“TO LET”

ETC.

“TO LET”

BY
B. M. CROKER
AUTHOR OF
“A Family Likeness,” “Interference,” “Two Masters,” ETC.

PHILADELPHIA
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
1906

CONTENTS.

“TO LET.”

“List, list, O list!”—Hamlet, Act I.

Some years ago, when I was a slim young spin, I came out to India to live with my brother Tom: he and I were members of a large and somewhat impecunious family, and I do not think my mother was sorry to have one of her four grown-up daughters thus taken off her hands. Tom’s wife, Aggie, had been at school with my eldest sister; we had known and liked her all our lives, and regarded her as one of ourselves; and as she and the children were at home when Tom’s letter was received, and his offer accepted, she helped me to choose my slender outfit, with judgment, zeal, and taste; endowed me with several pretty additions to my wardrobe; superintended the fitting of my gowns and the trying on of my hats, with most sympathetic interest, and finally escorted me out to Lucknow, under her own wing, and installed me in the only spare room in her comfortable bungalow in Dilkousha.

My sister-in-law is a pretty little brunette, rather pale, with dark hair, brilliant black eyes, a resolute mouth, and a bright, intelligent expression. She is orderly, trim, feverishly energetic, and seems to live every moment of her life. Her children, her wardrobe, her house, her servants, and last, not least, her husband, are all models in their way; and yet she has plenty of time for tennis, and dancing, and talking and walking. She is, undoubtedly, a remarkably talented little creature, and especially prides herself on her nerve, and her power of will, or will power. I suppose they are the same thing? and I am sure they are all the same to Tom, who worships the sole of her small slipper. Strictly between ourselves, she is the ruling member of the family, and turns her lord and master round her little finger. Tom is big and fair (of course), the opposite to his wife, quiet, rather easy-going and inclined to be indolent; but Aggie rouses him up, and pushes him to the front, and keeps him there. She knows all about his department, his prospects of promotion, his prospects of furlough, of getting acting appointments, and so on, even better than he does himself. The chief of Tom’s department—have I said that Tom is in the Irritation Office?—has placed it solemnly on record that he considers little Mrs. Shandon a surprisingly clever woman. The two children, Bob and Tor, are merry, oppressively active monkeys, aged three and five years respectively. As for myself, I am tall, fair—and I wish I could add pretty! but this is a true story. My eyes are blue, my teeth are white, my hair is red—alas, a blazing red; and I was, at this period, nineteen years of age; and now I think I have given a sufficient outline of the whole family.

We arrived at Lucknow in November, when the cold weather is delightful, and everything was delightful to me. The bustle and life of a great Indian station, the novelty of my surroundings, the early morning rides, picnics down the river, and dances at the “Chutter Munzil,” made me look upon Lucknow as a paradise on earth; and in this light I still regarded it, until a great change came over the temperature, and the month of April introduced me to red-hot winds, sleepless nights, and the intolerable “brain-fever” bird. Aggie had made up her mind definitely on one subject: we were not to go away to the hills until the rains. Tom could only get two months’ leave (July and August), and she did not intend to leave him to grill on the plains alone. As for herself and the children—not to speak of me—we had all come out from home so recently that we did not require a change. The trip to Europe had made a vast hole in the family stocking, and she wished to economize; and who can economize with two establishments in full swing? Tell me this, ye Anglo-Indian matrons? With a large, cool bungalow, plenty of punkahs, khuskhus tatties, ice, and a thermantidote, surely we could manage to brave May and June—at any rate the attempt was made. Gradually the hills drained Lucknow week by week; family after family packed up, warned us of our folly in remaining on the plains, offered to look for houses for us, and left by the night mail. By the middle of May, the place was figuratively empty. Nothing can be more dreary than a large station in the hot weather—unless it is an equally forsaken hill station in the depths of winter, when the mountains are covered with snow, the mall no longer resounds with gay voices and the tramp of Jampanies, but is visited by bears and panthers, and the houses are closed, and, as it were, put to bed in straw! As for Lucknow in the summer, it was a melancholy spot; the public gardens were deserted, the chairs at the Chutter Munzil stood empty, the very bands had gone to the hills! the shops were shut, the baked white roads, no longer thronged with carriages and bamboo carts, gave ample room to the humble ekka, or a Dhobie’s meagre donkey, shuffling along in the dust.

Of course we were not the only people remaining in the place, grumbling at the heat and dust and life in general; but there can be no sociability with the thermometer above 100° in the shade. Through the long, long Indian day we sat and gasped, in darkened rooms, and consumed quantities of “Nimbo pegs,” i.e. limes and soda-water, and listened to the fierce hot wind roaring along the road and driving the roasted leaves before it; and in the evening, when the sun had set, we went for a melancholy drive through the Wingfield Park, or round by Martiniere College, and met our friends at the library, and compared sensations and thermometers. The season was exceptionally bad (but people say that every year), and presently Bobby and Tor began to fade: their little white faces and listless eyes appealed to Aggie as Tom’s anxious expostulations had never done. “Yes, they must go to the hills with me.” But this idea I repudiated at once; I refused to undertake the responsibility—I, who could scarcely speak a word to the servants—who had no experience! Then Bobbie had a bad go of fever—intermittent fever; the beginning of the end to his alarmed mother; the end being represented by a large gravestone! She now became as firmly determined to go, as she had previously been resolved to stay; but it was so late in the season to take a house. Alas, alas, for the beautiful tempting advertisements in the Pioneer, which we had seen and scorned! Aggie wrote to a friend in a certain hill station, called (for this occasion only) “Kantia,” and Tom wired to a house agent, who triumphantly replied by letter, that there was not one unlet bungalow on his books. This missive threw us into the depths of despair; there seemed no alternative but a hill hotel, and the usual quarters that await the last comers, and the proverbial welcome for children and dogs (we had only four); but the next day brought us good news from Aggie’s friend Mrs. Chalmers.

“Dear Mrs. Shandon (she said),

“I received your letter, and went at once to Cursitjee, the agent. Every hole and corner up here seems full, and he had not a single house to let. To-day I had a note from him, saying that Briarwood is vacant; the people who took it are not coming up, they have gone to Naini Tal. You are in luck. I have just been out to see the house, and have secured it for you. It is a mile and a half from the club, but I know that you and your sister are capital walkers. I envy you. Such a charming place—two sitting-rooms, four bedrooms, four bath-rooms, a hall, servants’ go-downs, stabling, and a splendid view from a very pretty garden, and only Rs. 800 for the season! Why, I am paying Rs. 1000 for a very inferior house, with scarcely a stick of furniture and no view. I feel so proud of myself, and I am longing to show you my treasure-trove. Telegraph when you start, and I shall have a milkman in waiting and fires in all the rooms.

“Yours sincerely,
“Edith Chalmers.”

