Chapter III (1)

We were nearing Port Said, and there was a talk of getting up a fancy ball in the Canal, the night the steamer was “tied up;” an energetic lady--there is always one among the passengers--managed it, and cleverly evolved costumes out of almost nothing. There were Indians, Chinese, Japanese, Britannia’s draped with flags; lazy people who were merely _poudré_, and clowns, playing cards, demons, and witches. The passengers of a P. and O. (anchored close by) came on board, and there--with the silent desert stretching away at either side--was enacted a scene of revelry, and all went merry as a marriage bell. Our ship gave the supper, the men the champagne. Mrs. Raymond was not allowed to dress in costume, or to dance; though it had been suggested that she should go as “Beauty,” and her husband as the “Beast,” or as the “Princess Baldrabadoura,” and her husband as the “Magician.” I fancy she had had a struggle to be present at _all_, for she looked rather pale, and her eyes were decidedly red, as she came and sat near me. I was only a spectator, a withered old wallflower.

“Can you not dance?” I asked, as she steadily refused partner after partner.

“Oh yes, I can, and I am so fond of it, too; but Mr. Raymond does not think married ladies ought to dance.”

“I go further,” he said--coming nearer as he spoke--“I don’t think any ladies ought to dance; they lower themselves by doing so. They should leave all this display to nautch-girls; it is only fit for such! Look at that lady,” pointing to Mrs. Swift, in a very short dress, “and look at that one,” indicating another in an exceedingly low body, “and you call _them_ civilized and refined? I call them no better than savages! They are on a par with a negro woman, who dances round a fetish.”

“You would shut them up, if you had anything to say to them?” I remarked sarcastically.

“I would--in their graves,” was the startling reply.

“I agree with you, that there is dancing and dancing, and I cannot admire these frantic polkas, or the kitchen lancers.”

“Ah, if you European ladies were not so prejudiced, you would allow that our Zenana system was a sound one.”

“No, never; I should never go to that extreme,” I maintained indignantly.

“But listen to me. Do our women romp about with other men--half clothed, too!--and shame their husbands who stand looking on? You saw those ladies racing round the deck yesterday for a gold bangle; what sort of an exhibition did you call it?”

I called it an exhibition of stockings, but I held my tongue. There _was_ something in what he said. Some ladies, I knew, might be eliminated from society with much advantage to womankind in general.

“_You_ think our women have no liberty,” he pursued, gesticulating with his thin brown hands.

“I am sure they have not,” I answered emphatically.

“Another mistake! They have far more than in English families. Although the world does not see them, our mothers and wives pull all the strings from behind the purdah. No family matter is settled without them; be it weddings, purchase of land or jewels, all those affairs are generally arranged by them; they are far more deferred to in money matters than European women, who are often beaten, and almost always neglected or ignored where business is in question. An old lady like you, were she of my people, would have great authority. And they have ample variety; they drive about from one Zenana to another, and hear all the news, and drink coffee with their friends. Nor are they debarred from male society; they see their husbands and brothers and uncles. Once a woman is married, why should she desire to see another man than her husband? There is where the great mistake is made in your country; were your ladies kept in strict seclusion, there would be no disgrace, none of those shocking scandals that become more common every day.”

“Have _you_ never any?” I demanded in my tartest tone.

“Rarely, rarely, very rarely.”

“And when one is discovered, what happens?”

“Do not ask me _too_ much,” was his mysterious reply. “I maintain here to you, an enlightened English lady, who knows India, and knows the world, that our Zenana life, our women’s lives, is infinitely superior to yours. Where women smoke and drink, and shoot and hunt, and have their liberty, and make a very bad use of it--ours have sufficient liberty, but no licence.”

“And yet many cannot read or write, and spend their days playing childish games, dressing dolls, quarrelling, or eating sweets; their minds are a blank.”

“Better so than be full of wickedness.”

“And yet you read French novels yourself; you have had a good education; you have seen the world. A woman is to be shut up between four walls, spending her days like some wound-up mechanical toy. Is she not as much a human being as you are?”

“No; she is an inferior,” was his astounding statement.

“_Thank_ you,” I replied, with an arctic bow.

“But she is well watched and cared for,” he calmly proceeded, “and is very happy in her home, and has enormous influence.”

“And yet she may not sit in her husband’s presence; and when he enters a room, must stand with her face to the wall!”

“That is seldom done now; these customs are going out of fashion.”

“Yes, like the bow-string and the sack!” I retorted, with a spice of temper.

At this moment some one came and offered to take me down to supper, and I was not sorry to leave Mr. Raymond; there was an odd glitter in his eyes, and a repressed tone in his speech, that I did not altogether relish. He had not been pleased with my thrust about the sack and bow-string, and for my part I had not fancied being so plainly informed that I was “an old woman.” We were never such good friends after that night, and I think he had an insane idea that _I_--I, strait-laced Louisa Paulet--encouraged those two light-hearted officers in their fluttering round his wife!

Captain Fuller took me into his confidence one evening, and said--

“What can have persuaded that lovely girl to marry that horrible man? Did he pass himself off as an Italian, or a Greek, or what? Handsome, I suppose he is, but what an expression! And it strikes me, that the nearer he approaches his native shores, the more native he becomes--even in his dress. He has dropped his smart tweed suit for white duck, his deerstalker for a fez, and the fine new gloss of his European manners has worn down. He would like to poison _me_, and I should be delighted to kick him--to kick him for half an hour.”

“Well, I sincerely hope you will keep the peace; we have only seven days more. We sight Perim to-night,” I added consolingly.

