculiar to men. I dislike him because he is generally in the wake of some girl, disappointing the Eligibles. He will persecute May Holt no more, unless I am much mistaken.”

“No. I think Mrs. Delville may occupy his attention for a while.”

“Do you suppose she knows that he is the head of a family?”

“Not from his lips. He swore me to eternal secrecy. Wherefore I tell you. Don't you know that type of man?”

“Not intimately, thank goodness! As a general rule, when a man begins to abuse his wife to me, I find that the Lord gives me wherewith to answer him according to his folly; and we part with a coolness between us. I laugh.”

“I'm different. I've no sense of humor.”

“Cultivate it, then. It has been my mainstay for more years than I care to think about. A well-educated sense of Humor will save a woman when Religion, Training, and Home influences fail; and we may all need salvation sometimes.”

“Do you suppose that the Delville woman has humor?”

“Her dress betrays her. How can a Thing who wears her supple'ment under her left arm have any notion of the fitness of things--much less their folly? If she discards The Dancing Master after having once seen him dance, I may respect her, Otherwise--

“But are we not both assuming a great deal too much, dear? You saw the woman at Peliti's--half an hour later you saw her walking with The Dancing Master--an hour later you met her here at the Library.”

“Still with The Dancing Master, remember.”

“Still with The Dancing Master, I admit, but why on the strength of that should you imagine”--

“I imagine nothing. I have no imagination. I am only convinced that The Dancing Master is attracted to The Dowd because he is objectionable in every way and she in every other. If I know the man as you have described him, he holds his wife in slavery at present.”

“She is twenty years younger than he.”

“Poor wretch! And, in the end, after he has posed and swaggered and lied--he has a mouth under that ragged moustache simply made for lies--he will be rewarded according to his merits.”

“I wonder what those really are,” said Mrs. Mallowe.

But Mrs. Hauksbee, her face close to the shelf of the new books, was humming softly: “What shall he have who killed the Deer!” She was a lady of unfettered speech.

One month later, she announced her intention of calling upon Mrs. Delville. Both Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Mallowe were in morning wrappers, and there was a great peace in the land.

“I should go as I was,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “It would be a delicate compliment to her style.”

Mrs. Hauksbee studied herself in the glass.

“Assuming for a moment that she ever darkened these doors, I should put on this robe, after all the others, to show her what a morning wrapper ought to be. It might enliven her. As it is, I shall go in the dove-colored--sweet emblem of youth and innocence--and shall put on my new gloves.”

“If you really are going, dirty tan would be too good; and you know that dove--color spots with the rain.”

“I care not. I may make her envious. At least I shall try, though one cannot expect very much from a woman who puts a lace tucker into her habit.”

“Just Heavens! When did she do that?”

“Yesterday--riding with The Dancing Master. I met them at the back of Jakko, and the rain had made the lace lie down. To complete the effect, she was wearing an unclean terai with the elastic under her chin. I felt almost too well content to take the trouble to despise her.”

“The Hawley Boy was riding with you. What did he think?”

“Does a boy ever notice these things? Should I like him if he did? He stared in the rudest way, and just when I thought he had seen the elastic, he said, 'There's something very taking about that face.' I rebuked him on the spot. I don't approve of boys being taken by faces.”

“Other than your own. I shouldn't be in the least surprised if the Hawley Boy immediately went to call.”

“I forbade him. Let her be satisfied with The Dancing Master, and his wife when she comes up. I'm rather curious to see Mrs. Bent and the Delville woman together.”

Mrs. Hauksbee departed and, at the end of an hour, returned slightly flushed.

“There is no limit to the treachery of youth! I ordered the Hawley Boy, as he valued my patronage, not to call. The first person I stumble over--literally stumble over--in her poky, dark, little drawing-room is, of course, the Hawley Boy. She kept us waiting ten minutes, and then emerged as though he had been tipped out of the dirty-clothes basket. You know my way, dear, when I am all put out. I was Superior, crrrushingly Superior! 'Lifted my eyes to Heaven, and had heard of nothing--'dropped my eyes on the carpet and 'really didn't know'--'played with my cardcase and 'supposed so.' The Hawley Boy giggled like a girl, and I had to freeze him with scowls between the sentences.”

“And she?”

“She sat in a heap on the edge of a couch, and managed to convey the impression that she was suffering from stomach-ache, at the very least. It was all I could do not to ask after her symptoms. When I rose she grunted just like a buffalo in the water--too lazy to move.”

“Are you certain?”--

“Am I blind, Polly? Laziness, sheer laziness, nothing else--or her garments were only constructed for sitting down in. I stayed for a quarter of an hour trying to penetrate the gloom, to guess what her surroundings were like, while she stuck out her tongue.”

“Lu--cy!”

“Well--I'll withdraw the tongue, though I'm sure if she didn't do it when I was in the room, she did the minute I was outside. At any rate, she lay in a lump and grunted. Ask the Hawley Boy, dear. I believe the grunts were meant for sentences, but she spoke so indistinctly that I can't swear to it.”

“You are incorrigible, simply.”