We now looked upon Mrs. Chalmers as our best and dearest friend, and began to get under way at once. A long journey in India is a serious business, when the party comprises two ladies, two children, two ayahs, and five other servants, three fox terriers, a mongoose, and a Persian cat—all these animals going to the hills for the benefit of their health—not to speak of a ton of luggage, including crockery and lamps, a cottage piano, a goat, and a pony. Aggie and I, the children, one ayah, two terriers, the cat and mongoose, our bedding and pillows, the tiffin basket and ice basket, were all stowed into one compartment, and I must confess that the journey was truly miserable. The heat was stifling, despite the water tatties. One of the terriers had a violent dispute with the cat, and the cat had a difference with the mongoose, and Bob and Tor had a pitched battle; more than once I actually wished myself back in Lucknow. I was most truly thankful to wake one morning, to find myself under the shadow of the Himalayas—not a mighty, snow-clad range of everlasting hills, but merely the spurs—the moderate slopes, covered with scrub, loose shale, and jungle, and deceitful little trickling watercourses. We sent the servants on ahead, whilst we rested at the Dâk bungalow near the railway station, and then followed them at our leisure. We accomplished the ascent in dandies—open kind of boxes, half box, half chair, carried on the shoulders of four men. This was an entirely novel sensation to me, and at first an agreeable one, so long as the slopes were moderate, and the paths wide; but the higher we went, the narrower became the path, the steeper the naked precipice; and as my coolies would walk at the extreme edge, with the utmost indifference to my frantic appeals to “Beetor! Beetor!”—and would change poles at the most agonizing corners—my feelings were very mixed, especially when droves of loose pack ponies came thundering downhill, with no respect for the rights of the road. Late at night we passed through Kantia, and arrived at Briarwood, far too weary to be critical. Fires were blazing, supper was prepared, and we despatched it in haste, and most thankfully went to bed and slept soundly, as any one would do who had spent thirty-six hours in a crowded compartment, and ten in a cramped wooden case.

The next morning, rested and invigorated, we set out on a tour of inspection; and it is almost worth while to undergo a certain amount of baking in the sweltering heat of the lower regions, in order to enjoy those deep first draughts of cool hill air, instead of a stifling, dust-laden atmosphere; and to appreciate the green valleys and blue hills, by force of contrast to the far-stretching, eye-smarting, white glaring roads, that intersect the burnt-up plains—roads and plains, that even the pariah abandons, salamander though he be!

To our delight and surprise, Mrs. Chalmers had by no means overdrawn the advantages of our new abode. The bungalow was solidly built of stone, two-storied, and ample in size. It stood on a kind of shelf, cut out of the hillside, and was surrounded by a pretty flower garden, full of roses, fuchsias, and carnations. The high road passed the gate, from which the avenue descended, direct to the entrance door, at the end of the house, and from whence ran a long passage. Off this passage three rooms opened to the right, all looking south, and all looking into a deep, delightful, flagged, verandah. The stairs were very steep. At the head of them, the passage and rooms were repeated. There were small nooks, and dressing-rooms, and convenient out-houses, and plenty of good water; but the glory of Briarwood was undoubtedly its verandah: it was fully twelve feet wide, roofed with zinc, and overhung a precipice of a thousand feet—not a startlingly sheer khud, but a tolerably straight descent of grey-blue shale, rocks, and low jungle. From it there was a glorious view, across a valley, far away, to the snowy range. It opened at one end into the avenue, and was not inclosed; but at the side next the precipice, there was a stout wooden railing, with netting at the bottom, for the safety of too enterprising dogs or children. A charming spot, despite its rather bold situation; and as Aggie and I sat in it, surveying the scenery and inhaling the pure hill air, and watching Bob and Tor tearing up and down, playing horses, we said to one another that “the verandah alone was worth half the rent.”

“It’s absurdly cheap,” exclaimed my sister-in-law complacently. “I wish you saw the hovel I had, at Simla, for the same rent. I wonder if it is feverish, or badly drained, or what?”

“Perhaps it has a ghost,” I suggested facetiously; and at such an absurd idea we both went into peals of laughter.

At this moment Mrs. Chalmers appeared, brisk, rosy, and breathlessly benevolent, having walked over from Kantia.

“So you have found it,” she said as we shook hands. “I said nothing about this delicious verandah! I thought I would keep it as a surprise. I did not say a word too much for Briarwood, did I?”

“Not half enough,” we returned rapturously; and presently we went in a body, armed with a list from the agent, and proceeded to go over the house and take stock of its contents.

“It’s not a bit like a hill furnished house,” boasted Mrs. Chalmers, with a glow of pride, as she looked round the drawing-room; “carpets, curtains, solid, very solid chairs, and Berlin wool-worked screens, a card-table, and any quantity of pictures.”

“Yes, don’t they look like family portraits?” I suggested, as we gazed at them. There was one of an officer in faded water colours, another of his wife, two of a previous generation in oils and amply gilded frames, two sketches of an English country house, and some framed photographs—groups of grinning cricketers, or wedding guests. All the rooms were well, almost handsomely, furnished in an old-fashioned style. There was no scarcity of wardrobes, looking-glasses, or even armchairs, in the bedrooms, and the pantry was fitted out—a most singular circumstance—with a large supply of handsome glass and china, lamps, old moderators, coffee and teapots, plated side dishes, and candlesticks, cooking utensils and spoons and forks, wine coasters and a cake-basket. These articles were all let with the house (much to our amazement), provided we were responsible for the same. The china was spode, the plate old family heirlooms, with a crest—a winged horse—on everything, down to the very mustard spoons.

“The people who own this house must be lunatics,” remarked Aggie, as she peered round the pantry; “fancy hiring out one’s best family plate, and good old china! And I saw some ancient music-books in the drawing-room, and there is a side saddle in the bottle khana.”

“My dear, the people who owned this house are dead,” explained Mrs. Chalmers. “I heard all about them last evening from Mrs. Starkey.”

“Oh, is she up there?” exclaimed Aggie, somewhat fretfully.

“Yes, her husband is cantonment magistrate. This house belonged to an old retired colonel and his wife. They and his niece lived here. These were all their belongings. They died within a short time of one another, and the old man left a queer will, to say that the house was to remain precisely as they left it for twenty years, and at the end of that time, it was to be sold and all the property dispersed. Mrs. Starkey says she is sure that he never intended it to be let, but the heir-at-law insists on that, and is furious at the terms of the will.”

“Well, it is a very good thing for us,” remarked Aggie; “we are as comfortable here, as if we were in our own house: there is a stove in the kitchen, there are nice boxes for firewood in every room, clocks, real hair mattresses—in short, it is as you said, a treasure-trove.”

We set to work to modernize the drawing-room with phoolkaries, Madras muslin curtains, photograph screens and frames, and such-like portable articles. We placed the piano across a corner, arranged flowers in some handsome Dresden china vases, and entirely altered and improved the character of the room. When Aggie had despatched a most glowing description of our new quarters to Tom, and when we had had tiffin, we set off to walk into Kantia to put our names down at the library, and to inquire for letters at the post-office. Aggie met a good many acquaintances—who does not, who has lived five years in India in the same district?