“Seven days more! Yes, I wonder what sort of a life that wretched girl will lead. She is very simple, and as ignorant in some ways as a child.”

“She will have carriages and horses, and servants, and lovely diamonds.”

“And do you think they will make her happy?”

“I am sure I don’t know; it satisfies some women.”

“Yes, but not when they are married to a native of India, with whom they can have but little in common, and who has an uncivilized temper. Where is she to live?” he inquired, with undissembled interest.

“I do not know,” I returned, with a shake of my head. “She is rather vague about it herself.”

“But surely you can find out? You have been very kind to her, and I am certain that to feel she has one friend of her own sex in the country, would make her happier. Give her your address; you might drop her a line, and ask how she is getting on. It would be an act of charity; for, to tell you the truth, I have my doubts of that fellow. I would not trust him as far as I could throw him.”

I seemed (I suppose because I am stout and motherly-looking) to be the general repository of people’s confidences, for one afternoon, before dinner, Mrs. Raymond came and took Charles’s chair--her husband was deep in a game of chess. He glanced up for a second, but he evidently considered that she was safe with me, and resumed his play. I looked at her closely; she had been crying. This was the second time I had seen her with red eyes. She moved her chair, so that she sat with her back to the chess-players, and said--

“I have not had a talk with you for a long time, Mrs. Paulet.”

“No, my dear; but we can have a good chat now. You are not looking yourself; have you a headache?”

“I--I feel the heat; oh, I do hope we are not going to a very hot place.”

“I hope not,” I answered cheerfully.

“And in six more days I shall know! Mrs. Paulet, I wonder if I shall ever see you again. Oh, I _hope_ I shall!”

“Perhaps some day you will come and pay me a little visit at Tamashabad?”

“How I should love to stay with you, but----”

“But what?”

“My husband would not let me go, I am sure. Oh, dear Mrs. Paulet, I feel so _safe_ when I am near you!” and her eyes filled with tears.

“What does the girl mean?” I asked impatiently.

“I mean”--lowering her voice, two tears now rolling slowly down her cheeks--“that my marriage has been a terrible mistake. I am afraid of Mr. Raymond, I am--indeed. Oh, why did I ever leave my home?”

To hear a bride of a few weeks talk in this way gave me a most unpleasant sensation.

“Nonsense, my dear girl! you are only a little bilious; it is the sea air. If you had not liked the man, I’m sure you would not have married him.”

“It was all my mother’s doing,” she rejoined in a choked voice. “You see--I need not tell you--that I am not a lady by birth like you, and it was a grand match for the likes of me.”

“Tell me where you met him, and how it all came about? You may be sure I shall keep whatever you relate to myself.”

“I met him up in the lake country, where my mother keeps a little inn--The Trout and Fly. She is a widow and has three daughters; I am the youngest--and best looking.”

“Yes, go on.”

“I was always a bit spoiled, I suppose on account of my looks, and I was sent to quite a genteel boarding-school in Carlisle, where I learnt French and the piano, and when I came home I was never asked to help in the housework like Lizzie and Susan, or to wash dishes or cook; mother could not bear me to soil a finger, and so I used to sew and do a little millinery and that. She never allowed me, even in the busy time, to set foot in the bar or coffee-room, or to come across visitors at all; but one day I met Mr. Raymond on the stairs.” She paused, sighed, and then added in a most melancholy tone, “And that began it all!”

“I suppose so,” I acquiesced sympathetically.

“Yes, he stayed and stayed, and he hung about, till he met me and spoke to me. He was very rich and handsome, and had such beautiful clothes and rings--so different from any of the village people. He took a fancy to me, he told mother, and asked if he might walk out with me; and of an evening we used to walk together, and he told me lovely stories, and was very attentive, and gave me a gold watch and chain; and people talked in a horrid way, but mother shut them up fine! He was a real grand gentleman, and he was going to marry me; he and she had settled it, she said. If I had had to choose, and he had had the same as young Joe the boatman, my own cousin, I’d have married young Joe. However, we were married very quietly, and he carried me off to London, and bought me splendid dresses, and took me to the theatres and parks, and we had a fine hired carriage of our own. Then we went to Paris, and I liked that; and oh! he bought me such lovely diamonds. I never wished for a thing that I did not get it. Just like in a fairy tale. But though he was very kind to me, I never could bring him to speak to me of his relations, his religion, or his home, and I know no more about them now than I did then,” she said with a little sob, “and here we are within four days of Bombay. I have a presentiment that something is going to happen, and I cannot sleep for thinking of it, my heart does palpitate so!” As she spoke, her whole frame quivered.

“Indigestion, my dear! Pray, what could happen to you?” I asked.

“I don’t know; but sometimes Mr. Raymond is very angry with me, and he frightens me. He cannot endure me to speak to any one, scarcely even to _you_; and he told me that if I ever spoke to Captain Fuller again he would lock me up in my cabin. He is quite capable of it. Ah! what would I not give to be at home? Shall I ever see our dear hills and lakes again?”

“Of course you will,” I hastily rejoined; “and meanwhile you will see a very interesting new country, where I hope you will be very happy.”

“God grant it, Mrs. Paulet!” she returned gravely. “But sometimes I feel that I shall never be happy again,” and she gave a little dry sob.

“You should have reflected well before you married. You are very young; you could hardly know your own mind.”