“I am not! Treat me civilly, give me peace with honor, don't put the only available seat facing the window, and a child may eat jam in my lap before Church. But I resent being grunted at. Wouldn't you? Do you suppose that she communicates her views on life and love to The Dancing Master in a set of modulated 'Grmphs'?”

“You attach too much importance to The Dancing Master.”

“He came as we went, and The Dowd grew almost cordial at the sight of him. He smiled greasily, and moved about that darkened dog-kennel in a suspiciously familiar way.”

“Don't be uncharitable. Any sin but that I'll forgive.”

“Listen to the voice of History. I am only describing what I saw. He entered, the heap on the sofa revived slightly, and the Hawley Boy and I came away together. He is disillusioned, but I felt it my duty to lecture him severely for going there. And that's all.”

“Now for Pity's sake leave the wretched creature and The Dancing Master alone. They never did you any harm.”

“No harm? To dress as an example and a stumbling-block for half Simla, and then to find this Person who is dressed by the hand of God--not that I wish to disparage Him for a moment, but you know the tikka-dhurzie way He attires those lilies of the field--this Person draws the eyes of men--and some of them nice men? It's almost enough to make one discard clothing. I told the Hawley Boy so.”

“And what did that sweet youth do?”

“Turned shell-pink and looked across the far blue hills like a distressed cherub. Am I talking wildly, Polly? Let me say my say, and I shall be calm. Otherwise I may go abroad and disturb Simla with a few original reflections. Excepting always your own sweet self, there isn't a single woman in the land who understands me when I am--what's the word?”

“Tete-Fele'e,” suggested Mrs. Mallowe.

“Exactly! And now let us have tiffin. The demands of Society are exhausting, and as Mrs. Delville says”--Here Mrs. Hauksbee, to the horror of the khitmatgars, lapsed into a series of grunts, while Mrs. Mallowe stared in lazy surprise.

“'God gie us a gude conceit of oorselves,'” said Mrs. Hauksbee, piously, returning to her natural speech. “Now, in any other woman that would have been vulgar. I am consumed with curiosity to see Mrs. Bent. I expect complications.”

“Woman of one idea,” said Mrs. Mallowe, shortly; “all complications are as old as the hills! I have lived through or near all--all--ALL!”

“And yet do not understand that men and women never behave twice alike. I am old who was young--if ever I put my head in your lap, you dear, big sceptic, you will learn that my parting is gauze--but never, no never have I lost my interest in men and women. Polly, I shall see this business Out to the bitter end.”

“I am going to sleep,” said Mrs. Mallowe, calmly. “I never interfere with men or women unless I am compelled,” and she retired with dignity to her own room.

Mrs. Hauksbee's curiosity was not long left ungratified, for Mrs. Bent came up to Simla a few days after the conversation faithfully reported above, and pervaded the Mall by her husband's side.

“Behold!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, thoughtfully rubbing her nose. “That is the last link of the chain, if we omit the husband of the Delville, whoever he may be. Let me consider. The Bents and the Delvilles inhabit the same hotel; and the Delville is detested by the Waddy--do you know the Waddy?--who is almost as big a dowd. The Waddy also abominates the male Bent, for which, if her other sins do not weigh too heavily, she will eventually be caught up to Heaven.”

“Don't be irreverent,” said Mrs. Mallowe. “I like Mrs. Bent's face.”

“I am discussing the Waddy,” returned Mrs. Hauksbee, loftily. “The Waddy will take the female Bent apart, after having borrowed--yes!--everything that she can, from hairpins to babies' bottles. Such, my dear, is life in a hotel. The Waddy will tell the female Bent facts and fictions about The Dancing Master and The Dowd.”

“Lucy, I should like you better if you were not always looking into people's back bedrooms.”

“Anybody can look into their front drawing-rooms; and remember whatever I do, and whatever I look, I never talk--as the Waddy will. Let us hope that The Dancing Master's greasy smile and manner of the pedagogue will soften the heart of that cow, his wife. If mouths speak truth, I should think that little Mrs. Bent could get very angry on occasion.

“But what reason has she for being angry?”

“What reason! The Dancing Master in himself is a reason. How does it go? 'If in his life some trivial errors fall, Look in his face and you'll believe them all.' I am prepared to credit any evil of The Dancing Master, because I hate him so. And The Dowd is so disgustingly badly dressed”--

“That she, too, is capable of every iniquity? I always prefer to believe the best of everybody. It saves so much trouble.”

“Very good. I prefer to believe the worst. It saves useless expenditure of sympathy. And you may be quite certain that the Waddy believes with me.”

Mrs. Mallowe sighed and made no answer.

The conversation was holden after dinner while Mrs. Hauksbee was dressing for a dance.

“I am too tired to go,” pleaded Mrs. Mallowe, and Mrs. Hauksbee left her in peace till two in the morning, when she was aware of emphatic knocking at her door.

“Don't be very angry, dear,” said Mrs. Hauksbee. “My idiot of an ayah has gone home, and, as I hope to sleep tonight, there isn't a soul in the place to unlace me.”

“Oh, this is too bad!” said Mrs. Mallowe sulkily.