Among them Mrs. Starkey, an elderly lady with a prominent nose and goggle eyes, who greeted her loudly across the reading-room table, in this agreeable fashion:

“And so you have come up after all, Mrs. Shandon. Some one told me that you meant to remain below, but I knew you never could be so wicked as to keep your poor little children in that heat.” Then coming round and dropping into a chair beside her, she said, “And I suppose this young lady is your sister-in-law?”

Mrs. Starkey eyed me critically, evidently appraising my chances in the great marriage market. She herself had settled her own two daughters most satisfactorily, and had now nothing to do, but interest herself in other people’s affairs.

“Yes,” acquiesced Aggie; “Miss Shandon—Mrs. Starkey.”

“And so you have taken Briarwood?”

“Yes, we have been most lucky to get it.”

“I hope you will think so, at the end of three months,” observed Mrs. Starkey, with a significant pursing of her lips. “Mrs. Chalmers is a stranger up here, or she would not have been in such a hurry to jump at it.”

“Why, what is the matter with it?” inquired Aggie. “It is well built, well furnished, well situated, and very cheap.”

“That’s just it—suspiciously cheap. Why, my dear Mrs. Shandon, if there was not something against it, it would let for two hundred rupees a month. Common sense would tell you that!”

“And what is against it?”

“It’s haunted! There you have the reason in two words.”

“Is that all? I was afraid it was the drains. I don’t believe in ghosts and haunted houses. What are we supposed to see?”

“Nothing,” retorted Mrs. Starkey, who seemed a good deal nettled at our smiling incredulity.

“Nothing!” with an exasperating laugh.

“No, but you will make up for it in hearing. Not now—you are all right for the next six weeks—but after the monsoon breaks, I give you a week at Briarwood. No one would stand it longer, and indeed you might as well bespeak your rooms at Cooper’s Hotel now. There is always a rush up here in July, by the two months’ leave people, and you will be poked into some wretched go-down.”

Aggie laughed, rather a careless ironical little laugh, and said, “Thank you, Mrs. Starkey; but I think we will stay on where we are—at any rate for the present.”

“Of course it will be as you please. What do you think of the verandah?” she inquired, with a curious smile.

“I think, as I was saying to Susan, that it is worth half the rent of the house.”

“And in my opinion the house is worth double rent without it;” and with this enigmatic remark, she rose, and sailed away.

“Horrid old frump!” exclaimed Aggie, as we walked home in the starlight. “She is jealous and angry that she did not get Briarwood herself—I know her so well. She is always hinting, and repeating stories about the nicest people—always decrying your prettiest dress, or your best servant.”

We soon forgot all about Mrs. Starkey, and her dismal prophecy, being too gay, and too busy, to give her, or it, a thought. We had so many engagements—tennis-parties and tournaments, picnics, concerts, dances, and little dinners. We ourselves gave occasional afternoon teas in the verandah—using the best spode cups and saucers, and the old silver cake-basket—and were warmly complimented on our good fortune in securing such a charming house and garden. One day the children discovered, to their great joy, that the old chowkidar belonging to the bungalow possessed an African grey parrot—a rare bird indeed in India; he had a battered Europe cage, doubtless a remnant of better days, and swung on his ring, looking up at us inquiringly, out of his impudent little black eyes.

The parrot had been the property of the former inmates of Briarwood, and as it was a long-lived creature, had survived its master and mistress, and was boarded out with the chowkidar, at one rupee per month.

The chowkidar willingly carried the cage into the verandah, where the bird seemed perfectly at home.

We got a little table for its cage, and the children were delighted with him, as he swung to and fro, with a bit of cake in his wrinkled claw.

Presently he startled us all by suddenly calling “Lucy,” in a voice that was as distinct as if it had come from a human throat. “Pretty Lucy—Lu—cy.”

“That must have been the niece,” said Aggie. “I expect she was the original of that picture over the chimney-piece in your room; she looks like a Lucy.”

It was a large, framed, half-length photograph of a very pretty girl, in a white dress, with gigantic open sleeves. The ancient parrot talked incessantly now that he had been restored to society; he whistled for the dogs, and brought them flying to his summons—to his great satisfaction, and their equally great indignation. He called “Qui hye” so naturally, in a lady’s shrill soprano, or a gruff male bellow, that I have no doubt our servants would have liked to have wrung his neck. He coughed and expectorated like an old gentleman, and whined like a puppy, and mewed like a cat, and, I am sorry to add, sometimes swore like a trooper; but his most constant cry was, “Lucy, where are you, pretty Lucy—Lucy—Lu—cy?”

Aggie and I went to various picnics, but to that given by the Chalmers (in honour of Mr. Chalmers’ brother Charlie, a captain in a Ghoorka regiment, just come up to Kantia on leave) Aggie was unavoidably absent. Tor had a little touch of fever, and she did not like to leave him; but I went under my hostess’s care, and expected to enjoy myself immensely. Alas! on that selfsame afternoon, the long-expected monsoon broke, and we were nearly drowned! We rode to the selected spot, five miles from Kantia, laughing and chattering, indifferent to the big blue-black clouds that came slowly, but surely, sailing up from below; it was a way they had had for days, and nothing had come of it! We spread the table-cloth, boiled the kettle, unpacked the hampers, in spite of sharp gusts of wind and warning rumbling thunder. Just as we had commenced to reap the reward of our exertions, there fell a few huge drops, followed by a vivid flash, and then a tremendous crash of thunder, like a whole park of artillery, that seemed to shake the mountains—and after this the deluge. In less than a minute we were soaked through; we hastily gathered up the table-cloth by its four ends, gave it to the coolies, and fled. It was all I could do to stand against the wind; only for Captain Chalmers I believe I would have been blown away; as it was, I lost my hat, it was whirled into space. Mrs. Chalmers lost her boa, and Mrs. Starkey, not merely her bonnet, but some portion of her hair. We were truly in a wretched plight, the water streaming down our faces, and squelching in our boots; the little trickling mountain rivulets were now like racing seas of turbid water; the lightning was almost blinding; the trees rocked dangerously, and lashed one another with their quivering branches. I had never been out in such a storm before, and sincerely hope I never may again. We reached Kantia more dead than alive, and Mrs. Chalmers sent an express to Aggie, and kept me till the next day. After raining as it only can rain in the Himalayas, the weather cleared, the sun shone, and I rode home in borrowed plumes, full of my adventures, and in the highest spirits. I found Aggie sitting over the fire in the drawing-room, looking ghastly white: that was nothing uncommon; but terribly depressed, which was most unusual.

“I am afraid you have neuralgia?” I said, as I kissed her.

She nodded, and made no reply.

“How is Tor?” I inquired, as I drew a chair up to the fire.

“Better—quite well.”

“Any news—any letter?”

“Not a word—not a line.”

“Has anything happened to Pip”—Pip was a fox-terrier, renowned for having the shortest tail and being the most impertinent dog in Lucknow—“or the mongoose?”

“No, you silly girl! Why do you ask such ridiculous questions?”

“I was afraid something was amiss; you seem rather down on your luck.”

