Banked Fires Part 12

He and I are of the same mind. I, too, am not seeking a husband, for I am very happy as I am. Good-bye, dear, I was commissioned with a message for you, but I have talked so much that it has been nearly forgotten.

Mother wants you to dine tomorrow; just a few friends and Captain Dalton; and he has actually accepted the invitation."

"It is never safe to ask me to dinner," said Joyce doubtfully. "I hate leaving Baby all alone at night."

"He has a good ayah."

"Oh, yes. She is absolutely trustworthy; but should he ail ever so slightly I shall stay at home. I could not go out and leave him the least bit out of sorts."

"We shouldn't wish it. However, he might be quite all right, and then you'll come--bye-bye!" she waved her hand from the steps, mounted her bicycle, and was gone.

So the dinner-party at the Brights' was a settled engagement and Joyce prepared to keep it. She had never been anywhere without her husband, and felt nervous and shy for the lack of his support. Moreover, her mind was haunted by nameless fears for the child who was to be left behind to the tender mercies of native servants. A thousand possibilities of evil presented themselves to her mind and robbed the outing of prospective enjoyment; consequently the next night when it came to the point of starting, she was full of regrets for her weakness in having consented to go. "Ayah," she said in a fit of childish confidence, "I care for nothing on earth so much as my darling baby, how can I leave him for an hour or two not knowing what is happening to him in the meantime?"

"My Lort! what-for be frightened? Baba plenty well, sleeping sound. What can be?" the woman cried irritably. Could she not be trusted?

Nothing could possibly happen in so short a time. How did other mothers fulfil their social engagements? Surely they did not all worry themselves and others to death over nothing? Joyce therefore resolved to become more normal in her habits, and proceeded to dress.

Hardly, however, had she put foot in the hired victoria, when the ayah appeared, suggesting another look at the child. He had been coughing in his sleep, and considering the mother's anxieties she feared the responsibility of keeping the fact to herself.

Joyce immediately sprang from the carriage and hurried to the bedroom where the child lay sleeping in its cot. "You are sure he coughed?" she asked listening in vain for a repet.i.tion of the sound.

"Would I say it for nothing?" the Madrasi asked testily.

"What would it mean?"

"A little cold he has caught, or indigestion."

"Then I cannot go out with any peace of mind," Joyce cried definitely.

"What if he should have croup?"

"Why say such words? Give little honey, and cough go."

But Joyce was not satisfied. What was a dinner-party to her if her precious one was sickening for croup or any other fatal malady? Most infant maladies were fatal unless taken in time, and if she were away and he be taken ill, how would he fare? She decided that the Brights would have to do without her, and forgive the disappointment.

Forthwith she unwrapped, and settled down to spend a quiet evening alone, with an ear strained to hear any return of the cough, and quite determined to send for the doctor should it recur.

However, having upset his mother's nerves and thrown a dinner-party out of order, the infant slept soundly till morning.

CHAPTER VIII

THE DINNER-PARTY

At Muktiarbad, the usual form of evening entertainment was a dinner-party with music and bridge to follow; and Mrs. Bright, wife of the Superintendent of Police, was specially noted for her hospitality in this respect. The brief intervals spent at home by her husband between his rounds of inspection or inquiry in his District were always celebrated by herself and her daughter as festal occasions; and their friends were gathered together at short notice to eat, not the "fatted calf," as that would have offended the religious susceptibilities of the Hindus who held the animal sacred, but one of the fattened geese kept available for such occasions.

The ladies did not always accompany Mr. Bright on his journeys about the District, as they were usually hurried and undertaken with scant preparation. Very little of the flesh-pots of Bengal sufficed to satisfy Muktiarbad's Chief of Police, who had been thoroughly broken in to the rough-and-tumble of official life in the _mafasil_. The presence of his family in camp was a hindrance to Mr. Bright, and he was better pleased to return, after his strenuous duties, to the peace of domesticity at his bungalow in the Station. Moreover, there was little of interest in the monotony of camping in lonely places for a young girl to whom her mother wished to give every opportunity of settling in life, whatever might be her own ideas respecting a vocation. Muktiarbad, though a rural backwater of Bengal, and p.r.o.nounced by the gay-minded, a penal settlement, had matrimonial possibilities not to be despised by anxious parents with daughters to be happily disposed of.

On the whole, it was a highly social if small community who made the most of their opportunities for enjoyment, accepting the limitations of the place to which it had pleased Providence and the Ruling Power to appoint them, with the usual healthy philosophy which has made India so rich in memories.

It mattered little if they had to endure the discomforts of the climate and various inconveniences besides; others were in a worse case. Nor did it matter if they never reached the goal for which they strove--it was Kismet!

Fatalism is a habit of mind peculiar to the people of the East, where the unexpected might happen at any time without warning; and it is not unusual for Europeans to slip half-consciously into the same mental att.i.tude.

It is consequently not surprising that, in spite of many lurking dangers, life in the rural districts is careless and free. Risks of cholera, sunstroke, and snake-bite, are taken boldly without a thought of possibilities. India has need of resourceful minds and nerves of steel; and no use for the faltering and irresolute.

Even Mrs. Bright took chances for her family and friends when her cook at the eleventh hour sent to Robinath Mukerjea's store in the bazaar for tins of salmon (the fish procured from a local tank being deemed inevitably earthy in flavour); for Mukerjea bought his provisions at sales of old stock from the Army and Navy Stores, vowing they were fresh consignments from _Belait_; but no one was deceived when patronising his shop in spite of risks of ptomaine. However, a dinner cooked by Kareem Majid was an achievement more worthy of a Goanese than a Mohammedan, and none who dined at the Brights' was ever the worse.

