Devil's Wind Page 3

  “Well, I like ’em smart,” protested Freddy with a grimace.

  “Smart—oh, Lord, they’re smart enough. They’re a deuced sight too smart, Ginger, and they’re getting to know it. They want taking down a peg or two, these stall-fed, caste-proud Brahmins. They’ll be able to do without us soon; and they’re beginning to know that too. I’d like to see ’em in sensible clothes, and I’d like to see ’em think less of their pipe-clay and more of their discipline.”

  “Clothes, what sort of clothes? What’s wrong with their clothes?”

  “Everything. Too tight. Too hot. Too much pipe-clay. Damn pipe-clay!”

  “All right—I don’t mind. ‘Damn it’ all you like. But what’s wrong with the discipline? I’d bet my boots your men were disciplined within an inch of their lives, whilst you were Adjutant.”

  “Rotten—that’s what the discipline is,” said Richard Morton, with his black eyebrows in a straight frowning line.

  “Insubordinate, are they?”

  “I’d like to see ’em.” Captain Morton’s eyes went very bright and hard. “No, but they’d like to be. Ginger, if I’d a free hand for six months—but with Marsh and Crowther over one’s head, it’s a sickening, heart-breaking job,—and besides, I don’t want to be chucked out of the service for telling’ em what I think of’ em, and it’s bound to come if I stay on.”

  “Then you’d better go, my son.”

  “That’s what Edwardes says, so he’s asked for me. I made friends with his horde of ruffians at Multan. Not much pipe-clay there. I tell you some of them would wake our Bengal regiments up a bit, only they wouldn’t wear tight red jackets, and tight white pantaloons.”

  “No, no, I draw the line at the wild Pathan, Dick. He’s all very well for Irregulars.”

  Richard Morton’s eyes brightened.

  “I tell you, Freddy, we are wasting our best material, absolutely wasting it. Look at the Sikhs. Every regiment is ordered to enlist two hundred of them. How many have you got?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. About fifty.”

  “And we’ve got sixty-two. Have you got a Sikh native officer? No. Nor have we, nor has any one else. Can’t get recruits is the cry, but, Lord, we didn’t kill the whole Sikh, army at Moodkee and Ferozeshah.”

  Freddy shrugged his shoulders.

  “Well, I’m not over partial to Sikhs myself,” he said lazily. “Dirty beggars, and the other men don’t like ’em.”

  “Have you seen them fight?”

  “Oh, we don’t all have your luck, Richard, my son.”

  The band struck up an air that was very popular that season,

  “Oh, shall I miss

  That earliest kiss—”

  and Captain Morton pulled himself up and made a feint of looking at his programme.

  “I’ve got a partner to look for,” he said, and his eyes went towards the door by which Adela Lauriston had gone out.

  “Going to dance with the poor girl?” inquired Freddy Carlton with malice, “because, if so, I’d better be hunting round for a doctor. Once those beetle-crushers of yours take the floor—”

  “All right, Ginger. Wait till I pick you up by the collar, and carry you round the room. I’d do it now for twopence.”

  “Haven’t got twopence,” complained Mr. Carlton ruefully. “But do it just to oblige an old friend, won’t you, Dick?”

  “I would if I’d time. See you again, Ginger”; and Richard Morton went off, with his head in the air, and his big shoulders well above the crowd.

  CHAPTER III

  HOW TWO MEN PROPOSED TO ADELA

  Oh! All the gold that the Fairies have is the gold of the Summer sheaf,

  And all the gold that the Fairies give it fades with the fading leaf;

  And he who would borrow a day of sorrow, and pledge the morrow to grief,

  He shall sell his soul for the Fairy gold that turns to a withered leaf.

  Miss Lauriston and her partner passed out of the brightly lighted ballroom into the great conservatory that was Sir Henry Lavington’s pride. His income was fortunately a very ample one, for he spent an extravagant amount upon his glass-houses, and kept this one filled with strange exotics, whose scent hung heavily on the moist warm air.