Aggie shrugged her shoulders, and then said, “Pray, what put such an absurd idea into your head? Tell me all about the picnic,” and she began to talk rapidly, and to ask me various questions; but I observed that once she had set me going—no difficult task—her attention flagged, her eyes wandered from my face to the fire. She was not listening to half I said, and my most thrilling descriptions were utterly lost on this indifferent, abstracted little creature! I noticed from this time, that she had become strangely nervous (for her). She invited herself to the share of half my bed; she was restless, distrait, and even irritable; and when I was asked out to spend the day, dispensed with my company with an alacrity that was by no means flattering. Formerly, of an evening she used to herd the children home at sundown, and tear me away from the delights of the reading-room at seven o’clock; now she hung about the library, until almost the last moment, until it was time to put out the lamps, and kept the children with her, making transparent pretexts for their company. Often we did not arrive at home till half-past eight o’clock. I made no objections to these late hours, neither did Charlie Chalmers, who often walked back with us and remained to dinner. I was amazed to notice that Aggie seemed delighted to have his company, for she had always expressed a rooted aversion to what she called “tame young men,” and here was this new acquaintance dining with us, at least twice a week!

About a month after the picnic we had a spell of dreadful weather—thunderstorms accompanied by torrents. One pouring afternoon, Aggie and I were cowering over the drawing-room fire, whilst the rain came fizzing down among the logs, and ran in rivers off the roof, and out of the spouts. There had been no going out that day, and we were feeling rather flat and dull, as we sat in a kind of ghostly twilight, with all outdoor objects swallowed up in mist, listening to the violent battering of the rain on the zinc verandah, and the storm which was growling round the hills. “Oh, for a visitor!” I exclaimed; “but no one but a fish, or a lunatic, would be out on such an evening.”

“No one, indeed,” echoed Aggie, in a melancholy tone. “We may as well draw the curtains, and have in the lamp and tea to cheer us up.”

She had scarcely finished speaking, when I heard the brisk trot of a horse along the road. It stopped at the gate, and came rapidly down our avenue. I heard the wet gravel crunching under his hoofs, and—yes, a man’s cheery whistle. My heart jumped, and I half rose from my chair. It must be Charlie Chalmers braving the elements to see me!—such, I must confess, was my incredible vanity! He did not stop at the front door as usual, but rode straight into the verandah, which afforded ample room, and shelter for half a dozen mounted men.

“Aggie,” I said eagerly, “do you hear? It must be——”

I paused, my tongue silenced, by the awful pallor of her face, and the expression of her eyes, as she sat with her little hands clutching the arms of her chair, and her whole figure bent forward in an attitude of listening—an attitude of rigid terror.

“What is it, Aggie?” I said. “Are you ill?”

As I spoke, the horse’s hoofs made a loud clattering noise on the stone-paved verandah outside, and a man’s voice—a young man’s eager voice—called, “Lucy.”

Instantly a chair near the writing-table was pushed back, and some one went quickly to the window—a French one—and bungled for a moment with the fastening. I always had a difficulty with that window myself. Aggie and I were within the bright circle of the firelight, but the rest of the room was dim, and outside the streaming grey sky was spasmodically illuminated by occasional vivid flashes, that lit up the surrounding hills as if it were daylight. The trampling of impatient hoofs, and the rattling of a door-handle, were the only sounds that were audible for a few breathless seconds; but during those seconds Pip, bristling like a porcupine, and trembling violently in every joint, had sprung off my lap and crawled abjectly under Aggie’s chair, seemingly in a transport of fear. The door was opened audibly, and a cold, icy blast swept in, that seemed to freeze my very heart, and made me shiver from head to foot. At this moment there came, with a sinister blue glare, the most vivid flash of lightning I ever saw. It lit up the whole room, which was empty save for ourselves, and was instantly followed by a clap of thunder, that caused my knees to knock together, and that terrified me and filled me with horror. It evidently terrified the horse too; there was a violent plunge, a clattering of hoofs on the stones, a sudden loud crash of smashing timber, a woman’s long, loud, piercing shriek, which stopped the very beating of my heart, and then a frenzied struggle in the cruel, crumbling, treacherous shale, the rattle of loose stones, and the hollow roar of something sliding down the precipice.

I rushed to the door and tore it open, with that awful despairing cry still ringing in my ears. The verandah was empty; there was not a soul to be seen, or a sound to be heard, save the rain on the roof.

“Aggie,” I screamed, “come here! Some one has gone over the verandah, and down the khud! You heard him.”

“Yes,” she said, following me out; “but come in—come in.”

“I believe it was Charlie Chalmers”—shaking her violently as I spoke. “He has been killed—killed—killed! And you stand, and do nothing. Send people! Let us go ourselves! Bearer! Ayah! Khidmatgar!” I cried, raising my voice.

“Hush! It was not Charlie Chalmers,” she said, vainly endeavouring to draw me into the drawing-room. “Come in—come in.”

“No, no!” pushing her away, and wringing my hands. “How cruel you are! How inhuman! There is a path. Let us go at once—at once!”

“You need not trouble yourself, Susan,” she interrupted; “and you need not cry and tremble;—they will bring him up. What you heard was supernatural; it was not real.”

“No—no—no! It was all real. Oh! that scream is in my ears still.”

“I will convince you,” said Aggie, taking my hand as she spoke. “Feel all along the verandah. Are the railings broken?”

I did as she bade me. No, though very wet, and clammy, the railing was intact!

“Where is the broken place?” she asked, imperatively.

Where, indeed?

“Now,” she continued, “since you will not come in, look over, and you will see something more presently.”

Shivering with fear, and the cold, drifting rain, I gazed down as she bade me, and there, far below, I saw lights moving rapidly to and fro, evidently in search of something. After a little delay they congregated in one place. There was a low, buzzing murmur—they had found him—and presently they commenced to ascend the hill, with the “hum-hum” of coolies carrying a burden. Nearer and nearer the lights and sounds came; up to the very brink of the khud, past the end of the verandah. Many steps and many torches—faint blue torches held by invisible hands—invisible but heavy-footed bearers carried their burden slowly upstairs, and along the passage, and deposited it with a dump in Aggie’s bedroom! As we stood clasped in one another’s arms, and shaking all over, the steps descended, the ghostly lights passed up the avenue, and gradually disappeared in the gathering darkness. The repetition of the tragedy was over for that day.

“Have you heard it before?” I asked with chattering teeth, as I bolted the drawing-room window.

“Yes, the evening of the picnic, and twice since. That is the reason I have always tried to stay out till late, and to keep you out. I was hoping and praying you might never hear it. It always happens just before dark: I am afraid you have thought me very queer of late. I have told no end of stories to keep you and the children from harm. I have——”

“I think you have been very kind,” I interrupted. “Oh, Aggie, shall you ever get that crash, and that awful cry out of your head?”

“Never!” hastily lighting the candles as she spoke.

“Is there anything more?” I inquired tremulously.

“Yes; sometimes at night, the most terrible weeping and sobbing in my bedroom;” and she shuddered at the mere recollection.

“Do the servants know?” I asked anxiously.

“The ayah Mumà has heard it, and the khánsámáh says his mother is sick, and he must go, and the bearer wants to attend his brother’s wedding. They will all leave.”

“I suppose most people know too?” I suggested dejectedly.