“'Can't help it. I'm a lone, lorn grass-widow, dear, but I will not sleep in my stays. And such news, too! Oh, do unlace me, there's a darling! The Dowd--The Dancing Master--I and the Hawley Boy--You know the North veranda?”

“How can I do anything if you spin round like this?” protested Mrs. Mallowe, fumbling with the knot of the laces.

“Oh, I forget. I must tell my tale without the aid of your eyes. Do you know you've lovely eyes, dear? Well to begin with, I took the Hawley Boy to a kala juggah.”

“Did he want much taking?”

“Lots! There was an arrangement of loose-boxes in kanats, and she was in the next one talking to him.”

“Which? How? Explain.”

“You know what I mean--The Dowd and The Dancing Master. We could hear every word and we listened shamelessly--'specially the Hawley Boy. Polly, I quite love that woman!”

“This is interesting. There! Now turn round. What happened?”

“One moment. Ah-h! Blessed relief. I've been looking forward to taking them off for the last half-hour--which is ominous at my time of life. But, as I was saying, we listened and heard The Dowd drawl worse than ever. She drops her final g's like a barmaid or a blue-blooded Aide-de-Camp. 'Look he-ere, you're gettin' too fond 0' me,' she said, and The Dancing Master owned it was so in language that nearly made me ill. The Dowd reflected for a while. Then we heard her say, 'Look he-ere, Mister Bent, why are you such an awful liar?' I nearly exploded while The Dancing Master denied the charge. It seems that he never told her he was a married man.”

“I said he wouldn't.”

“And she had taken this to heart, on personal grounds, I suppose. She drawled along for five minutes, reproaching him with his perfidy and grew quite motherly. 'Now you've got a nice little wife of your own--you have,' she said. 'She's ten times too good for a fat old man like you, and, look he-ere, you never told me a word about her, and I've been thinkin' about it a good deal, and I think you're a liar.' Wasn't that delicious? The Dancing Master maundered and raved till the Hawley Boy suggested that he should burst in and beat him. His voice runs up into an impassioned squeak when he is afraid. The Dowd must be an extraordinary woman. She explained that had he been a bachelor she might not have objected to his devotion; but since he was a married man and the father of a very nice baby, she considered him a hypocrite, and this she repeated twice. She wound up her drawl with: 'An I'm tellin' you this because your wife is angry with me, an' I hate quarrellin' with any other woman, an' I like your wife. You know how you have behaved for the last six weeks. You shouldn't have done it, indeed you shouldn't. You're too old an' fat.' Can't you imagine how The Dancing Master would wince at that! 'Now go away,' she said. 'I don't want to tell you what I think of you, because I think you are not nice. I'll stay he-ere till the next dance begins.' Did you think that the creature had so much in her?”

“I never studied her as closely as you did. It sounds unnatural. What happened?”

“The Dancing Master attempted blandishment, reproof, jocularity, and the style of the Lord High Warden, and I had almost to pinch the Hawley Boy to make him keep quiet. She grunted at the end of each sentence and, in the end he went away swearing to himself, quite like a man in a novel. He looked more objectionable than ever. I laughed. I love that woman--in spite of her clothes. And now I'm going to bed. What do you think of it?”

“I sha'n't begin to think till the morning,” said Mrs. Mallowe, yawning “Perhaps she spoke the truth. They do fly into it by accident sometimes.”

Mrs. Hauksbee's account of her eavesdropping was an ornate one but truthful in the main. For reasons best known to herself, Mrs. “Shady” Delville had turned upon Mr Bent and rent him limb from limb, casting him away limp and disconcerted ere she withdrew the light of her eyes from him permanently. Being a man of resource, and anything but pleased in that he had been called both old and fat, he gave Mrs. Bent to understand that he had, during her absence in the Doon, been the victim of unceasing persecution at the hands of Mrs. Delville, and he told the tale so often and with such eloquence that he ended in believing it, while his wife marvelled at the manners and customs of “some women.” When the situation showed signs of languishing, Mrs. Waddy was always on hand to wake the smouldering fires of suspicion in Mrs. Bent's bosom and to contribute generally to the peace and comfort of the hotel. Mr. Bent's life was not a happy one, for if Mrs. Waddy's story were true, he was, argued his wife, untrustworthy to the last degree. If his own statement was true, his charms of manner and conversation were so great that he needed constant surveillance. And he received it, till he repented genuinely of his marriage and neglected his personal appearance. Mrs. Delville alone in the hotel was unchanged. She removed her chair some six paces toward the head of the table, and occasionally in the twilight ventured on timid overtures of friendship to Mrs. Bent, which were repulsed.

“She does it for my sake,” hinted the Virtuous Bent.

“A dangerous and designing woman,” purred Mrs. Waddy.

Worst of all, every other hotel in Simla was full!

* * * * *

“Polly, are you afraid of diphtheria?”

“Of nothing in the world except smallpox. Diphtheria kills, but it doesn't disfigure. Why do you ask?”

“Because the Bent baby has got it, and the whole hotel is upside down in consequence. The Waddy has 'set her five young on the rail' and fled. The Dancing Master fears for his precious throat, and that miserable little woman, his wife, has no notion of what ought to be done. She wanted to put it into a mustard bath--for croup!”