  “How hot it is!” said Adela. She looked up at her companion with a teasing glance. “I expect you like it, Mr. Manners. It must remind you of your home.”

  “My home?” said Francis Manners. The words stung him, but it never crossed his mind that Adela had uttered them with intention.

  “Yes, India. India is your home, is it not?”

  The young man’s dark eyes dwelt on her.

  “I do not think I have any home,” he said, and the queer sing-song accent gave an added melancholy to the words. “Oh, no, I have not any home now; but when I was a boy in India, and mv father was alive, we used to talk about home, and we meant England.”

  Adela was a little annoyed. Sentiment which was not directed towards herself always annoyed her. She exclaimed in admiration of a scarlet cactus, and moved deeper into the conservatory.

  Beyond the cactus a bank of orchids threw out strange white and violet blooms, which were reflected in a brimming marble bowl. Adela moved slowly towards the flowers, and stood looking down into the clear water.

  A tiny stream trickled into it and slid drop by drop into a second pool beyond. Thus the water moved continually, showing a ceaseless interplay of faint grey shadow and crystal light, broken here and there by gleams of reflected purple. As Adela bent above the basin she could see her own red lips, her own bright eyes, and the vivid jewel flash of the scarlet flowers in her hair.

  With a little laugh she broke the head from one of the geraniums at her breast, and set it sailing. The current drew it slowly across the pool, and then, just as it touched the rim, young Manners put out his hand and snatched the flower—fiercely—as if he were afraid that some one would be before him.

  “Oh, Mr. Manners!” said Adela, and turned a look of smiling reproof upon his agitated face.

  Francis Manners was very young, and very much in love. The first hot passion of youth beat miserably at his sore heart, and mounted like fire into a brain that was none too strong. His father had died when he was fifteen, and from that time the half native life had merged into one from which English habits and English training had vanished. For a time there had been friends of his father’s who had kept an eye upon the handsome, undisciplined lad; once there was even a summer spent in the hills with a Manners cousin and his wife. That was after he had been so ill, and the English doctor said he would die if he remained at Seetapore.

  Then when he was seventeen had come his mother’s sudden reconciliation with her own people, their removal to Cawnpore, and his uncle’s influence. Sereek Dhundoo Punth, thirty years of age, and steeped in Oriental vice, but withal pleasant and affable, was willing enough to cement his alliance with the conquering English by exploiting a relative who had English blood in his veins. If his sister liked to spend the old Colonel’s savings in propitiating the Brahmins, what was it to him? He himself took his advantage where he found it.

  They called him the Nana Sahib now, grandson of the Peishwas by an adoption as sacred as any tie of blood. Some day, perhaps, some day there would be a Peishwa again, and he would be father of a royal line, as well as son of kings. Meanwhile he entertained royally at Bithoor, and English officers came and went, called him friend, dubbed him sportsman, and partook of his lavish hospitality. Francis Manners shared this life for four years, and then, learning of his father’s inheritance, he accompanied his uncle’s agent to England, and put forward his claim to the Manners estates. A claim—there was the sting. It was only a claim. No evidence of marriage—nothing to found a case on—nothing at all. That was what the lawyers had said. He had gone from one to another, and at each repetition of the verdict he saw receding into
the distance, not wealth and independence, not Manners Park, but—Adela Lauriston.

  He looked at her now. There was a veil between them, a hazy veil that was like distance made manifest. Then as her face laughed at him from the water, and he snatched her flower, his misery broke from him in a cry of “Adela!”

  “Mr. Manners, don’t—how wet you’ll make yourself.”

  “Adela!”

  “Well, I supposed there would be a scene,” said Miss Lauriston to herself with resignation.

  What she said aloud was entirely the proper thing.

  “Mr. Manners, please don’t.”

  “I cannot help it. Oh, no, I cannot. I love you so much, so very much.”

  “Oh, please.”