“Yes; don’t you remember Mrs. Starkey’s warnings, and her saying that without the verandah the house was worth double rent? We understand that dark speech of hers now, and we have not come to Cooper’s Hotel yet.”

“No, not yet. I wish we had. I wonder what Tom will say? He will be here in another fortnight. Oh, I wish he was here now!”

In spite of our heart-shaking experience, we managed to eat, and drink, and sleep, yea, to play tennis—somewhat solemnly, it is true—and go to the club, where we remained to the very last moment; needless to mention, that I now entered into Aggie’s manœuvre con amore. Mrs. Starkey evidently divined the reason of our loitering in Kantia, and said in her most truculent manner, as she squared up to us—

“You keep your children out very late, Mrs. Shandon.”

“Yes, but we like to have them with us,” rejoined Aggie, in a meek apologetic voice.

“Then why don’t you go home earlier?”

“Because it is so stupid, and lonely,” was the mendacious answer.

“Lonely is not the word I should use. I wonder if you are as wise as your neighbours now? Come now, Mrs. Shandon.”

“About what?” said Aggie, with ill-feigned innocence.

“About Briarwood. Haven’t you heard it yet? The ghastly precipice and horse affair?”

“Yes, I suppose we may as well confess that we have.”

“Humph! you are a brave couple to stay on. The Tombs tried it last year for three weeks. The Paxtons took it the year before, and then sub-let it; not that they believed in ghosts—oh, dear no!” and she laughed ironically.

“And what is the story?” I inquired eagerly.

“Well, the story is this. An old retired officer and his wife, and their pretty niece, lived at Briarwood a good many years ago. The girl was engaged to be married to a fine young fellow in the Guides. The day before the wedding, what you know of happened, and has happened every monsoon ever since. The poor girl went out of her mind, and destroyed herself, and the old colonel and his wife did not long survive her. The house is uninhabitable in the monsoon, and there seems nothing for it but to auction off the furniture, and pull it down; it will always be the same as long as it stands. Take my advice, and come into Cooper’s Hotel. I believe you can have that small set of rooms at the back. The sitting-room smokes—but beggars can’t be choosers.”

“That will only be our very last resource,” said Aggie, hotly.

“It’s not very grand, I grant you; but any port in a storm.”

Tom arrived, was doubly welcome, and was charmed with Briarwood, chaffed us unmercifully, and derided our fears until he himself had a similar experience, and heard the phantom horse plunging in the verandah, and that wild, unearthly and utterly appalling shriek. No, he could not laugh that away; and seeing that we had now a mortal abhorrence of the place, that the children had to be kept abroad in the damp till long after dark, that Aggie was a mere hollow-eyed spectre, and that we had scarcely a servant left, that—in short, one day, we packed up precipitately and fled in a body to Cooper’s Hotel. But we did not basely endeavour to sub-let, nor advertise Briarwood as “a delightfully situated pucka built house, containing all the requirements of a gentleman’s family.” No, no. Tom bore the loss of the rent, and—a more difficult feat—Aggie bore Mrs. Starkey’s insufferable “I told you so.”

Aggie was at Kantia again last season. She walked out early one morning to see our former abode. The chowkidar and parrot are still in possession, and are likely to remain the sole tenants on the premises. The parrot suns and dusts his ancient feathers in the empty verandah, which re-echoes with his cry of “Lucy, where are you—pretty Lucy?” The chowkidar inhabits a secluded go-down at the back, where he passes most of the day in sleeping, or smoking the soothing “huka.” The place has a forlorn, uncared-for appearance now; the flowers are nearly all gone; the paint has peeled off the doors and windows; the avenue is grass-grown. Briarwood appears to have resigned itself to emptiness, neglect, and decay, although outside the gate there still hangs a battered board, on which, if you look very closely, you can decipher the words “To Let.”

MRS. RAYMOND.

“I am just going to leap into the dark.”—Rabelais.

CHAPTER I.

We had come home from India on three months’ furlough, taking return tickets, and, after the manner of Anglo-Indians, stayed to the very last moment of our leave; in fact, if the cab that conveyed us across Paris, from the Gare-de-l’Ouest to the Gare-de-Lyons, had broken down—a not impossible contingency, for our cocher was drunk—we would have missed not merely our train, but our steamer, and Charles would have had to forfeit I don’t know how much pay, and go to the bottom of his grade.

Charles is in the Civil Service; we are middle-aged people without any family, and are comfortably off, and think very little of running home. We were just in time to get our luggage weighed, swallow some soup, and climb into the carriage ere it started. We rattled through France all night; next afternoon we were at Turin; that same evening, cramped with two days’ sitting in the train, and nearly black with dust, we found ourselves in Genoa. “No time to go to the hotel,” was the unwelcome intelligence; “we must go on board at once.” Our steamer lay off in the harbour, and sailed in two hours.

“Just touch and go,” grumbled Charles; “never saw such a shave. All your fault, Louisa.”

Charles was put out. He wanted to have a tub and his dinner; and, moreover, he hated to be fussed and driven about by porters, being accustomed to the grand leisure of an important Indian official. I never argue with Charles when he is hungry, therefore I scrambled out of the boat in silence, and went to my own cabin—secured months previously. I wondered if any of our friends had turned up? Colonel and Mrs. Hatton were going back in our steamer, Mrs. Clapp, and young Brownlow of the Secretariat, who had come home with us. We would be a nice little party, and all sit at the same table. When I was dressed I went up on deck; it looked crowded, and I was immediately accosted by half a dozen Indian friends, and soon engaged in exchanging items of news. It was a bright starlight night, and Genoa looked lovely, rising from her harbour, but it was unpleasantly chilly. I was afraid of my neuralgia, and presently beat a retreat downstairs, and seated myself at a central table with my gold eye-glasses and blotter, and began to write a letter. As I sat there alone, listening to the tramping overhead—the sailors weighing anchor—I heard a saloon door clap, and some one came over and took a seat directly opposite me, with the evident intention of sharing the saloon inkstand. I am rather near-sighted, and peered across the table over my spectacles, and saw a strikingly handsome man, who was deliberately opening his writing-case. Dark, with regular features, black hair and moustache, and slender hands. He looked at me searchingly. His eyes were the keenest I ever saw; rather narrow, but piercing as cold steel. We both wrote away industriously for some time in dread silence, and then he addressed me with some little civility about the ink. He had a well-bred voice, and a slightly foreign accent. We discussed the dust of the journey, the beauty of the night—for I am not of the usual order of ancient British matrons, and when I am spoken to politely, I reply in kind. This gentleman was more than polite; he was absolutely fascinating. From Genoa we drifted to India, but he and I had never been in the same parts, and, after all, we had not much in common beyond Bombay.

“You know India well?” he inquired insinuatingly.

“I cannot say that,” I rejoined; “but I have been in India for many years. I know it superficially, and from the European standpoint.”