“Where did you learn all this?”

“Just now, on the Mall. Dr. Howlen told me. The Manager of the hotel is abusing the Bents, and the Bents are abusing the manager. They are a feckless couple.”

“Well. What's on your mind?”

“This; and I know it's a grave thing to ask. Would you seriously object to my bringing the child over here, with its mother?”

“On the most strict understanding that we see nothing of The Dancing Master.”

“He will be only too glad to stay away. Polly, you're an angel. The woman really is at her wits' end.”

“And you know nothing about her, careless, and would hold her up to public scorn if it gave you a minute's amusement. Therefore you risk your life for the sake of her brat. No, Loo, I'm not the angel. I shall keep to my rooms and avoid her. But do as you please--only tell me why you do it.”

Mrs. Hauksbee's eyes softened; she looked out of the window and back into Mrs. Mallowe's face.

“I don't know,” said Mrs. Hauksbee, simply.

“You dear!”

“Polly!--and for aught you knew you might have taken my fringe off. Never do that again without warning. Now we'll get the rooms ready. I don't suppose I shall be allowed to circulate in society for a month.”

“And I also. Thank goodness I shall at last get all the sleep I want.”

Much to Mrs. Bent's surprise she and the baby were brought over to the house almost before she knew where she was. Bent was devoutly and undisguisedly thankful, for he was afraid of the infection, and also hoped that a few weeks in the hotel alone with Mrs. Delville might lead to explanations. Mrs. Bent had thrown her jealousy to the winds in her fear for her child's life.

“We can give you good milk,” said Mrs. Hauksbee to her, “and our house is much nearer to the Doctor's than the hotel, and you won't feel as though you were living in a hostile camp Where is the dear Mrs. Waddy? She seemed to be a particular friend of yours.”

“They've all left me,” said Mrs. Bent, bitterly. “Mrs. Waddy went first. She said I ought to be ashamed of myself for introducing diseases there, and I am sure it wasn't my fault that little Dora”--

“How nice!” cooed Mrs. Hauksbee. “The Waddy is an infectious disease herself--'more quickly caught than the plague and the taker runs presently mad.' I lived next door to her at the Elysium, three years ago. Now see, you won't give us the least trouble, and I've ornamented all the house with sheets soaked in carbolic. It smells comforting, doesn't it? Remember I'm always in call, and my ayah's at your service when yours goes to her meals and--and... if you cry I'll never forgive you.”

Dora Bent occupied her mother's unprofitable attention through the day and the night. The Doctor called thrice in the twenty-four hours, and the house reeked with the smell of the Condy's Fluid, chlorine-water, and carbolic acid washes. Mrs. Mallowe kept to her own rooms--she considered that she had made sufficient concessions in the cause of humanity--and Mrs. Hauksbee was more esteemed by the Doctor as a help in the sick-room than the half-distraught mother.

“I know nothing of illness,” said Mrs. Hauksbee to the Doctor. “Only tell me what to do, and I'll do it.”

“Keep that crazy woman from kissing the child, and let her have as little to do with the nursing as you possibly can,” said the Doctor; “I'd turn her out of the sick-room, but that I honestly believe she'd die of anxiety. She is less than no good, and I depend on you and the ayahs, remember.”

Mrs. Hauksbee accepted the responsibility, though it painted olive hollows under her eyes and forced her to her oldest dresses. Mrs. Bent clung to her with more than childlike faith.

“I know you'll, make Dora well, won't you?” she said at least twenty times a day; and twenty times a day Mrs. Hauksbee answered valiantly, “Of course I will.”

But Dora did not improve, and the Doctor seemed to be always in the house.

“There's some danger of the thing taking a bad turn,” he said; “I'll come over between three and four in the morning tomorrow.”

“Good gracious!” said Mrs. Hauksbee. “He never told me what the turn would be! My education has been horribly neglected; and I have only this foolish mother-woman to fall back upon.”

The night wore through slowly, and Mrs. Hauksbee dozed in a chair by the fire. There was a dance at the Viceregal Lodge, and she dreamed of it till she was aware of Mrs. Bent's anxious eyes staring into her own.

“Wake up! Wake up! Do something!” cried Mrs. Bent, piteously. “Dora's choking to death! Do you mean to let her die?”

Mrs. Hauksbee jumped to her feet and bent over the bed. The child was fighting for breath, while the mother wrung her hands despairing.

“Oh, what can I do? What can you do? She won't stay still! I can't hold her. Why didn't the Doctor say this was coming?” screamed Mrs. Bent. “Won't you help me? She's dying!”

“I-I've never seen a child die before!” stammered Mrs. Hauksbee, feebly, and then--let none blame her weakness after the strain of long watching--she broke down, and covered her face with her hands. The ayahs on the threshold snored peacefully.

There was a rattle of 'rickshaw wheels below, the clash of an opening door, a heavy step on the stairs, and Mrs. Delville entered to find Mrs. Bent screaming for the Doctor as she ran round the room. Mrs. Hauksbee, her hands to her ears, and her face buried in the chintz of a chair, was quivering with pain at each cry from the bed, and murmuring, “Thank God, I never bore a child! Oh! thank God, I never bore a child!”

