Part 15 (1/2)
”I will give you an appointment here in the Palace with a salary of a _lakh_ of rupees a year.”
Chunerb.u.t.ty's eyes glistened. A _lakh_ is a hundred thousand, and at par fifteen rupees went to an English sovereign.
”Thank you, Your Highness,” he said eagerly.
The Rajah held up a fat forefinger warningly.
”But not until you have married her,” he said.
Chunerb.u.t.ty smiled confidently. Much as he had seen of Noreen Daleham he yet knew her so little as to believe that the prospect of such an income, joined to the favour in which he believed she held him, would make it an easy matter to win her consent.
He imagined himself to be in love with the girl, but it was in the Oriental's way--that is, it was merely a matter of sensual desire. Although as jealous as Eastern men are in s.e.x questions, the prospect of the money quite reconciled him to the idea of sharing his wife with another. His fancy flew ahead to the time, which he knew to be inevitable, when possession would have killed pa.s.sion and the money would bring new, and so more welcome, women to his arms. The Rajah would only too readily permit, nay encourage him to go to Europe--alone. And he gloated over the thought of being again in London, but this time with much money at his command.
What was any one woman compared with fifty, with a hundred, others ready to replace her?
So he calmly discussed with the Rajah the manner of carrying out their nefarious scheme; and His Highness, to show his appreciation, invited him to share his orgies that night. And in the smiles and embraces of a Kashmiri wanton, Chunerb.u.t.ty forgot the English girl.
CHAPTER VIII
A BHUTTIA RAID
Dermot's friends.h.i.+p with the Dalehams made rapid progress, and in the ensuing weeks he saw them often. In order to verify his suspicions as to the Bengalis, he made a point of cultivating the acquaintance of the planters, paid several visits to Payne and other members of the community, and was a frequent guest at the weekly gatherings at the club.
On one of his visits to Malpura he found Fred recovering from a sharp bout of malarial fever, and Dermot was glad of an opportunity of requiting their hospitality by inviting both the Dalehams to Ranga Duar to enable Fred to recuperate in the mountain air.
The invitation was gladly accepted. Their host came to fetch them himself with two elephants; Badshah, carrying a _charjama_, conveying them, while the other animal bore their luggage and servants. With jealous rage in his heart Chunerb.u.t.ty watched them go.
Noreen enjoyed the journey through the forest and up the mountains, with Dermot sitting beside her to act as her guide, for on this occasion Ramnath drove Badshah. As they climbed the steep, winding road among the hills and rose out of the damp heat of the Plains, Fred declared that he felt better at once in the cool refres.h.i.+ng breezes that swept down from the lofty peaks above. The forest fell away behind them. The great teak and _sal_ trees gave place to the lighter growths of bamboo, plantain, and sago-palm. A troop of small brown monkeys, feasting on ripe bananas, sprang away startled on all fours and vanished in all directions. A slim-bodied, long-tailed mongoose, stealing across the road, stopped in the middle of it to rise up on his hind legs and stare with tiny pink eyes at the approaching elephants. Then, dropping to the ground again with puffed-out, defiant tail, he trotted on into the undergrowth angry and unafraid.
Arrived at Ranga Duar the brother and sister exclaimed in admiration at the beauty of the lonely outpost nestling in the bosom of the hills. They gazed with interest at the stalwart sepoys of the detachment in khaki or white undress whom they pa.s.sed and who drew themselves up and saluted their commanding sahib smartly.
Dermot had given up his small bungalow to his guests and gone to occupy the one vacant quarter in the Mess. Noreen was to sleep in his bedroom, and, as the girl looked round the scantily-furnished apartment with its small camp-bed, one canvas chair, a table, and a barrack chest of drawers, she tried to realise that she was actually to live for a while in the very room of the man who was fast becoming her hero. For indeed her feeling for Dermot so far savoured more of hero-wors.h.i.+p than of love. She looked with interest at his scanty possessions, his sword, the line of riding-boots against the wall, the belts and spurs hung on nails, the bra.s.s-b.u.t.toned greatcoat hanging behind the door. In his sitting-room she read the names of the books on a roughly-made stand to try to judge of his taste in literature. And with feminine curiosity she studied the photographs on the walls and tables and wondered who were the originals of the portraits of some beautiful women among them and what was their relation to Dermot.