"My dear," Mrs. Bright had been heard to observe in earlier days, "were it not for Honor and the necessity to cultivate the acquaintance of one's own child, I should never leave India. How I miss that treasure, Kareem! He has been with us since we were married, and there never was a more useful servant. Whether in camp or in my own bungalow, it is just the same; he rises to every emergency and cooks like a French _chef_. At a pinch he'll valet my husband. He has even in an emergency fastened the hooks of my blouse at the back; and when Honor was a child, played with her when she had the measles and kept her from crying herself into a fit. When other servants ran away from the cholera, he stayed and did everything but sweep the floors! And when any one is sick, I have never known the equal of his 'chicken jugs'! He is so self-reliant, too. I have only to say, 'Kareem, six guests for dinner tonight. Don't ask for orders--do just as you please, only don't mention the subject of food as you value your life!' And he will _salaam_ and say, '_Jo huk.u.m_,' after which I have no responsibility whatever; dinner up to time, everything cooked to perfection, and when you think of what an Indian cook-house is, really, you are overcome with admiration. Can you fancy an English cook consenting to turn out dinners under like conditions? You get notice in a day! And who thinks of sparing Indian servants? As many courses as you like, with a wash-up like a small mountain, which the _masalchi_ disposes of behind the pantry door on a yard or two of bamboo matting, with an earthen _gumla_, a kettle of boiling water, and an unthinkable swab! An English maid would have hysterics."

To make existence possible to the residents of Muktiarbad, there was the great, straggling bazaar on the outskirts of the Station ready to supply the necessaries of life. An enlightened confidence in the rule of the sahibs and in their honour and justice was a tradition with the local population whose trust in the _Sarcar_ was unbounded; for sedition had not yet poisoned the minds of the peace-loving, contented agriculturists and shopkeepers who were as conservative as they were simple. It was only in outlying villages that occasional trouble brewed when ignorant and superst.i.tious minds were played upon by malcontents.

Ten minutes' grace was allowed to Mrs. Meredith--no more--and Mr. Bright offered his arm to Mrs. Barrington Fox and led the way to the dining-room. Mr. Barrington Fox was seldom to be persuaded into accepting Station hospitalities; and usually made the time-worn excuse, as on the present occasion, of inspection duty on the line. The Station, however, understood it to mean that he had ceased to find pleasure in his wife's company and was determined not to be victimised.

The dining-room at the Brights' was a large apartment, whitewashed like a hospital ward, but redeemed by hunting pictures on the walls, graceful drapery, and good furniture. A _punkha_ with a mat frill hung motionless overhead, as weather conditions were sufficiently altered to dispense with an artificial breeze; and the dining table beneath it presented an inviting aspect with its glittering ma.s.s of silver, gla.s.s, and flowers.

A draught-screen concealed the door of ingress from the pantry where the business of serving was carried on by the _khansaman_ a.s.sisted by a group of white-robed domestics. Agitated whispers from behind the screen were infallible indications of mistakes retrieved in the nick of time; otherwise, the occasional blow of the ice hammer, or the rolling of the ice machine on the outer door-mat were the only sounds audible from the dining-room.

Mrs. Bright, full of confidence in her staff and indifferent to mistakes which were not inexcusable, showed a complete detachment from the details of serving while she entertained her guests.

A little reshuffling of the order of precedence, when Mrs. Meredith's non-appearance was a.s.sured, had disposed of Tommy Deare to his entire satisfaction. Left to s.h.i.+ft for himself he moved to the other side of Honor Bright whom Jack Darling had piloted in. He was a plain, freckle-faced boy of twenty-two with plenty to say for himself, and a most engaging smile. In height he was on a level with Honor who was considered tall; yet, to his disgust, he was referred to as a "little man." But since it was recognised that "valuable goods are packed in small parcels," he a.s.sured his friends of his inestimable worth, and was comforted.

"Mrs. Meredith is too absurd about that kid of hers," Mrs. Fox was heard to remark in the first hush that fell with the arrival of the soup.

"Isn't it the baby who is ill tonight?" to Captain Dalton.

"If I had known, I should have mentioned it," said the doctor above his soup plate. The rudeness of the reply was characteristic of him.

"I understood from Mrs. Meredith that she and her offspring are in your charge. How neglectful of you to know nothing!"

"I am ready to attend to them when called in," he replied.

"Then you have not been wanted!" she laughed spitefully. "It must be very mortifying never to be wanted except when you are of use!"

"A doctor is the one man whom you are only too glad to see the last of,"

said Dalton coldly.

"All the same, I shouldn't be a bit surprised if it's the baby who is ill, and you are sent for before dinner is over. Mrs. Meredith said it would be the only reason that would stop her coming," put in Mrs.

Bright, anxious to soothe.

"I hope not, indeed!" cried Mrs. Fox. "For now we've got you we mean to make you sing. Don't imagine we'll let you off."

The doctor bowed a stiff acknowledgment, which meant nothing, and entered into conversation with the Executive Engineer on the subject of a mora.s.s which he had condemned in his Sanitary Report, and recommended to be drained.

"The villagers won't stand it," said Mr. Ironsides. "They draw their drinking water from that _jhil_, and providing them with wells instead will not console them for its loss. Incidentally, they use it also for laundry purposes and bathing," he laughed.

"Exactly. So the sooner it is done away with the better for their health and the health of the District. Malaria and cholera have their source at Panipara."

"I hope you are not trying to deprive us of our duck-shooting, Doctor,"

said Mr. Bright in alarm. "We depend upon Panipara Jhil for game in the winters, and there is little sport besides, in this G.o.d-forsaken place."