Mrs. Delville looked at the bed for an instant, took Mrs. Bent by the shoulders, and said, quietly, “Get me some caustic. Be quick.”

The mother obeyed mechanically. Mrs. Delville had thrown herself down by the side of the child and was opening its mouth.

“Oh, you're killing her!” cried Mrs. Bent. “Where's the Doctor! Leave her alone!”

Mrs. Delville made no reply for a minute, but busied herself with the child.

“Now the caustic, and hold a lamp behind my shoulder. Will you do as you are told? The acid-bottle, if you don't know what I mean,” she said.

A second time Mrs. Delville bent over the child. Mrs. Hauksbee, her face still hidden, sobbed and shivered. One of the ayahs staggered sleepily into the room, yawning: “Doctor Sahib come.”

Mrs. Delville turned her head.

“You're only just in time,” she said. “It was chokin' her when I came in, an' I've burned it.”

“There was no sign of the membrane getting to the air-passages after the last steaming. It was the general weakness, I feared,” said the Doctor half to himself, and he whispered as he looked. “You've done what I should have been afraid to do without consultation.”

“She was dyin',” said Mrs. Delville, under her breath. “Can you do anythin'? What a mercy it was I went to the dance!”

Mrs. Hauksbee raised her head.

“Is it all over?” she gasped. “I'm useless--I'm worse than useless! What are you doing here?”

She stared at Mrs. Delville, and Mrs. Bent, realizing for the first time who was the Goddess from the Machine, stared also.

Then Mrs. Delville made explanation, putting on a dirty long glove and smoothing a crumpled and ill-fitting ball-dress.

“I was at the dance, an' the Doctor was tellin' me about your baby bein' so ill. So I came away early, an' your door was open, an' I-I lost my boy this way six months ago, an' I've been tryin' to forget it ever since, an' I-I-I-am very sorry for intrudin' an' anythin' that has happened.”

Mrs. Bent was putting out the Doctor's eye with a lamp as he stooped over Dora.

“Take it away,” said the Doctor. “I think the child will do, thanks to you, Mrs. Delville. I should have come too late, but, I assure you”--he was addressing himself to Mrs. Delville--“I had not the faintest reason to expect this. The membrane must have grown like a mushroom. Will one of you help me, please?”

He had reason for the last sentence. Mrs. Hauksbee had thrown herself into Mrs. Delville's arms, where she was weeping bitterly, and Mrs. Bent was unpicturesquely mixed up with both, while from the tangle came the sound of many sobs and much promiscuous kissing.

“Good gracious! I've spoilt all your beautiful roses!” said Mrs. Hauksbee, lifting her head from the lump of crushed gum and calico atrocities on Mrs. Delville's shoulder and hurrying to the Doctor.

Mrs. Delville picked up her shawl, and slouched out of the room, mopping her eyes with the glove that she had not put on.

“I always said she was more than a woman,” sobbed Mrs. Hauksbee, hysterically, “and that proves it!”

* * * * *

Six weeks later, Mrs. Bent and Dora had returned to the hotel. Mrs. Hauksbee had come out of the Valley of Humiliation, had ceased to reproach herself for her collapse in an hour of need, and was even beginning to direct the affairs of the world as before.

“So nobody died, and everything went off as it should, and I kissed The Dowd, Polly. I feel so old. Does it show in my face?”

“Kisses don't as a rule, do they? Of course you know what the result of The Dowd's providential arrival has been.”

“They ought to build her a statue--only no sculptor dare copy those skirts.”

“Ah!” said Mrs. Mallowe, quietly. “She has found another reward. The Dancing Master has been smirking through Simla giving every one to understand that she came because of her undying love for him--for him--to save his child, and all Simla naturally believes this.”

“But Mrs. Bent”--

“Mrs. Bent believes it more than any one else. She won't speak to The Dowd now. Isn't The Dancing Master an angel?”

Mrs. Hauksbee lifted up her voice and raged till bedtime. The doors of the two rooms stood open.

“Polly,” said a voice from the darkness, “what did that American-heiress-globe-trotter-girl say last season when she was tipped out of her 'rickshaw turning a corner? Some absurd adjective that made the man who picked her up explode.”

“'Paltry,'” said Mrs. Mallowe. “Through her nose--like this--'Ha-ow pahltry!'”

“Exactly,” said the voice. “Ha-ow pahltry it all is!”

“Which?”

“Everything. Babies, Diphtheria, Mrs. Bent and The Dancing Master, I whooping in a chair, and The Dowd dropping in from the clouds. I wonder what the motive was--all the motives.”

“Um!”

“What do you think?”

“Don't ask me. She was a woman. Go to sleep.”

* * * * *

ONLY A SUBALTERN

... Not only to enforce by command but to encourage by
example the energetic discharge of duty and the steady
endurance of the difficulties and privations inseparable
from Military Service. --Bengal Army Regulations.