I fished clumsily, and in vain, to discover what he was. An officer? no, he was not like one. A civilian? a traveller? but he parried all my queries with an ease and politeness that was actually amusing. How clever he was! I felt myself a mere child in his hands. In a few moments, he had extracted from me my husband’s position, residence, length of service, prospects. I believe that, if he had chosen to ask, I would have told him the amount of our ages, income, and savings. He was so very agreeable, and so exceptionally interested in me and my affairs, that I was led away to forget that I was now a stout elderly woman of forty-five, and, alas! no longer the station belle I once had been. Presently brisk voices and steps were heard descending the companion-ladder. Enter Charles, looking blue with cold, but in an excellent temper. I saw it in his eye. He has met Buffer, the Sudder Judge, of Kuloo, a first-rate whist-player—whist is Charles’s passion—and they are going to have a split whisky peg between them, as they discuss assessment of land—Charles’s hobby. Mrs. Sharpe, an old neighbour of mine, a plain but clever little woman, and known as “Becky,” sidled into a place beside me, and took a good long look at my opposite neighbour. The tables were filling fast, and people were calling for lemonade and soda-water, for it was after nine o’clock. In the lamplight I recognized a good many familiar faces. The Brownes of Dodeypore; the Goodwins of Punea; Major Caraway of the Pioneers (with a bride). How smart every one looked, especially the young girls, and young married women! What a change it makes in some of my friends, a run home! Where is the old jacket, the joke of the station? Where is Mrs. Mills’ celebrated black hat? I would hardly recognize her. She wears a fringe; she has had something done to her teeth; she has quite a pretty figure! Who would believe she was the dowdy creature I saw at Cheetapore last July? Besides these well-known faces, are many strange ones—globe-trotters, Americans, French, and English, going out to stay with friends, or to do the cold weather in India. Those who sit at our table are no doubt impressed by our intimacy and jargon. Mrs. Sharpe always interlards her conversation with Hindostani, and speaks of her children at school as my “butchas;” “and as to going home again for only three months, as you, Mrs. Paulet” (to me), “persuaded me into doing, ‘cubbi-nay, cubbi-nay, cubbi-nay,’”—i.e. “never, never, never again.”

The dark stranger opposite looked amused, and then she said, “What do you think! I hear there is a native prince on board, enormously wealthy, and travelling with part of his Zenana, and all his jewels!”

The dark stranger still kept his eyes on her, but the expression of amusement died out of his face, and he suddenly resumed his writing.

“Who told you so?” I asked.

“My maid,” she answered triumphantly. “You know I am taking one out; I really found that I could not exist without a European servant.”

“You will have to do so, all the same,” I rejoined, “for if she is at all good-looking, and under fifty, she is bound to marry a soldier.”

“Oh, Dobbs would not look at a soldier!” retorted her mistress indignantly; “she is much too grand!”

“Wait till you see,” I replied. “I have had two, and they were two too many; so particular about their meals, always complaining of native servants and of want of society, insisting on going to sergeants’ balls, and finally wheedling me out of a wedding breakfast. No, give me an honest elderly ayah, with no family, and followers.”

“Who wears tight calico trousers, and smokes a huka,” she sneered.

“And welcome to both, my dear, as long as I never see them,” I answered, as I rose and said good night.

The next morning I went on deck before breakfast; there was a faint fresh breeze, but the sky and water were both blue, the latter as smooth as a lake. We were passing quite close to the beautiful coast of Italy, and meeting various fishing-boats, and small coasting steamers. As I turned to search for my deck-chair, I was saluted by the stranger, as I mentally called him.

And now, in the full broad daylight, instead of the dim swinging lamps, I saw, with the eye of an old Qui Hye, that he was undoubtedly a native of India. Yes, although possibly fairer-skinned than thousands of the inhabitants of the shores we were passing, he was an Asiatic, without question; very handsome also, without doubt, with perfectly chiselled features, and a broader chest and shoulders, and a finer physique than one generally sees.

“A lovely morning; may I bring your chair under the awning?” he inquired, in a most deferential manner.

“Yes, and a lovely scene,” I responded, as I seated myself.

“It is. I am very fond of Italy; are not you?”

“I am sure I should be, if I knew it well, but all my travelling has been in India. When my husband retires we hope to see something of Europe.”

“I have what is called ‘done’ Europe—France, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Spain.”

“And to what country do you give the palm?”

“For country, Italy; as a city, Paris. London is too foggy, too straggling.”

“Then you will enjoy a winter in India.”

“Yes, it is three years since I was there.” He pronounced his w’s as v’s, the only way in which you could have discovered that he was a foreigner.

“How well you speak English!” I remarked.

“Then you have detected that I am not an Englishman,” he said, with evident surprise.

“Yes.”

“Of what country do you think I am a native?”

“Asia—possibly India, or Persia,” I ventured.

“Why?—why not a Spaniard, an Italian, a South American, or a Greek?”

“Yes, you might be a Greek, or an Armenian, but all the same I think you were born further East.” I had not been nineteen years in India for nothing!

“You are right,” he admitted with an indulgent smile. “My mother was a Persian, but I have been much in Europe. I was partly educated in England.”

I was scarcely listening to him; my attention was riveted on a lovely girl, who had just reached the top of the companion-ladder, and was looking timidly about. Suddenly she caught sight of my new acquaintance, and came towards us, with short hurried steps.

She appeared to be about twenty years of age, was slight, and of middle height, and wore an elaborately made white dress and a sailor hat, underneath which was the prettiest face I had ever seen. Her complexion was simply marvellous—pure milk and roses; her eyes, the colour of the sky, with long black lashes; her hair was really fair, with flaxen and golden shades through it. I could not take my eyes off her. As she came up to my companion, she said with an apologetic glance—

“You see, I found my way on deck myself.”

“Yes, so I see,” he answered, in a not particularly genial tone.

“The cabin was so stuffy, and I longed for a breath of the sea air,” she continued, with pleading eyes.

“Madam,” he said, suddenly turning to me, “may I introduce my wife—Mrs. Raymond?”

His wife? I was so taken aback, that for a second I was speechless with astonishment, and then I said, as I held out my hand—

“How do you do, Mrs. Raymond? Your first trip to India, I suppose?”

“Yes,” she replied, with rather a tremor in her voice; “it is the first time I have ever been from home.”

“Ah, and I dare say you are a little homesick.”

“It is not so bad as being sea-sick,” remarked her husband, unsympathetically. “She has never experienced that yet.”

“Oh yes, once—long ago on the Clyde—I was awfully sick,” she protested.

Now that I came to look closely at Mrs. Raymond, and to hear her speak, I was aware that, although she was a strikingly beautiful girl, she was not quite a lady; something in her voice and her carriage was wanting. She held herself badly; her hands were large, though adorned by superb diamond rings. Yes, I, Louisa Paulet, who rather prided myself on my diamond rings, had not one that could compare with the least of those on this girl’s ugly fingers.

“Do you think it will be like this all the way?” she asked, nervously twisting these fingers.

“I hope so, for my own sake and yours; but at any rate, let us make the best of the present moment. There is the breakfast bell at last!”