“Yes; but you see mother is a strong-minded woman, and manages us all. I never chose a dress for myself, let alone a sweetheart. And he was very liberal to mother; he bought her a lease of the house, and poor mother was just dazzled. Oh, if I was only back again, sitting over the fire in the little parlour, with Susan and Lizzie, I’d never ask to see a diamond, or a horse, or a silk dress, as long as I lived! Yes, it’s getting much warmer.”

I looked round to see the meaning of this irrelevant remark, and discovered Mr. Raymond close to us, regarding our confidences with a pair of most suspicious eyes.

The next morning he blandly informed us at breakfast that “Mrs. Raymond was not well, and was going to remain in her cabin--a touch of fever, a mere nothing.”

I volunteered to go and see her, to take her quinine, eau de Cologne, oranges. My offer was stiffly declined. “His wife had everything she required; all she needed was repose.” We did not see her that day, nor the following one, nor could we gain access to her cabin by fair means--or even by foul--for when I surreptitiously tried the door (having left Mr. Raymond on deck), I found Ahmed Khan on duty as sentry, and he assured me with a scowl that “Mem Sahib sota hye” (Mem Sahib asleep).

Mrs. Sharpe came to me next morning, and said excitedly, “Louisa, you _always_ say I am finding mares’ nests, but I am certain there is something wrong about those Raymonds; we have not seen her for three days--not since Monday night.”

“No, but that proves nothing. She has not been looking well latterly--she has fever.”

“The doctor has not been called in. _He_ waits on her himself; and when he is card-playing, and on deck, the door is locked.”

“Pray, how do _you_ know?” I demanded judicially.

“I watched and tried it, and then I knocked, and she said, ‘Come in, please;’ but I saw Ahmed, and he sent me away. ‘Sahib’s hookum; missus sick, could see _no_ Mem Sahib.’ Then I can tell you something more. Her cabin is next Miss Lacy’s, and Miss Lacy says she hears dreadful sobbing and crying. What _is_ to be done? Shall we speak to the captain?” concluded Mrs. Sharpe.

“No; a man’s cabin is his castle, and his wife is his private property. We cannot break in, and see her against his will.”

“The thing is to communicate with her.”

“Yes, but how?” I inquired.

“I have thought it all out. This evening, when he is playing cards, I shall slip away, and go into Miss Lacy’s cabin and knock on the partition, at the back of Mrs. Raymond’s berth. Don’t _you_ go; he may suspect you, but he won’t miss _me_.”

“Well?” I said breathlessly, as I entered her cabin that night, “what success?”

“He was much too clever for me,” she replied. “I had barely knocked and said, ‘Mrs. Raymond.’ And she said, ‘Oh, who is it?’--‘Mrs. Sharpe, from Mrs. Paulet. Are you better?’--‘I am quite well. I never was ill. Hush!’ And I heard her cabin door opened, and _he_ came in; he did not talk at first, but I knew he was there. After a time he said, ‘I have brought your sleeping draught.’ I had my ear to the berth. ‘Oh, please, please no,’ she cried; ‘I don’t want it, and the other made me so heavy for two days. Oh, anything but the sleeping draught!’ and she began to sob. ‘_Take it!_’ you should have heard his voice; it actually frightened me through the boards. And then I crept stealthily away, feeling quite queer and shaky, not to say guilty.”

“We get in to-morrow at nine o’clock,” I said. “Of course we shall see her then. We will watch and waylay them. Poor girl! what does he mean by shutting her up and drugging her?”

The steamer arrived in dock at six--three hours before her time, and before we were up. What a bustle there was! After our seven-o’clock Chotah hazree, packing our small parcels and wraps, receiving our letters and friends--we _are_ a selfish world--it was breakfast-time ere I thought of the poor prisoner. I went to the cabin door and knocked; no answer. I turned the handle; the door opened, the cabin was empty!

“How is this?” I said to the stewardess Theresa, a fat, oily-tongued Italian.

“Oh, the signora was very, very sick, and the good signor was so attentive, he waited on her himself (he had given Theresa a handsome tip--that I could see). He was so anxious about her, that as soon as we were in dock, he carried her on deck in his arms, well wrapped up. There was a doolie waiting with eight bearers. He placed her in it with his own hands, and she was taken away.”

On further inquiry, a doolie and eight bearers, accompanied by a respectable elderly servant, had been seen going towards the city, and there all trace of the Raymonds was lost.

* * * * *

Raymond was, of course, a fictitious name. The unhappy girl, and the mysterious stranger, had totally disappeared; none of their fellow-passengers ever heard of them again. They were both engulfed in that wide and extremely vague address known as “Up country.” To this day, Mrs. Sharpe and I, when we meet, shake our heads together over a certain little mutual intrigue, and jointly wonder what has become of Mrs. Raymond.

_THE KHITMATGAR._

“Whence and what art thou, execrable shape?”--MILTON.

Perhaps you have seen them more than once on railway platforms in the North-West Provinces. A shabby, squalid, weary-looking group, sitting on their battered baggage, or scrambling in and out of intermediate compartments; I mean Jackson, the photographer, and his belongings. Jackson is not his real name, but it answers the purpose. There are people who will tell you that Jackson is a man of good family, that he once held a commission in a crack cavalry regiment, and that his brother is Lord-Lieutenant of his county, and his nieces are seen at Court balls. Then how comes their kinsman to have fallen to such low estate--if kinsman he be--this seedy-looking, unshorn reprobate, with a collarless flannel shirt, greasy deerstalker, and broken tennis shoes? If you look into his face, who runs may read the answer--Jackson drinks; or his swollen features, inflamed nose, and watery and uncertain eye greatly belie him.