THEY made Bobby Wick pass an examination at Sandhurst. He was a gentleman before he was gazetted, so, when the Empress announced that “Gentleman-Cadet Robert Hanna Wick” was posted as Second Lieutenant to the Tyneside Tail Twisters at Kram Bokhar, he became an officer and a gentleman, which is an enviable thing; and there was joy in the house of Wick where Mamma Wick and all the little Wicks fell upon their knees and offered incense to Bobby by virtue of his achievements.

Papa Wick had been a Commissioner in his day, holding authority over three millions of men in the Chota-Buldana Division, building great works for the good of the land, and doing his best to make two blades of grass grow where there was but one before. Of course, nobody knew anything about this in the little English village where he was just “old Mr. Wick” and had forgotten that he was a Companion of the Order of the Star of India.

He patted Bobby on the shoulder and said: “Well done, my boy!”

There followed, while the uniform was being prepared, an interval of pure delight, during which Bobby took brevet-rank as a “man” at the women-swamped tennis-parties and tea-fights of the village, and, I dare say, had his joining-time been extended, would have fallen in love with several girls at once. Little country villages at Home are very full of nice girls, because all the young men come out to India to make their fortunes.

“India,” said Papa Wick, “is the place. I've had thirty years of it and, begad, I'd like to go back again. When you join the Tail Twisters you'll be among friends, if every one hasn't forgotten Wick of Chota-Buldana, and a lot of people will be kind to you for our sakes. The mother will tell you more about outfit than I can, but remember this. Stick to your Regiment, Bobby--stick to your Regiment. You'll see men all round you going into the Staff Corps, and doing every possible sort of duty but regimental, and you may be tempted to follow suit. Now so long as you keep within your allowance, and I haven't stinted you there, stick to the Line, the whole Line and nothing but the Line. Be careful how you back another young fool's bill, and if you fall in love with a woman twenty years older than yourself, don't tell me about it, that's all.”

With these counsels, and many others equally valuable, did Papa Wick fortify Bobby ere that last awful night at Portsmouth when the Officers' Quarters held more inmates than were provided for by the Regulations, and the liberty-men of the ships fell foul of the drafts for India, and the battle raged from the Dockyard Gates even to the slums of Longport, while the drabs of Fratton came down and scratched the faces of the Queen's Officers.

Bobby Wick, with an ugly bruise on his freckled nose, a sick and shaky detachment to manoeuvre inship and the comfort of fifty scornful females to attend to, had no time to feel homesick till the Malabar reached mid-Channel, when he doubled his emotions with a little guard-visiting and a great many other matters.

The Tail Twisters were a most particular Regiment. Those who knew them least said that they were eaten up with “side.” But their reserve and their internal arrangements generally were merely protective diplomacy. Some five years before, the Colonel commanding had looked into the fourteen fearless eyes of seven plump and juicy subalterns who had all applied to enter the Staff Corps, and had asked them why the three stars should he, a colonel of the Line, command a dashed nursery for double-dashed bottle-suckers who put on condemned tin spurs and rode qualified mokes at the hiatused heads of forsaken Black Regiments. He was a rude man and a terrible. Wherefore the remnant took measures [with the half-butt as an engine of public opinion] till the rumor went abroad that young men who used the Tail Twisters as a crutch to the Staff Corps, had many and varied trials to endure. However a regiment had just as much right to its own secrets as a woman.

When Bobby came up from Deolali and took his place among the Tail Twisters, it was gently But firmly borne in upon him that the Regiment was his father and his mother and his indissolubly wedded wife, and that there was no crime under the canopy of heaven blacker than that of bringing shame on the Regiment, which was the best-shooting, best-drilled, best-set-up, bravest, most illustrious, and in all respects most desirable Regiment within the compass of the Seven Seas. He was taught the legends of the Mess Plate from the great grinning Golden Gods that had come out of the Summer Palace in Pekin to the silver-mounted markhor-horn snuff-mull presented by the last C. 0. [he who spake to the seven subalterns]. And every one of those legends told him of battles fought at long odds, without fear as without support; of hospitality catholic as an Arab's; of friendships deep as the sea and steady as the fighting-line; of honor won by hard roads for honor's sake; and of instant and unquestioning devotion to the Regiment--the Regiment that claims the lives of all and lives forever.

More than once, too, he came officially into contact with the Regimental colors, which looked like the lining of a bricklayer's hat on the end of a chewed stick. Bobby did not kneel and worship them, because British subalterns are not constructed in that manner. Indeed, he condemned them for their weight at the very moment that they were filling with awe and other more noble sentiments.

But best of all was the occasion when he moved with the Tail Twisters, in review order at the breaking of a November day. Allowing for duty-men and sick, the Regiment was one thousand and eighty strong, and Bobby belonged to them; for was he not a Subaltern of the Line the whole Line and nothing but the Line--as the tramp of two thousand one hundred and sixty sturdy ammunition boots attested. He would not have changed places with Deighton of the Horse Battery, whirling by in a pillar of cloud to a chorus of “Strong right! Strong left!” or Hogan-Yale of the White Hussars, leading his squadron for all it was worth, with the price of horseshoes thrown in; or “Tick” Boileau, trying to live up to his fierce blue and gold turban while the wasps of the Bengal Cavalry stretched to a gallop in the wake of the long, lollopping Walers of the White Hussars.

