Jan and Her Job Part 12

"I hope so, I believe she is ... quite happy and well."

"You're sure?" And Tony's eyes searched Jan's face. "You're sure _you_ haven't put her somewhere?"

"Tony, I want Mummy every bit as much as you do. Be a little good to me, sonny, for I'm dreadfully sad."

Jan held out her hand and Tony took it doubtfully. She drew him nearer.

"Try to be good to me, Tony, and love me a little ... it's all so hard."

"I'll be good," he said, gravely, "because I promised Mummy ... but I can't love you yet--because--" here Tony sighed deeply, "I don't seem to feel like it."

"Never mind," said Jan, lifting him on to her knee. "Never mind. I'll love you an extra lot to make up."

"And Fay?" he asked.

"And Fay--we must both love Fay more than ever now."

"I do love Fay," Tony said, "because I'm used to her. She's been here a long time...."

Suddenly his mouth went down at the corners and he leant against Jan's shoulder to hide his face. "I do want Mummy so," he whispered, as the slow, difficult tears welled over and fell. "I like so much to look at her."

It was early afternoon, the hot part of the day. The children were asleep and Jan sat on the big sofa, finis.h.i.+ng a warm jersey for little Fay to wear towards the end of the voyage. Peter, by means of every sc.r.a.p of interest he possessed, had managed to secure her a three-berth cabin in a mail boat due to leave within the next fortnight. He insisted that she must take Ayah, who was more than eager to go, and that Ayah could easily get a pa.s.sage back almost directly with people he knew who were coming out soon after Jan got home. He had written to them, and they would write to meet the boat at Aden.

There was nothing Peter did not seem able to arrange.

In the flat below a lady was singing the "Indian Love Lyrics" from the "Garden of Khama." She had a powerful voice and sang with considerable pa.s.sion.

Less than the dust beneath thy chariot wheel, Less than the rust that never stained thy sword.

Jan frowned and fidgeted.

The song went on, finished, and then the lady sang it all over again.

Jan turned on the electric fan, for it was extremely hot, and the strong contralto voice made her feel even hotter. The whirr of the fan in no way drowned the voice, which now went on to proclaim with much _brio_ that the temple bells were ringing and the month of marriages was drawing near. And then, very slowly and solemnly, but quite as loudly as before, came "When I am dying, lean over me tenderly----"

Jan got up and stamped. Then she went swiftly for her topee and gloves and parasol, and fled from the bungalow.

Lalkhan rushed after her to ask if she wanted a "tikka-gharri." He strongly disapproved of her walking in the streets alone, but Jan shook her head. The lift-man was equally eager to procure one, but again Jan defeated his desire and walked out into the hot street. Somehow she couldn't bear "The Garden of Khama" just then. It was Hugo Tancred's favourite verse, and was among the few books Fay appeared to possess, Fay who was lying in the English cemetery, and so glad to be there ...

at twenty-five.

What was the good of life and love, if that was all it led to? In spite of the heat Jan walked feverishly and fast, down the shady side of the Mayo Road into Esplanade Road, where the big shops were, and, just then, no shade at all.

The hot dust seemed to rise straight out of the pavement and strike her in the face, and all the air was full of the fat yellow smell that prevails in India when its own inhabitants have taken their mid-day meal.

Each bare-legged gharri-man slumbered on the little box of his carriage, hanging on in that amazingly precarious fas.h.i.+on in which natives of the East seem able to sleep anywhere.

On Jan went, anywhere, anywhere away from the garden of Khama and that travesty of love, as she conceived it. She remembered the day when she thought them such charming songs and thrilled in sympathy with Fay when Hugo sang them. Oh, why did that woman sing them to-day? Would she ever get the sound out of her ears?

She had reached Churchgate Street, which was deserted and deep in shade.

She turned down and presently came to the Cathedral standing in its trim garden bright with English flowers. The main door was open and Jan went in.

Here the haunting love-lyrics were hushed. It was so still, not even a sweeper to break the blessed peace.

Restlessly, Jan walked round the outer aisles, reading the inscriptions on marble tablets and bra.s.ses, many of them dating back to the later eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. Men died young out in India in those days; hardly any seemed to live beyond forty-two, many died in the twenties. On nearly all the tablets the words "zeal" or "zealous"

regularly appeared. With regard to their performance of their duties these dead and gone men who had helped to make the India of to-day had evidently had a very definite notion as to their own purpose in life.

The remarks were guarded and remarkably free from exaggerated tributes to the virtues they celebrated. One Major-General Bellasis was described as "that very respectable Officer--who departed this life while he was in the meritorious discharge of his duty presiding at the Military Board." Others died "from exposure to the sun"; nearly all seemed to have displayed "unremitting" or "characteristic zeal" in the discharge of their duties.

Jan sat down, and gradually it seemed as though the spirits and souls of those departed men, those ordinary everyday men--whose descendants might probably be met any day in the Yacht Club now--seemed to surround her in a great company, all pointing in one direction and with one voice declaring, "This is the WAY."

Jan fell on her knees and prayed that her stumbling feet might be guided upon it, that she should in no wise turn aside, however steep and stony it might prove.

And as she knelt there came upon her the conviction that here was the true meaning of life as lived upon the earth; just this, that each should do his job.

CHAPTER VIII

THE END OF THE DREAM

She walked back rather slowly. It was a little cooler, but dusty, and the hot pavements made her feet ache. She was just wondering whether she would take a gharri when a motor stopped at the curb and Peter got out.

"What are you doing?" he asked crossly. "Why are you walking in all this heat? You can't play these games in India. Get in."

He held the door open for her.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Ledgard," Jan said, sweetly. "Is it worth while for such a little way?"

"Get in," Peter said again, and Jan meekly got in.

"I was just coming to see you, and I could have taken you anywhere you wanted to go, if only you'd waited. Why didn't you take a gharri?"

"Since you must know," Jan said, smiling at the angry Peter, "I went out because I wanted to go out. And I walked because I wanted to walk."

"You can't do things just because you want to do 'em in this infernal country--you must consider whether it's a suitable time."

Jan made no answer, and silence reigned till they reached the bungalow.

Peter followed her in.

"Where did you go?" he asked. "And why?"

"I went to the Cathedral, and my reason was that I simply couldn't stay in the bungalow because the lady below was singing 'Less than the dust.'"

"I know," Peter said grimly. "Just the sort of thing she would sing."