Jackson was a _mauvais sujet_ from his youth upwards, if the truth must be confessed. At school he was always in trouble and in debt. At Oxford his scrapes were so prominent that he had more than one narrow escape of being sent down. Who would believe, to look at him _now_, that he had once been a very pretty boy, the youngest and best-looking of a handsome family, and naturally his mother’s darling? Poor woman! whilst she lived she shielded him from duns and dons, and from his father’s wrath; she pawned her diamonds and handed over her pin-money to pay his bills; she gave him advice--and he gave her kisses. By the time he had joined his regiment, this reckless youth had lost his best friend, but his bad luck--as _he_ termed it--still clung to him and overwhelmed him. His father had a serious interview with his colonel, paid up like a liberal parent, and agreed to his son’s exchange into a corps in India. “India may steady him,” thought this sanguine old gentleman; but, alas! it had anything but the desired effect. In India the prodigal became more imprudent than ever. Cards, racing, simpkin, soon swallowed up his moderate allowance, and he fell headlong into the hands of the soucars--a truly fatal fall! Twenty per cent. per month makes horrible ravages in the income of a subaltern, and soon he was hopelessly entangled in debt, and had acquired the disagreeable reputation of being “a man who never paid for anything, and always let others in, when it was a question of rupees.” Then his name was whispered in connection with some very shady racing transaction, and finally he was obliged to leave the service, bankrupt alike in honour and credit. His father was dead, his brothers unanimously disowned him, and for twenty years he fell from one grade to another, as he roamed over India from Peshawar to Madras, and Rangoon to Bombay. He had been in turn planter, then planter’s clerk, house agent, tonga agent; he had tried touting for a tailoring firm and manufacturing hill jams; and here he was at fifty years of age, with a half-caste wife, a couple of dusky children, and scarcely an anna in his pocket. Undoubtedly he had put the coping-stone on his misfortunes when he took for his bride the pretty, slatternly daughter of a piano-tuner, a girl without education, without energy, and without a penny.

Ten years ago Fernanda Braganza had been a charming creature (with the fleeting beauty of her kind), a sylph in form, with superb dark eyes, fairy-like feet, and a pronounced taste for pink ribbons, patchouli, and pearl-powder. This vision of beauty, who had gushed to Jackson with her soul in her exquisite eyes, and who was not insensible to the honour of marrying a gentleman, was she the selfsame individual as this great fat woman, in carpet slippers, and a bulging tweed ulster, who stood with a sallow, hungry-looking child in either hand? Alas! she was.

The Jacksons had come to try their fortunes at Panipore--a small up-country station, where there were two European regiments and half a battery of Artillery--for is not Tommy Atkins ever a generous patron to an inexpensive photographer? The finances of the family were at a very low ebb that February afternoon, as they stood on the platform collecting their belongings, a camera and chemicals, a roll of frowsy bedding, a few cooking things, a couple of boxes, also a couple of grimy servants--in India the poorest have a following, and third-class tickets are cheap. Jackson had a “three-finger” peg at the bar, although there was but little in his pocket, besides a few cards and paper posters, and thus invigorated proceeded to take steps respecting the removal of his family.

Poverty forbade their transit in a couple of ticca gharries, and pride shrank from an ekka; therefore Jackson left his wife in the waiting-room whilst he tramped away in the blinding sun and powdery white dust to see if there was accommodation at the Dâk Bungalow. It proved to be crammed, and he had not yet come down to the Serai, or native halting-place. He was (when sober) a man of some resource. He made his way up to the barracks and asked questions, and heard that the station was in the same condition as the Dâk Bungalow, quite full. Even Fever Hall and Cholera Villa were occupied, and the only shelter he could put his head into was the big two-storied bungalow in the Paiwene road. It had been empty for years; it was to be had at a nominal rent--say two rupees a week--and there was no fear of any one disturbing him _there_! It was large and close to the barracks, but greatly out of repair. With this useful intelligence, Mr. Jackson rejoined his impatient circle, and, with their goods in a hand-cart, they started off for this house of refuge without delay.

Past the native bazaar, past the officers’ mess, past the church, then along a straight wide road, where the crisp dead leaves crackled underfoot, a road lined with dusty half-bare trees, whose branches stood out in strong relief against a hard blue sky, whilst a vast tract of grain country, covered with green barley and ripe sugar-cane, stretched away on the right. On the left were a pair of great gaunt gate piers, leading by a grass-grown approach, to the two-storied bungalow--an imposing-looking house, that was situated well back from the highway amid a wilderness of trees, and rank and rotting vegetation. Distance in this case certainly had lent enchantment to the view! When the little party arrived under the wide, dilapidated portico, they found all the doors closed, the lower windows stuffed with boards, matting, and even paper in default of glass; weeds and creepers abounded, and there was a dangerous fissure in the front wall. After knocking and calling for about ten minutes, an ancient chowkidar appeared, looking half asleep. At first he thought it was merely a party from the station, wishing, as was their eccentric custom, “to go over” the haunted house, the Bhootia Bungalow; but he soon learnt his mistake from the voluble, shrill-tongued mem-sahib.