They fought through the clear cool day, and Bobby felt a little thrill run down his spine when he heard the tinkle-tinkle-tinkle of the empty cartridge-cases hopping from the breech-blocks after the roar of the volleys; for he knew that he should live to hear that sound in action. The review ended in a glorious chase across the plain--batteries thundering after cavalry to the huge disgust of the White Hussars, and the Tyneside Tail Twisters hunting a Sikh Regiment, till the lean lathy Singhs panted with exhaustion. Bobby was dusty and dripping long before noon, but his enthusiasm was merely focused--not diminished.

He returned to sit at the feet of Revere, his “skipper,” that is to say, the Captain of his Company, and to be instructed in the dark art and mystery of managing men, which is a very large part of the Profession of Arms.

“If you haven't a taste that way,” said Revere, between his puffs of his cheroot, “you'll never be able to get the hang of it, but remember Bobby, 'tisn't the best drill, though drill is nearly everything, that hauls a Regiment through Hell and out on the other side. It's the man who knows how to handle men--goat-men, swine-men, dog-men, and so on.”

“Dormer, for instance,” said Bobby. “I think he comes under the head of fool-men. He mopes like a sick owl.”

“That's where you make your mistake, my son. Dormer isn't a fool yet, but he's a dashed dirty soldier, and his room corporal makes fun of his socks before kit-inspection. Dormer, being two-thirds pure brute, goes into a corner and growls.”

“How do you know?” said Bobby, admiringly.

“Because a Company commander has to know these things--because, if he does not know, he may have crime--ay, murder--brewing under his very nose and yet not see that it's there. Dormer is being badgered out of his mind--big as he is--and he hasn't intellect enough to resent it. He's taken to quiet boozing and, Bobby, when the butt of a room goes on the drink, or takes to moping by himself, measures are necessary to pull him out of himself.”

“What measures? 'Man can't run round coddling his men forever.”

“No. The men would precious soon show him that he was not wanted. You've got to”--Here the Color-sergeant entered with some papers; Bobby reflected for a while as Revere looked through the Company forms.

“Does Dormer do anything, Sergeant?” Bobby asked, with the air of one continuing an interrupted conversation.

“No, sir. Does 'is dooty like a hortomato,” said the Sergeant, who delighted in long words. “A dirty soldier, and 'e's under full stoppages for new kit. It's covered with scales, sir.”

“Scales? What scales?”

“Fish-scales, sir. 'E's always pokin' in the mud by the river an' a-cleanin' them muchly-fish with 'is thumbs.” Revere was still absorbed in the Company papers, and the Sergeant, who was sternly fond of Bobby, continued,--“'E generally goes down there when 'e's got 'is skinful, beggin' your pardon, sir, an' they do say that the more lush in-he-briated 'e is, the more fish 'e catches. They call 'im the Looney Fish-monger in the Comp'ny, sir.”

Revere signed the last paper and the Sergeant retreated.

“It's a filthy amusement,” sighed Bobby to himself. Then aloud to Revere: “Are you really worried about Dormer?”

“A little. You see he's never mad enough to send to a hospital, or drunk enough to run in, but at any minute he may flare up, brooding and sulking as he does. He resents any interest being shown in him, and the only time I took him out shooting he all but shot me by accident.”

“I fish,” said Bobby, with a wry face. “I hire a country-boat and go down the river from Thursday to Sunday, and the amiable Dormer goes with me--if you can spare us both.”

“You blazing young fool!” said Revere, but his heart was full of much more pleasant words.

Bobby, the Captain of a dhoni, with Private Dormer for mate, dropped down the river on Thursday morning--the Private at the bow, the Subaltern at the helm. The Private glared uneasily at the Subaltern, who respected the reserve of the Private.

After six hours, Dormer paced to the stern, saluted, and said--“Beg y'pardon, sir, but was you ever on the Durh'm Canal?”

“No,” said Bobby Wick. “Come and have some tiffin.”

They ate in silence. As the evening fell, Private Dormer broke forth, speaking to himself--“Hi was on the Durh'm Canal, jes' such a night, come next week twelve month, a-trailin' of my toes in the water.” He smoked and said no more till bedtime.

The witchery of the dawn turned the grey river-reaches to purple, gold, and opal; and it was as though the lumbering dhoni crept across the splendors of a new heaven.

Private Dormer popped his head out of his blanket and gazed at the glory below and around.

“Well--damn-my-eyes!” said Private Dormer, in an awed whisper. “This 'ere is like a bloomin' gallantry-show!” For the rest of the day he was dumb, but achieved an ensanguined filthiness through the cleaning of big fish.

The boat returned on Saturday evening. Dormer had been struggling with speech since noon. As the lines and luggage were being disembarked, he found tongue.

“Beg y'pardon--sir,” he said, “but would you--would you min' shakin' 'ands with me, sir?”

“Of course not,” said Bobby, and he shook accordingly. Dormer returned to barracks and Bobby to mess.

