Chapter XI

Eola sat at the tea-table in the verandah. Her brother, punctual to the stroke of four, came in without haste, crossing the compound from the college buildings to the private house. Punctuality, he declared, was his salvation. He could not have stood the rush of work had he not rigidly adhered to the hours of his meals. Afternoon tea was the one he liked best. He gave himself exactly thirty minutes for it. It was thirty minutes of solid rest.

"Where's Alderbury," he asked, as he seated himself in a comfortable cane chair.

"He has gone to see Ananda."

"You don't mind if I read, do you, Eola? The new magazines came two days ago and I haven't had time even to open them."

He tore off the cover of an illustrated monthly and handed it to her. A second magazine was opened for himself, and he was soon deep in an article professing to give the last word on the chemistry of biology. Whilst he read he drank his tea. A bell rang and he jumped up, instantly detaching himself from the magazine and breaking off in the middle of a paragraph. He hurried away in the direction of the college without another thought for his visitor. At his departure Mrs. Hulver appeared.

"When you go out, Miss, will you kindly get some carpet thread for the tailor. The motor is ready."

"I can't leave the house till Mr. Alderbury has come in. He promised to be back to tea at four o'clock. He must have been detained."

"Oh, yes, miss, I daresay he has been detained," assented Mrs. Hulver. "Our master might be kept if he chose to allow it. As William--that was my third--used to say: 'There are some men who will be in time for every meal, hungry or not; and there are others who will be in time for nothing but their own funerals.'"

Eola ignored the implied depreciation of her guest and proceeded to give orders that would ensure his comfort.

"We shall want another pot of tea, please. Tell the matey to keep the kettle boiling, and he is not to make the tea until Mr. Alderbury comes in."

"If you like to go out now, miss, I can see to Mr. Alderbury and give him his tea. I am sure he won't mind. His head is that full of his missioning that he won't notice whether it is poured out by you or by me. As William--that was my first--used to say: 'When a man is bothered by business he has no room in his head for a woman and can't tell one from another.' Mr. Alderbury is bothered with this business of Pantulu Iyer's son coming Christian. It has all been done in a hurry, as I was telling you. As William--that was my third--used to say----"

What William the third said was lost in the sudden appearance of the guest.

"So sorry I'm late, Miss Wenaston. Yes, please, I should like some tea. What with the dust and the amount of talking I've done, I'm as thirsty as a fish."

He hurried away to his room to get rid of the powdery ochre blown up from the laterite roads. Mrs. Hulver glanced after him with as much disapproval as she dared to show.

"Next to schoolmasters, missionaries should be particular in being punctual. As William--that was my second--used to say: 'Men should be valued like watches for the time they keep.'"

"And he was quite right from a military point of view. Will you see about the tea, please, Mrs. Hulver!"

"It's being made, miss. I've got my eye on the matey. It will be ready as soon as Mr. Alderbury is ready for it. Like as not he will read those letters that have come while he has been away and forget all about his tea." Mrs. Hulver looked at Eola as much as to say, "And you too." She continued: "A man with a lot of business needs a good head. As William--that was my second--used to say: 'Drive your business with a firm hand and a clear head or your business will drive you."

Alderbury's appearance checked the flow of Mrs. Hulver's wisdom, and she departed to her room. As he received his cup from Eola's hand he said:

"You would like to hear how I fared, I am sure."

"Yes, please; tell me all about it."

The words did not ring quite true; they were wanting in sympathy, and seemed to the quick sensitive ear of the missionary to be spoken more out of polite curiosity than real interest. He glanced at her and tried to swallow some of the scalding liquid with the aid of the teaspoon. The innate love of fighting in a good cause rose within him, and he determined to try conclusions with her. She should become interested, and more. He would conquer her indifference and rouse her sympathy.

"I had no end of a difficulty in seeing the parents. It was the father I wanted to get at and he was very inaccessible."

"You had an interview with Ananda, of course. I knew him in England, and should like to hear how he is getting on. I don't care a bit about his stupid old father. Why can't the father let the son alone, and allow him to take his own line?"

"The step involves so much."

"If that is so, then Ananda shouldn't have taken it."

Alderbury put down his cup suddenly, his mind entirely diverted from the business of tea-drinking by her words.