This family of shabby Europeans, who had arrived on foot, with all their belongings in a “_tailer_” from the station, had actually come to stay, to sleep, to _live_ on the premises! Grumbling to himself, he conducted them up an exceedingly rickety, not to say dangerous, staircase--for the lower rooms were dark and damp--to three or four large and cheerful apartments, opening on a fine verandah. Mrs. Jackson was accustomed to pitching her tent in queer places, and in a very short time she had procured from the bazaar a table, a few chairs, and a couple of charpoys, and furnished two rooms--she had but little to unpack--whilst Kadir Bux, the family slave, vibrated between cooking and chemicals. Meanwhile Mr. Jackson, having washed, shaved, and invested himself in his one linen collar and black alpaca coat, set forth on a tour of inspection, to stick up posters and distribute cards. His wife also made her rounds; the upper rooms were habitable, and the verandah commanded a fine view; it overlooked the park-like but neglected compound, intersected with short cut paths, and which, despite its two grand entrance gates, was now without hedge or paling, and quite open to the road, a road down which not a few ladies and gentlemen in bamboo carts or on ponies were trotting past for their evening airing. Below the suite Mr. Jackson had chosen, were the dismal vault-like rooms, the chowkidar with his charpoy and huka, and beyond, at the back of the bungalow, the servants’ quarters and stables, both roofless. Behind these ruins, stretched an immense overgrown garden (with ancient, dried-up fruit trees, faint traces of walks and water-channels, and a broken fountain and sundial) now abandoned to cattle. On the whole, Mrs. Jackson was pleased with her survey. She had never as yet inhabited such a lordly-looking mansion, and felt more contented than she had done for a long time, especially as Jackson was on his best behaviour--he had no friends in the place, and scarcely any funds.

In a short time Mr. Jackson had acquired both. His good address, his gentlemanly voice, and the whisper of his having once been an officer who had come to grief--who had been unfortunate--went far in a military station. With extraordinary discretion he kept his belongings entirely out of sight; he also kept sober, and consequently received a number of orders for photographs of groups, of bungalows, and of polo ponies. He had the eye of an artist and really knew his business, and although some were startled at the strength of the pegs which he accepted, he had a large and lucrative connection in less than no time, and rupees came flowing in fast. As he and the invaluable Kadir worked together, he talked glibly to portly field-officers and smooth-faced subalterns, of men whom _he_ had known, men whose names at least were familiar to them--distinguished veterans, smart soldiers, and even celebrated personages. He attended church, and sang lustily out of a little old Prayer-book, and looked such a picture of devout, decayed gentility, that the tender-hearted ladies pitied him and thought him quite romantic, and hastened to order photographs of all their children, or, children being lacking, dogs. Little did they know that Mr. Jackson’s shabby Prayer-book would have been sold for drink years previously, only that he found it an absolutely unmarketable article!

Meanwhile Mrs. Jackson was convinced that she was positively about to be “a lady at last.” She purchased frocks for her sallow girls, a dress and boots for herself; she set up a rocking-chair and a cook, and occasionally drove to the bazaar in a “ticca” gharry, where she looked down with splendid dignity on the busy bargaining wives of Tommy Atkins. The chaplain’s lady had called upon her, also the barrack-sergeant’s wife, who lived in a small bungalow or quarters beyond the garden. She had haughtily snubbed this good woman at first, but subsequently had thawed toward her, for several reasons. Jackson, having been uproariously drunk, and unpleasantly familiar to an officer, had now fallen back on the sergeants’ mess for his society, and on private soldiers for his patrons. He was still doing a roaring trade, especially in cartes-de-visite at six rupees a dozen. He bragged and talked, and even wept, to his listeners in the barrack-rooms, and in the canteen: listeners who thought him an uncommonly fine fellow, liberal as a lord, flinging his coin right and left. They little guessed the usual sequel, or of how the Jackson family were wont to steal out of a station by rail in the grey dawn of an Indian morning, leaving many poor natives, who had supplied their wants in the shape of bread and meat, coffee, and even clothes, to bewail their too abrupt departure. Jackson was “on the drink,” as his wife frankly expressed it, never home before twelve o’clock at night, and then had to be helped upstairs, and Mrs. Jackson found these evenings extremely wearisome. She rarely read, but she did a little crochet and not a little scolding; she slept a good deal; and, as long as her coffee and her curry were well and punctually served, she was fairly content, for she was naturally lethargic and indolent. But still she liked to _talk_, and here she had no one with whom to exchange a word. She pined for the sound of another female tongue, and accordingly one afternoon she arrayed herself in her new hat with scarlet cock’s feathers, also her yellow silk gloves, and with the cook as a body-servant and to carry her umbrella, she sallied forth to return the visit of the barrack-sergeant’s wife. She had not far to go--only through the garden and across the road. The barrack-sergeant’s wife was knitting outside in her verandah, for the weather was “warming up,” when Mrs. Jackson, all-gorgeous in her best garments, loomed upon her vision. Now, Mrs. Clark “had no notion of the wives of drunken photographers giving themselves hairs! And don’t go for to tell _her_ as ever that Jackson was a gentleman! A fellow that went reeling home from the canteen every night!” But she dissembled her feelings and stood up rather stiffly, and invited her visitor into her drawing-room, a small apartment, the walls coloured grey, furnished with cheap straw chairs, covered in gaudy cretonne, further embellished by billowy white curtains, tottering little tables, and a quantity of photographs in cotton velvet frames--a room of some pretensions, and Mrs. Clark’s pride. Its unexpected grandeur was a blow to Mrs. Jackson, as was also the appearance of two cups of tea on a tray, accompanied by a plate of four water-biscuits. It seemed to her that Mrs. Clark also set up for being quite the lady, although _her_ husband was not a gentleman. The two matrons talked volubly, as they sipped their tea, of bazaar prices, cheating hawkers, and the enormities of their servants. “My cook,” was continually in Mrs. Jackson’s mouth. They played a fine game of brag, in which Mrs. Jackson, despite her husband who had been an officer, of her cook, and of her large house, came off second best!