As cheerful, hungry crowds came flocking to the different tables (where they had previously placed their visiting cards), I was rather surprised to see the Raymonds take seats almost opposite to me. He had been beforehand with Major and Mrs. Barker, of the Nizam’s horse, and the Barkers had to go among the Americans at table number two—outcasts from the congenial society of their Anglo-Indian friends.

I considered Mr. Raymond’s manœuvre was rather pushing. Surely he might have seen that we had made up a party, and that he would be de trop. And all tables were alike to him—so I thought then. This was the humdrum married people’s table; number two was American and French; number three was surrounded by gay bachelors, grass widows, and brides and bridegrooms. There was more “go” about it than the other two put together. Why had not Mr. Raymond established himself there?

I received his advances with mustard, sugar, butter, and salt with marked coldness, and in my most freezing “Burra mem Sahib” manner. But who could be stiff with a pair of piteous forget-me-not blue eyes wistfully appealing to them? The Raymonds were a strikingly handsome couple; he with his dark resolute face, she with her wonderful fair beauty. She had already been noted, for many heads were bent forward, and glances sent in her direction, and whispered comments made. They both joined in conversation, he particularly, and showed himself to be a clever, agreeable, well-informed man. There was apparently no topic on which he had not formed an opinion—from the Irish question, and the new magazine rifle, down to the last style of dressing the hair. She did not talk much, and seemed perplexed at the ménu, especially the “anti-pasto.” I saw her skin an olive and taste it, and make a face; she scraped her plate with her knife, and drank with her spoon in her cup. No, no, no, she was not a lady. I noticed that she looked behind her, and up and down the table rather furtively, and seemed transparently pleased to be one of such a large and lively community. Possibly she had never been in such good society in all her life.

CHAPTER II.

The weather was perfect, the sea like a millpond, as we coasted down to Naples. The Raymonds kept very much to themselves. They would sit side by side for hours in their two chairs, with the same rug across their knees, whilst she read or did fancy-work, and he dozed and smoked. After dinner they paced the deck arm-in-arm, and only mixed with their fellow-passengers at meals. They seemed quite a devoted couple, and when I remarked this to Becky Sharpe, that lively lady exclaimed, “Devoted! Where are your dear old eyes? She is the acknowledged belle on board, though I can’t see myself what all the men are raving about. She reminds me exactly of one of those coloured pictures on a chocolate box—very pink cheeks, very blue eyes, very yellow hair. He is as jealous as a Turk. No man dare approach her. He never leaves her by herself for one second; they sit half the day under a big umbrella, and at table are flanked and faced by old married people. He won’t allow her to join in any games after dinner, poor girl, and packs her off to her cabin at eight o’clock. Do you mean to say you have not noticed this? Why, it is the talk of the ship!”

I had not noticed it, but I now began to see that there was something in Mrs. Sharpe’s remarks, even allowing for her exaggeration. I never saw a man speak to Mrs. Raymond, I never saw her husband quit her side, and I observed that, although he was in the saloon of an evening, playing whist and other games, she was not there; and once she said to me at table—

“Do all the ladies go to their cabins at eight o’clock, so as to leave the saloon for the gentlemen?”

“No, certainly not,” I answered. “I never think of leaving till ten. I like my game of whist, and we generally have some music.”

That same evening she came up to me and said, “My husband says I may stay up too, if you will allow me to sit beside you. Please do, Mrs. Paulet; it is so dreadfully dull in my cabin. I cannot go to sleep at eight o’clock, like a little child.”

“Of course you may sit beside me,” I answered.

I glanced over, and saw Mr. Raymond’s keen, piercing eyes on me and her. We were all an elderly party; no one among us was likely to rouse his jealousy. She, poor girl, seemed delighted to have so much liberty, and chattered away, as I had never heard her, to Mrs. Sharpe, and Charlie, and the Barkers. Every evening she established herself beside me, work in hand, and thus it came to pass that I became Mrs. Raymond’s chaperone!

It was evident that Mr. Raymond was rich; he had the air of a man who had never had to think of money. It was whispered that he and the Mexicans and Americans played very high, and that when he lost he laughed and paid up. Mrs. Raymond’s dresses were Parisian, more costly than tasteful. She came out in a set of Russian sables one cold evening, that made the other women respect her as they had never respected her previously, and her diamond bangles, brooches, and earrings caused even the American ladies to exclaim. All her belongings were in keeping, for one day she called me into her cabin to show me a picture, and I noticed the luxuries with which she was surrounded. The silver-mounted looking-glass and brushes, gold-topped scent-bottles, the cabin and its valuable contents, including her jewel-case, were all left in charge of Mr. Raymond’s Mahomedan servant, a stern-faced, elderly man, with a square-cut beard, who stood outside the door with folded arms, as motionless and rigid as a statue. I had had plenty of Mahomedan servants of my own, and I must say that I did not take a fancy to Ahmed Khan. He never salaamed to any one but his own master, and there seemed to me a sort of scarcely repressed insolence in his stolid glance. He was devoted to Mr. Raymond, more like a dog than a human being; he slept on the mat outside his cabin by night, and obeyed his merest glance by day.

“To see Naples and die” is a very fine expression. I have seen Naples harbour with dirty brownish waves, seen Vesuvius covered with snow, the streets covered with mud and slush, and have very nearly died of cold and sea-sickness after an awful passage from Messina, in the very teeth of a gale; but now, en route out, Naples looked gay and bright—but not a bit more beautiful in my perhaps prejudiced eyes than Bombay—and, as the steamer was to wait twenty hours, we all took boat and went ashore. Charles and I had been to Pompeii, had seen the cathedral, so we merely drove about shopping, and along the Ciaja; and almost everywhere we went we encountered the Raymonds, with Ahmed Khan in attendance. She looked radiant. We saw them in photographers’ shops, in milliners’, in jewellers’, and she whispered to me “that he had given her loads of pretty things, and that she was sending presents home, and had had her photograph taken.” I had never seen her in such spirits, for she was generally rather quiet, not to say depressed. At the Museum we met them again, and, as we were poking about among the wonderful remains from Pompeii, two young men came in, talking in the loud voices of the British tourists abroad.

One was a tall nice-looking man, with dark grey eyes; the other was smaller and plainer, but had a certain air of distinction about him, and any one could see at a glance that they were both officers in the British Army. They went round together, audibly discussing and admiring all they saw, and then they evidently caught sight of us—or, more properly, of Mrs. Raymond, who was examining a vase with Charles. I was a good deal surprised to hear one say to the other in Hindustani—

“Did you ever see such a lovely girl? I wish I was going to stay in Naples.”

“Maybe it is just as well you are not,” rejoined the other, with a laugh; “her father looks a stern old gentleman.”

Charles to be called an old gentleman, and to be taken for Mrs. Raymond’s father! The very idea gave me quite a shock. I glanced hastily at Mr. Raymond: had he heard too? Apparently not; if he had, he had an admirable command over his expression, for he was examining a quaint mosaic with a smile on his face. When I turned round the young men had departed.