  “But you do know that. Oh, yes, you must know it. Have I hidden it? Has it not been for all the world to see? Your mother saw, and she was not angry. Only last week she called me Francis, and said that we were cousins. And you saw—oh, yes, you saw—”

  “Indeed—”

  “When we were in the boat together, two days ago only—in the moonlight, and you let me hold your hand, did you not see? And you were kind, you were not angry at all.”

  Adela felt a passing sensation of anger. The boat incident was one of those which had made so much talk. She would never have risked it had she dreamed of the turn that things were going to take.

  At the same time her heart beat not unpleasantly. She was perfectly mistress of herself. She must be kind, but firm. It really was foolish of him to harp so on a week ago, three days ago—as if most important changes could not take place in a far shorter time. After all, if it were not for the talk she was not sure that she would have cared to marry him, even if his claim had proved as good as they had expected.

  “Adela, speak to me—you are not angry now!” And now she was quite ready for him.

  “Oh, no, Mr. Manners, not angry, why should I be angry? I am only sorry that you should have misunderstood.”

  “But I have not. You were kind.”

  “My mother and I were friendly, because your father was a connexion, but I never thought, never dreamed—”

  “Never? Not when I held your hand? Not when I kissed it? Not when I looked at you? Oh, yes, you must have seen. My heart was full of my love, and my eyes were full of it, and you smiled, you smiled at me—only this evening you smiled.”

  Adela felt a little cross. Really this young man was very unreasonable. She withdrew herself a pace or two, and in a flash, there was the poor boy on his knees, catching at her dress, and stammering out some confused appeal to her, not to be angry, not to go, not to leave him.

  “But, Mr. Manners—”

  “You called me Frank. Only yesterday you called me Frank.”

  Adela was provoked.

  “A week ago—what has a week ago to do with to-day?” she cried.

  He turned a quivering face up to hers.

  “What is it that you say? What is it that you mean?”

  Adela’s eyes flashed. Could the man not take his answer? Had he no perceptions?

  “Oh, Mr. Manners, do be sensible,” she exclaimed.

  “What is it that you mean? Why do you say ‘a week ago’ like that.”

  She set her lips firmly together, and he answered his own question with a sob.

  “It is because of what the lawyers say. It is because you think that I have nothing to offer you now. But you said it yourself—India is my home. In India I am a prince. In India I can give you a home. If my father’s people will not have me, there are my mother’s people still. There is my uncle, the Nana Sahib. He would be a great king if the English had not taken the throne from his father. He is a rich man still—verree rich, and a Rajah. Oh, he has jewels, and elephants, and everything verree rich. He is the friend of the English. Lots of English officers are his friends, English ladies come to his parties. You would be like a princess—Adela, beautiful Adela.”

  The sing-song accent gave the sentences a broken, foreign ring; the words came haltingly because the boy’s lips trembled so much. He was quite white, and the moisture stood in beads upon his forehead. He held Adela’s dress in an anguished grasp, and as she shrank back and was afraid to free herself because it would be such a pity to tear her flounce, she wondered how she could ever have thought him handsome.

  “Adela!” he repeated in a sort of whisper; and she spoke indignantly:

  “Mr. Manners, please let me go. It is all quite impossible. You have no right—”

  He cried out sharply, and she repeated her last words.

  “You have no right at all to behave like this. Let me go at once.”

  “You say that too—you too. No right—I have no right. I have no right to my name, and so I have no right to love you. I have no right to be alive. Oh, I did not ask to be alive. I would rather be dead, oh, yes, much rather I would be dead.”

  He let go of Adela’s skirt, and put his hands to his face. There was a long pause, and then Adela said quickly:

  “Some one is coming. The next dance has begun. Mr. Manners, do get up.”

  He did not move.

  “Some one is coming. For mercy’s sake, get up. Mr. Manners! Francis!”

  He got up stumblingly.

  “Some one coming?” he said in a dazed fashion.