“I can’t think,” she said, looking round contemptuously, “how you can bear to live in these stuffy quarters. I am sure _I_ couldn’t; it would kill me in a week. You should see the splendid rooms we have; they do say it was once a palace, and built by a nabob.”

“May be so,” coolly rejoined her hostess. “I know it was a mess-house, and after that an officers’ chummery, fifteen or twenty years ago; but no one would live there now, unless they had _no other_ roof to cover them, and came to a place like a parcel of beggars!”

“Why, what’s up with it?” inquired Mrs. Jackson, suddenly becoming of a dusky puce, even through her pearl-powder.

“Don’t you know--and _you_ there this two months and more?”

“Indeed I don’t; what is there to know?”

“And haven’t you seen him?” demanded Mrs. Clarke, in a key of intense surprise--“I mean the Khitmatgar?”

“I declare I don’t know what you are talking about,” cried the other, peevishly. “What Khitmatgar?”

“What Khitmatgar? Hark at her! Why, a short, square-shouldered man, in a smart blue coat, with a regimental badge in his turban. He has very sticking-out, curling black whiskers, and a pair of wicked eyes that look as if they could stab you, though he salaams to the ground whenever you meet him.”

“I believe I _have_ seen him, now you mention it,” rejoined Mrs. Jackson; “rather a tidy-looking servant, with, as you say, a bad expression. But bless you! _we_ have such crowds of officers’ messengers coming with chits to my husband, I never know who they are! I’ve seen him now and then, of an evening, I’m sure, though I don’t know what brought him, or whose servant he is.”

“Servant!” echoed the other. “Why, he is a ghost--the ghost what haunts the bungalow!”

“Ah, now, Mrs. Clark,” said her visitor, patronizingly, “you don’t tell me you believe such rubbish?”

“Rubbish!” indignantly, “is it? Oh, just you wait and see. Ask old Mr. Soames, the pensioner, as has been here this thirty year--ask any one--and they will all tell you the same story.”

“Story, indeed!” cried Mrs. Jackson, with a loud, rude laugh.

“Well, it’s a true story, ma’am--but you need not hear it unless you like it.”

“Oh, but I should like to hear it very much,” her naturally robust curiosity coming to the front. “Please do tell it to me.”

“Well, twenty years ago, more or less, some young officers lived in that bungalow, and one of them in a passion killed his Khitmatgar. They say he never meant to do it, but the fellow was awfully cheeky, and he threw a bottle at his head and stretched him dead. It was all hushed up, but that young officer came to a bad end, and the house began to get a bad name--people died there so often; two officers of _delirium tremens_; one cut his throat, another fell over the verandah and broke his neck--and so it stands empty! No one stays a week.”

“And why?” demanded the other, boldly. “Lots of people die in houses; they must die somewhere.”

“But _not_ as they do there!” shrilly interrupted Mrs. Clark. “The Khitmatgar comes round at dusk, or at night, just like an ordinary servant, with pegs or lemonade and so on. Whoever takes anything from his hand seems to get a sort of madness on them, and goes and destroys themselves.”

“It’s a fine tale, and you tell it very well,” said Mrs. Jackson, rising and nodding her red cock’s feathers, and her placid, dark, fat face. “There does be such in every station; people must talk, but they won’t frighten _me_.”

And having issued this manifesto, she gave her hostess a limp shake of the hand and waddled off.

“She’s jealous of the grand big house, and fine compound, fit for gentry,” said Mrs. Jackson to herself, “and she thinks to get me out of it. Not that _she_ could get in! for she has to live in quarters; and she is just a dog in the manger, and, anyways, it’s a made-up story from first to last!”

As she reached her abode, and called “_Qui hai! buttie lao!_” a figure came out from the passage, salaamed respectfully, and, by the light of a two-anna lamp on the staircase, she descried the strange Khitmatgar, whose appearance was perfectly familiar to her--a short, square, surly-looking person. No doubt he was one of Kadir’s many friends; the lower rooms were generally overrun with his visitors.

“Send Kadir!” she said imperiously, and went upstairs, and as she spoke the man salaamed again and vanished.

The wife of his bosom had a fine tale to tell Mr. Jackson the next morning, as, with a very shaky hand, he was touching up some plates in his own room.

“A Khitmatgar that offers free pegs!” he exclaimed, with a shout of laughter. “Too good to be true. Why, I’d take a whisky and soda from the devil himself--and glad to get it. My mouth is like a lime-kiln at this moment--_Qui hai! whisky-pani do!_”

Many days, warm and sweltering days, rolled on; the hot winds blew the crackling leaves before them, blew great clouds of red dust along the roads, blew ladies up to the hills, and dispersed many of Jackson’s patrons. But he did not care; he had made a good many rupees; he had more than one boon-companion, and he drank harder than ever. “Why not?” he demanded; “he had earned the money, and had the best right to spend it.” He was earning none now. When customers came, Kadir always informed them the sahib was _sota_ (asleep). Yes, sleeping off the effects of the preceding night. Mrs. Jackson was accustomed to this state of affairs, and what she called his “attacks.” She rocked herself, fanned herself and dozed, and did a little crochet, whilst the two children played quietly in a back room, with old photographs and bits of cardboard. When her husband did awake, and enjoy a few hours’ lucid interval, it was only to recall bills and duns, and flashes of his old life: the cool green park at home, the hunting-field, reviews at Aldershot, his pretty cousin Ethel. Then the chill reality forced itself upon his half-crazy brain. The park was this great, barren, scorched compound, with the hot winds roaring across it; the figure in the verandah was not Ethel in her riding-habit, but Fernanda in carpet slippers and a greasy old dressing-gown. Was this life worth living?