While her brother, who picked up strength at once in the pure air, delighted in the military sights and sounds around him, the girl revelled in the loveliness of their surroundings, the beauty of the scenery, the splendour of the hills, and the glorious panorama of forest and plains spread before her eyes. To Parker, who had awaited their arrival at Dermot's gate and hurried forward to help down from Badshah's back the first Englishwoman who had ever visited their solitary station, she took an instant liking, which increased when she found that he openly admired his commanding officer as much as she did secretly.
In the days that followed it seemed quite natural that the task of entertaining Noreen should fall to the senior officer's lot, while the junior tactfully paired off with her brother and took him to shoot on the rifle range or join in games of hockey with the sepoys on the parade ground, which was the only level spot in the station.
Propinquity is the most frequent cause of love--for one who falls headlong into that pa.s.sion fifty drift into it. In the isolation of that solitary spot on the face of the giant mountains, Kevin Dermot and Noreen Daleham drew nearer to each other in their few days together there than they ever would have done in as many months of London life. As they climbed the hills or sat side by side on the Mess verandah and looked down on the leagues of forest and plain spread out like a map at their feet, they were apt to forget that they were not alone in the world.
The more Dermot saw of Noreen, the more he was attracted by her naturalness and her unconscious charm of manner. He liked her bright and happy disposition, full of the joy of living. On her side Noreen at first hardly recognised the quiet-mannered, courteous man that she had first known in the smart, keen, and intelligent soldier such as she found Dermot to be in his own surroundings. Yet she was glad to have seen him in his little world and delighted to watch him with his Indian officers and sepoys, whose liking and respect for him were so evident.
When she was alone her thoughts were all of him. As she lay at night half-dreaming on his little camp-bed in his bare room she wondered what his life had been. And, to a woman, the inevitable question arose in her mind: Had he ever loved or was he now in love with someone? It seemed to her that any woman should be proud to win the love of such a man. Was there one? What sort of girl would he admire, she wondered. She had noticed that in their talks he had never mentioned any of her s.e.x or given her a clue to his likes and dislikes. She knew little of men. Her brother was the only one of whose inner life and ideas she had any knowledge, and he was no help to her understanding of Dermot.
It never occurred to Noreen that there was anything unusual in her interest in this new friend, nor did she suspect that that interest was perilously akin to a deeper feeling. All she knew was that she liked him and was content to be near him. She had not reached the stage of being miserable out of his presence. The dawn of a woman's love is the happiest time in its story. There is no certain realisation of the truth to startle, perhaps affright, her, no doubts to depress her, no jealous fears to torture her heart--only a vague, delicious feeling of gladness, a pleasant rose-tinted glow to brighten life and warm her heart. The fierce, devouring flames come later.
The first love of a young girl is pa.s.sionless, pure; a fanciful, poetic devotion to an ideal; the wors.h.i.+p of a deified, glorious being who does not, never could, exist. Too often the realisation of the truth that the idol has feet of clay is enough to burst the iridescent glowing bubble. Too seldom the love deepens, develops into the true and lasting devotion of the woman, clear-sighted enough to see the real man through the mists of illusion, but fondly wise enough to cherish him in spite of his faults, aye, even because of them, as a mother loves her deformed child for its very infirmity.
So to Noreen love had come--as it should, as it must, to every daughter of Eve, for until it comes no one of them will ever be really content or feel that her life is complete, although when it does she will probably be unhappy. For it will surely bring to her more grief than joy. Life and Nature are harder to the woman than to the man. But in those golden days in the mountains, Noreen Daleham was happy, happier far than she had ever been; albeit she did not realise that love was the magician that made her so. She only felt that the world was a very delightful place and that the lonely outpost the most attractive spot in it.
Even when the day came to quit Ranga Duar she was not depressed. For was not her friend--so she named him now in her thoughts--to bring her on his wonderful elephant through the leagues of enchanted forest to her home? And had he not promised to come to it again very soon to visit--not her, of course, but her brother? So what cause was there for sadness?