It was getting dusk and chilly, and we set our faces towards the harbour, and after being nearly upset by rival boatmen, found ourselves once more safely in the lamp-lit saloon, which had quite a home look, with its three long tables covered with flowers, fruit, and Italian pastry, and duly punctuated by bottles of red country wine. Six new passengers had arrived, and, to my great consternation, they included the two young men whom I had seen in the Museum. Mrs. Sharpe told me that they were officers in the Prancing Lancers, on their way to join their regiment at Mhow. The tall one was Captain Fuller, and the short one was the Honourable Guy Warneford. They made a valiant effort to secure seats at our table, on the strength of a slight acquaintance with Mrs. Sharpe; but even this did not avail them, for there was no room, and they were forced to sit elsewhere. All the same, they attached themselves closely to our set, and soon had scraped acquaintance with Mr. Barker, the Borrodailes, and the Raymonds—especially Mrs. Raymond. They were, however, not prepared for her husband’s persistent presence. Was she leaning over the bulwarks, he was sure to be at her side; sitting, reading, walking, it was ever the same, and he generally monopolized the entire conversation. The only time that Mrs. Raymond was free from his ever-haunting presence was when she sat beside me, after dinner, and they made the very most of this! We landed at Messina, and of course they annexed themselves to our party. They saw quite plainly that their company was distasteful to Mr. Raymond, and redoubled every effort—the combined efforts, of two audacious young men—to enjoy his wife’s society, partly because they admired her, and partly because it made him secretly and politely furious; it was a capital game! and they resolved to play it all the way to Bombay. Mrs. Raymond was no flirt, but she was young, pretty, and liked admiration; her exquisite blue eyes were childlike in their innocence—not like Mrs. Swift’s dark orbs, whose one glance was a whole three-volume novel! Mrs. Swift was decidedly fast, and her husband allowed her to do as she pleased. He was never on duty. This lady was also recently married, had a plain face, good figure, pretty feet—which she displayed liberally, and in six different pairs of shoes a day; she dressed admirably, was excessively amusing, and self-possessed. She was generally surrounded by a crowd of admiring young men, as she smoked cigarettes, bringing the smoke out of her ears or down her nostrils at pleasure. She talked slang, and behaved herself more like a schoolboy than a lady. Often have I caught Mr. Raymond’s black eyes fixed upon her, with anything but a pleasant expression; and, indeed, I could not wonder that he did not approve of this remarkably frisky matron. Ladies, as a rule, did not admire Mrs. Raymond. She was stupid, and had no style, and was not a person of good birth; now Mrs. Swift, with all her fastness, was well born (and much was forgiven her on this account). Mrs. Raymond was inclined to boast in a mild way of her diamonds, and of her husband’s wealth, of the lovely horses she would drive, and the tribes of servants she was to have in India.

“My dear good girl!” exclaimed Mrs. Sharpe, impatiently, “we are all on the same footing out there. We have all lovely horses, and tribes of servants; it’s our only compensation! If I had been you, I’d have made your rich husband stay at home. Whereabouts are you going to live?”

“It is not quite settled yet,” she answered rather grandly. “My husband has a good deal of property in the Punjaub, I believe. I am not sure where that is.”

“But what will be your station?”

“I really have never heard him mention it. I don’t think we have a station.”

“How strange! Well, you will know soon enough; and if it’s a dull little out-of-the-way hole, you must make him take you down to Calcutta in the cold weather, and up to Simla in the hot season, and to Lucknow for the races. Don’t let him hide you and make a Purdah Nashin of you,” she added with a laugh.

“What is a Purdah Nashin?” inquired Mrs. Raymond, giggling and displaying her little white teeth.

“You may well ask! It’s a type you don’t come across in England. A woman who is kept secluded from the world in her husband’s house, who lives and dies there, and never uncovers her face when out-of-doors, and never sees or speaks to any man but her husband, or her father, or her sons.”

“Poor creatures! Are there many of them in India?” she asked with an air of deep compassion.

“Yes, thousands; they lead an uncommonly dull life, I fancy, these domestic prisoners. Even when she drives out, the grand lady has all the carriage blinds pulled down, just as the common woman sits behind the drawn curtains of an humble ekka. When they travel by rail, as they do on a pilgrimage, there is such a fuss; they are carried into the station in a dooly, and when they get into their compartment there is quite a high screen round them. It is so funny, and most of them are hideous old hags, as ugly as sin; but I suppose they like the commotion.”

“Don’t they ever peep? I’m sure I should,” she said with a merry, girlish laugh.

“If you were young and pretty you would not get the chance. There is generally some lynx-eyed old grandmother, who is worse than ten jailors. As she was kept down in her youth, and shut away from all the delights of the world, she now avenges herself on others. She rules the Zenana with a rod of iron. You have everything to learn about India, I suppose?”

“Yes, I know nothing about housekeeping and servants or anything; I should be greatly obliged to you if you would give me a few hints.”

There was nothing Mrs. Sharpe liked better; it made her so important. “Get a piece of paper and a pencil, my dear, and I’ll give you no end of information; there is nothing like beginning the right way. Of course,” as the girl sat down, pencil in hand, “much depends on your presidency. I suppose it will be Bengal?”

“Yes, I suppose so,” she answered with hesitation.

Mr. Raymond had drawn near in a stealthy way he had, and was leaning against a boat, listening. They could not see him, but he stood facing me, and not an expression of his escaped me.

“Well, you must first secure a good house, with large and lofty rooms, and a pucka roof; not a thatched house—be sure of that. Then you will want a whole retinue of good servants. Your husband will please himself, but I prefer Hindoos; Mahomedans are such fanatics and thieves, and have such an undisguised contempt for our sex. You will require a good khansamah, and cook under him, a bearer, two khitmagars, an ayah—an old woman for choice. Your number of syces depends on your horses.”

“Mr. Raymond has promised me two lovely Arabs for my carriage. I have never ridden, and he says he does not wish me to learn.”

“No? Well, as he is a rich man, you will have to allow your servants to fleece you to a certain extent. You won’t get grain, and meat, and poultry, as cheap as others; but be sure and settle your accounts with the cook weekly—never let them run on. Be very particular about this!”

“Yes, I’ll remember.”

“Then about society. You have to call first on all the old residents—married people, I mean; but the bachelors, of course, come and call on you.”

Here Mr. Raymond’s face was a study.

“The visiting hours are between twelve and two, the hottest time of the day—and awful in the plains—but every one goes out in the evening, riding or driving, and the young men are playing cricket or polo, so it’s the only time you find people in.”

“And who returns the young men’s visits?”

“Your husband—or you ask them to dinner; I dare say they like that better, especially if the hostess is a pretty woman, and has a good cook. I hope my little hints will come in useful. I have no doubt you will have a very gay time.”

“Do you think so?” beaming as she spoke.

“Yes, it’s a pity you do not ride; but of course you dance, and there will be lots of balls and partners for you, and tiffins, and dinners, and tennis; and you will find that your partners will often drop in and look you up in the afternoons. It civilizes young men to have afternoon tea, and I suppose your husband won’t mind?”

From the glimpse I obtained of Mr. Raymond’s countenance, it struck me that there would not be a warm welcome for his wife’s partners, much less any invigorating refreshments.

CHAPTER III.

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?”