Mrs. Jackson had seen the Khitmatgar several times; once she noticed him looking down at her as she ascended the stairs, once he had appeared in answer to her call, carrying a tray and glasses, but she had boldly waved him away, and said, “Send Kadir; why does he allow strangers to do his work?” There was something far too human about the appearance of the man for her to give a moment’s credence to the ghost-story.

One still hot night, a night as bright as day, Mrs. Jackson found the air so oppressive that she could not sleep. She lay tossing from side to side on her charpoy, looking out on the moon-flooded verandah, and listening to the indefatigable brain-fever bird, when suddenly she heard her husband’s familiar call, “_Qui hai, peg lao!_” He had been drinking as usual, and had fallen into a sodden sleep in his own room.

After an unusually short interval, steps came up the stairs, shoes were audibly slipped off, and there were sounds of the jingling of a glass and bottle.

The door of Mrs. Jackson’s apartment opened into the verandah and stood wide, on account of the intense breathless heat of that Indian night. In a few moments some one came and paused on the threshold, tray in hand, some one who surveyed her with a grin of Satanic satisfaction. It was the strange Khitmatgar! There was a triumphant expression in his eyes that made her blood run cold, and whilst she gazed, transfixed with horror, he salaamed and was gone. In a second she had jumped out of bed; she ran into the verandah. Yes, the long verandah was empty--he had disappeared. She called excitedly to her husband; no answer. She rushed into his room, to unfold her experience. Jackson was sitting at the table, or rather half lying across it, his hands clenched, his features convulsed, his eyes fixed--quite dead.

He had swallowed one of his chemicals, a fatal poison. Of course, there was the usual ephemeral excitement occasioned by a tragedy in the station, the usual inquest and verdict of temporary insanity, and then a new nameless grave in the corner of the cantonment cemetery.

* * * * *

Jackson’s fate was generally attributed to whisky--or filthy country liquor. “Poor fellow! his position preyed on his mind, and he drank himself to death.”

This was the universal opinion in mess-room, barrack-room, and bazaar. But there were one or two people, including his wife and Mrs. Clark, who thought otherwise, and who gravely shook their heads and whispered--“_The Khitmatgar_.”

_THE DÂK BUNGALOW AT DAKOR._

“When shall these phantoms flicker away,
Like the smoke of the guns on the wind-swept hill;
Like the sounds and colours of yesterday,
And the soul have rest, and the air be still?”

SIR A. LYALL.

“And so you two young women are going off on a three days’ journey, all by yourselves, in a bullock tonga, to spend Christmas with your husbands in the jungle?”

The speaker was Mrs. Duff, the wife of our deputy commissioner, and the two enterprising young women were Mrs. Goodchild, the wife of the police officer of the district, and myself, wife of the forest officer. We were the only ladies in Karwassa, a little up-country station, more than a hundred miles from the line of rail. Karwassa was a pretty place, an oasis of civilization, amid leagues and leagues of surrounding forest and jungle; it boasted a post-office, public gardens (with tennis courts), a tiny church, a few well-kept shady roads, and half a dozen thatched bungalows, surrounded by luxuriant gardens. In the hot weather all the community were at home, under the shelter of their own roof-trees and punkahs, and within reach of ice--for we actually boasted an ice machine! During these hot months we had, so to speak, our “season.” The deputy commissioner, forest officer, police officer, doctor, and engineer were all “in,” and our gaieties took the form of tennis at daybreak, moonlight picnics, whist-parties, little dinners, and now and then a beat for tiger, on which occasions we ladies were safely roosted in trustworthy trees.

It is whispered that in small and isolated stations the fair sex are either mortal enemies or bosom-friends! I am proud to be in a position to state that we ladies of Karwassa came under the latter head. Mrs. Goodchild and I were especially intimate; we were nearly the same age, we were young, we had been married in the same year and tasted our first experiences of India together. We lent each other books, we read each other our home letters, helped to compose one another’s dirzee-made costumes, and poured little confidences into one another’s ears. We had made numerous joint excursions in the cold season, had been out in the same camp for a month at a time, and when our husbands were in a malarious or uncivilized district, had journeyed on horseback or in a bullock tonga and joined them at some accessible spot, in the regions of dâk bungalows and bazaar fowl.

Mrs. Duff, stout, elderly, and averse to locomotion, contented herself with her comfortable bungalow at Karwassa, her weekly budget of letters from her numerous olive-branches in England, and with adventures and thrilling experiences at secondhand.

“And so you are off to-morrow,” she continued, addressing herself to Mrs. Goodchild. “I suppose you know _where_ you are going?”

“Yes,” returned my companion promptly, unfolding a piece of foolscap as she spoke; “I had a letter from Frank this morning, and he has enclosed a plan copied from the D. P. W. map. We go straight along the trunk road for two days, stopping at Korai bungalow the first night and Kular the second, you see; then we turn off to the left on the Old Jubbulpore Road and make a march of twenty-five miles, halting at a place called Chanda. Frank and Mr. Loyd will meet us there on Christmas Day.”

“Chanda--Chanda,” repeated Mrs. Duff, with her hand to her head. “Isn’t there some queer story about a bungalow near there--that is unhealthy--or haunted--or something?”