  “Yes. We must go back. Don’t you hear the music. Let me take your arm. That will be best.”

  She put out her hand, and he caught at it and kissed it, and kept on kissing it, until she snatched it from him. Then, as Richard Morton’s tall figure came towards them through the palms, he walked away, swaying on his feet, like a man who has drunk too deeply.

  Adela drew a breath of relief, and moved a little farther from the pool, and the shaded light that burned above it. Under a branching, dark-leaved tree there were a couple of chairs, and she sank into one of them, with a soft billowing of her pretty skirts.

  Captain Morton came past the shining water, and sat down beside her.

  “I ought to be penitent for keeping you from a partner who can dance,” he said.

  “And are you?” asked Miss Lauriston.

  “Not a bit.”

  His eyes laughed at her, and she blushed a little, very prettily.

  “Don’t you ever dance, Captain Morton?”

  “I did once.”

  “Only once? Why was that?”

  “The casualty list was too heavy. You see I tread on people, and my feet are so large. Six young ladies cut me dead next day.”

  “Oh!” said Adela, in a soft vague voice. She never quite knew whether Captain Morton was in earnest or not.

  He was frowning, and he looked grave, but his eyes twinkled.

  “One bouquet, two flounces, three fans, one set of— what do you call ’ems—gathers—is that right? and four lost programmes, besides a girl who was lame for a week, because I stepped right on her foot. I said I couldn’t help it, and that seemed to make things worse. It really was a large foot, though. But you see how it was that I didn’t persevere with my dancing.”

  “It is very pleasant sitting here,” said Adela gently.

  His remark about flounces had reminded her of her own. She bent her head and tried to see if there were a tear. How that foolish Francis Manners had crushed her skirt! And, oh, dear, how tiresome, how too tiresome, the blonde flounce was certainly torn! That was the worst of blonde; it tore so easily, and only looked well when it was quite fresh. She wondered if Helen would darn it—Helen darned so beautifully. Or perhaps it would be better to put another cluster of geraniums there, quite a small one. That would hide the place. Her face had a pensive expression which softened it. Richard Morton’s blood stirred as he looked at her and thought how sweet she was. How sweet and dear, how young and gentle!

  “Yes, it is very—pleasant,” he said, and his eyes dwelt on her.

&
nbsp; “Is India like this?” she asked idly.

  “India is rather a big place, Miss Lauriston.”

  “My cousin, Helen Wilmot, is going to India this autumn. You know her father, my uncle Edward, don’t you?”

  “Yes, I know him.”

  There was no particular enthusiasm in Captain Morton’s voice.

  “It is five years—no, more—seven years since he was in England. I should think Helen would find it very strange, going out to a father she has not seen for so long. She would have gone out before, only her grandmother was ill for a long time. She died at Christmas. That is why Helen is not going about. We wanted her to come here to-night, but she would not. She was very fond of her grandmother—Mrs. Wilmot’s mother you know, no relation of ours.”

  Captain Morton felt no special interest in Miss Wilmot’s affairs, but he liked listening to Adela. He thought her solicitude for her cousin very pretty and womanly.

  “Would you like to go out to India?” he asked abruptly, and Adela coloured.

  “I? Oh, I am never likely to go there.”

  “Never is a very long day. Should you like to go?”

  “I don’t know. Do you like it?”

  “Well enough, but I’m a poor homeless creature, you know.”

  “Do you mean that you live in a tent?”

  “No, I didn’t mean quite that.” He paused a moment, and then went on lightly, “My friend George Blake and I share a great tomb of a house—a regular whited sepulchre—rooms about thirty feet high. Furniture chiefly matting.”

  “It sounds—cold,” said Adela, feeling she was expected to say something.

  “I wish it felt cold,” said Captain Morton heartily, “I only wish it did. Most of the time it feels a great deal too hot to be pleasant. But I go out to Peshawur, in the North, and there it really is cold, for a couple of months or so, and when the spring comes the whole place is smothered in roses and peach blossom.”