“He wanted a little quiet and some fishing, I think,” said Bobby. “My aunt, but he's a filthy sort of animal! Have you ever seen him clean 'them, muchly-fish with 'is thumbs'?”

“Anyhow,” said Revere, three weeks later, “he's doing his best to keep his things clean.”

When the spring died, Bobby joined in the general scramble for Hill leave, and to his surprise and delight secured three months.

“As good a boy as I want,” said Revere, the admiring skipper.

“The best of the batch,” said the Adjutant to the Colonel. “Keep back that young skrim-shanker Porkiss, sir, and let Revere make him sit up.”

So Bobby departed joyously to Simla Pahar with a tin box of gorgeous raiment.

“Son of Wick--old Wick of Chota-Buldana? Ask him to dinner, dear,” said the aged men.

“What a nice boy!” said the matrons and the maids.

“First-class place, Simla. Oh, ri-ipping!” said Bobby Wick, and ordered new white cord breeches on the strength of it.

“We're in a bad way,” wrote Revere to Bobby at the end of two months. “Since you left, the Regiment has taken to fever and is fairly rotten with it--two hundred in hospital, about a hundred in cells--drinking to keep off fever--and the Companies on parade fifteen file strong at the outside. There's rather more sickness in the out-villages than I care for, but then I'm so blistered with prickly-heat that I'm ready to hang myself. What's the yarn about your mashing a Miss Haverley up there? Not serious, I hope? You're over-young to hang millstones round your neck, and the Colonel will turf you out of that in double-quick time if you attempt it.”

It was not the Colonel that brought Bobby out of Simla, but a much more to be respected Commandant. The sick ness in the out-villages spread, the Bazar was put out of bounds, and then came the news that the Tail Twisters must go into camp. The message flashed to the Hill stations.--“Cholera--Leave stopped--Officers recalled.” Alas, for the white gloves in the neatly soldered boxes, the rides and the dances and picnics that were to he, the loves half spoken, and the debts unpaid! Without demur and without question, fast as tongue could fly or pony gallop, back to their Regiments and their Batteries, as though they were hastening to their weddings, fled the subalterns.

Bobby received his orders on returning from a dance at Viceregal Lodge where he had--but only the Haverley girl knows what Bobby had said or how many waltzes he had claimed for the next ball. Six in the morning saw Bobby at the Tonga Office in the drenching rain, the whirl of the last waltz still in his ears, and an intoxication due neither to wine nor waltzing in his brain.

“Good man!” shouted Deighton of the Horse Battery, through the mists. “Whar you raise dat tonga? I'm coming with you. Ow! But I've had a head and a half. I didn't sit out all night. They say the Battery's awful bad,” and he hummed dolorously--Leave the what at the what's-its-name, Leave the flock without shelter, Leave the corpse uninterred, Leave the bride at the altar!

“My faith! It'll be more bally corpse than bride, though, this journey. Jump in, Bobby. Get on, Coachman!”

On the Umballa platform waited a detachment of officers discussing the latest news from the stricken cantonment, and it was here that Bobby learned the real condition of the Tail Twisters.

“They went into camp,” said an elderly Major recalled from the whist-tables at Mussoorie to a sickly Native Regiment, “they went into camp with two hundred and ten sick in carts. Two hundred and ten fever cases only, and the balance looking like so many ghosts with sore eyes. A Madras Regiment could have walked through 'em.”

“But they were as fit as be-damned when I left them!” said Bobby.

“Then you'd better make them as fit as be-damned when you rejoin,” said the Major, brutally.

Bobby pressed his forehead against the rain-splashed windowpane as the train lumbered across the sodden Doab, and prayed for the health of the Tyneside Tail Twisters. Naini Tal had sent down her contingent with all speed; the lathering ponies of the Dalhousie Road staggered into Pathankot, taxed to the full stretch of their strength; while from cloudy Darjiling the Calcutta Mail whirled up the last straggler of the little army that was to fight a fight, in which was neither medal nor honor for the winning, against an enemy none other than “the sickness that destroyeth in the noonday.”

And as each man reported himself, he said: “This is a bad business,” and went about his own forthwith, for every Regiment and Battery in the cantonment was under canvas, the sickness bearing them company.

Bobby fought his way through the rain to the Tail Twisters' temporary mess, and Revere could have fallen on the boy's neck for the joy of seeing that ugly, wholesome phiz once more.

“Keep 'em amused and interested,” said Revere. “They went on the drink, poor fools, after the first two cases, and there was no improvement. Oh, it's good to have you back, Bobby! Porkiss is a--never mind.”

Deighton came over from the Artillery camp to attend a dreary mess dinner, and contributed to the general gloom by nearly weeping over the condition of his beloved Battery. Porkiss so far forgot himself as to insinuate that the presence of the officers could do no earthly good, and that the best thing would be to send the entire Regiment into hospital and “let the doctors look after them.” Porkiss was demoralized with fear, nor was his peace of mind restored when Revere said coldly: “Oh! The sooner you go out the better, if that's your way of thinking. Any public school could send us fifty good men in your place, but it takes time, time, Porkiss, and money, and a certain amount of trouble, to make a Regiment. 'S'pose you're the person we go into camp for, eh?”