Julia Goodchild and I glanced at one another significantly. Mrs. Duff had set her face against our expedition all along; she wanted us to remain in the station and spend Christmas with her, instead of going this wild-goose chase into a part of the district we had never been in before. She assured us that we would be short of bullocks, and would probably have to walk miles; she had harangued us on the subject of fever and cholera and bad water, had warned us solemnly against dacoits, and now she was hinting at ghosts.

“Frank says that the travellers’ bungalows after we leave the main road are not in very good repair--the road is so little used now that the new railway line comes within twenty miles; but he says that the one at Chanda is very decent, and we will push on there,” returned Julia, firmly. Julia was nothing if not firm; she particularly prided herself on never swerving from any fixed resolution or plan. “We take my bullock tonga, and Mr. Loyd’s peon Abdul, who is a treasure, as you know; he can cook, interpret, forage for provisions, and drive bullocks if the worst comes to the worst.”

“And what about bullocks for three days’ journey--a hundred miles if it’s a yard?” inquired Mrs. Duff, sarcastically.

“Oh, the bazaar master has sent on a chuprassie and five natives, and we shall find a pair every five miles at the usual stages. As to food, we are taking tea, bread, plenty of tinned stores, and the plum-pudding. We shall have a capital outing, I assure you, and I only wish we could have persuaded you into coming with us.”

“Thank you, my dear,” said Mrs. Duff, with a patronizing smile. “I’m too old, and I _hope_ too sensible to take a trip of a hundred miles in a bullock tonga, risking fever and dacoits and dâk bungalows full of bandicoots, just for the sentimental pleasure of eating a pudding with my husband. However, you are both young and hardy and full of spirits, and I wish you a happy Christmas, a speedy journey and safe return. Mind you take plenty of quinine--and a revolver;” and, with this cheerful parting suggestion, she conducted us into the front verandah and dismissed us each with a kiss, that was at once a remonstrance and a valediction.

Behold us the next morning, at sunrise, jogging off, behind a pair of big white bullocks, in the highest spirits. In the front seat of the tonga we had stowed a well-filled tiffin basket, two Gladstone bags, our blankets and pillows, a hamper of provisions, and last, not least, Abdul. Julia and I and Julia’s dog “Boss” occupied the back seat, and as we rumbled past Mrs. Duff’s bungalow, with its still silent compound and closed venetians, we mutually agreed that she was “a silly old thing,” that she would have far more enjoyment of life if she was as enterprising as we were.

Our first day’s journey went off without a hitch. Fresh and well-behaved cattle punctually awaited us at every stage. The country we passed through was picturesque and well wooded; doves, peacocks, and squirrels enlivened the roads; big black-faced monkeys peered at us from amid the crops that they were ravaging within a stone’s throw of our route. The haunt of a well-known man-eating tiger was impressively pointed out to us by our cicerone Abdul--this beast resided in some dense jungle, that was unpleasantly close to human traffic. Morning and afternoon wore away speedily, and at sundown we found ourselves in front of the very neat travellers’ bungalow at Korai. The interior was scrupulously clean, and contained the usual furniture: two beds, two tables, four chairs, lamps, baths, a motley collection of teacups and plates, and last, not least, the framed rules of the establishment and visitors’ book. The khansamah cooked us an excellent dinner (for a travellers’ bungalow), and, tired out, we soon went to bed and slept the sleep of the just. The second day was the same as the first--highly successful in every respect.

On the third morning we left the great highway and turned to the left, on to what was called the Old Jubbulpore Road, and here our troubles commenced! Bullocks were bad, lame, small, or unbroken; one of Mrs. Duff’s dismal prophecies came to pass, for after enduring bullocks who lay down, who kicked and ran off the road into their owners’ houses, or rushed violently down steep places, we arrived at one stage where there were no bullocks _at all_! It was four o’clock, and we were still sixteen miles from Chanda. After a short consultation, Julia and I agreed to walk on to the next stage or village, leaving Abdul to draw the neighbourhood for a pair of cattle and then to overtake us at express speed.

“No one coming much this road now, mem-sahib,” he explained apologetically; “village people never keeping tonga bullocks--only plough bullocks, and plenty bobbery.”

“Bobbery or not, get them,” said Julia with much decision; “no matter if you pay four times the usual fare. We shall expect you to overtake us in half an hour.” And having issued this edict we walked on, leaving Abdul, a bullock-man, and two villagers all talking together and yelling at one another at the top of their voices.

Our road was dry and sandy, and lay through a perfectly flat country. It was lined here and there by rows of graceful trees, covered with wreaths of yellow flowers; now and then it was bordered by a rude thorn hedge, inside of which waved a golden field of ripe jawarri; in distant dips in the landscape we beheld noble topes of forest trees and a few red-roofed dwellings--the abodes of the tillers of the soil; but, on the whole, the country was silent and lonely; the few people we encountered driving their primitive little carts stared hard at us in utter stupefaction, as well they might--two mem sahibs trudging along, with no escort except a panting white dog. The insolent crows and lazy blue buffaloes all gazed at us in undisguised amazement as we wended our way through this monotonous and melancholy scene. One milestone was passed and then another, and yet another, and still no sign of Abdul, much less the tonga. At length we came in sight of a large village that stretched in a ragged way at either side of the road. There were the usual little mud hovels, shops displaying, say, two bunches of plantains and a few handfuls of grain, the usual collection of gaunt red pariah dogs, naked children, and unearthly-looking cats and poultry.