"You don't mean that you really think he ought not to have become a Christian?" he inquired, in a grave voice that had lost the lightness with which he had greeted her on arrival home from his visit.

The seriousness of his manner awoke a spirit of perverseness.

"I am of the opinion that he might have had more consideration for his father's feelings," she said, with a levity that jarred. "Why should existing relations that seemed so satisfactory be disturbed?" Then, as Alderbury remained silent, she continued: "There is a time for all things. It is too soon to ask educated India to accept Christianity; the way is studded with such colossal difficulties. Don't you often feel that you are fighting against almost insuperable obstacles?"

"In short you think it would be more expedient for the missionary to run away or temporise, instead of buckling on his armour and standing up to the enemy. What about our responsibilities and lending a helping hand to our fellow-men? The marsh is a good enough place for the horse to wallow in, and the man enjoying the firm ground of the meadow has no duty towards the poor beast! Miss Wenaston, that is a poor creed."

"Are you so sure that the Hindu is in the mud?" she asked, more in a spirit of provocation than honest inquiry.

There was a fearful fascination in rousing him, and she took the risk of his anger for the pure pleasure of seeing him come up to the fighting line. The eyes that met hers shone with the light of battle, and she inwardly trembled at the spirit she had wantonly raised.

"Am I sure, you ask?" he cried derisively. "If you knew what Hinduism meant you would never put such a question to a man of my profession. You cannot realise how encrusted it is with insidious error appealing mischievously to the sensual part of humanity. You know nothing of the practices at the worship of Kali--of the life led by the dasis in the temples of Southern India----" he stopped abruptly, conscious of having been led in his excitement and enthusiasm a little too far. It was impossible to pursue such an unsavoury subject with an English woman.

"I don't know much about the worship of Kali; and I am sure that I never heard the word dasi before. What is a dasi?"

"Oh! never mind," he exclaimed, the fire subdued. "Please give me another cup of tea, and I will tell you about Ananda. Perhaps when you hear what has driven him out of the faith of his ancestors, you will be able to sympathise."

He explained the theory of transmigration, and how Ananda had revolted against it on the loss of his friend; how he put himself under instruction in England and took the step voluntarily and without pressure. From the story of his conversion he passed on to the description of all that had followed since Ananda arrived in India.

"The man is being persecuted in all kinds of ways. They have supplied him with food, but they have employed an out-caste sweeper to carry it to him. The prejudice of fifty generations is not to be conquered all at once, and Ananda cannot bring himself to receive his food at the hands of a man whom he holds more unclean than we should consider an unwashed workman who had just emptied a sewer."

"How has he been existing?"

"On biscuits and milk, a poor diet for a healthy hungry man. It has kept him from starvation however. Your brother did wisely in sending for me after receiving Ananda's letter. He needs advice and support, and he will require help of another kind when the small amount of cash in his pocket is finished."

"I suppose you talked to him--and prayed with him?" said Eola, conscious of the banality of her words even as she spoke them.

"Dear lady! does a man stop to fall on his knees when he sees a comrade drowning? You will think me a poor sort of missionary, perhaps, when I confess that I forgot to pray with him. I was too busy chucking life-belts to the poor chap. Already he was assailed with doubts as to the wisdom of the step he had taken. 'I have been too hasty,' he said. 'I did not consider how seriously it would affect my father's peace of mind and his health.' Then he drew a picture of the old man's feeble appearance as he came to him two or three mornings ago in the compound. 'He was so bowed and bent he might have been seventy instead of fifty.' It gave him a shock, and he seems to have entertained a suggestion made by his father which was nothing less than the contemplation of partial apostacy. I fought against the weakness. I preached free-will and choice. I appealed to his honesty and combated the cowardice that prompted retrogression. He admitted that he could never again accept the Hindu doctrine of transmigration. Then I pointed out the responsibility that falls on a man's shoulders when his eyes are opened and the choice of road lies with him. I dug away and rooted about to find a little courage. He has more obstinacy than courage at present. I hope that the one will breed the other."

While he talked he drank tea and devoured bread and butter with the wholesome hunger of a schoolboy. Mrs. Hulver appeared once more.

"The motor is waiting, miss. I'm afraid I can't do without the carpet thread."

"I will go at once," replied Eola, rising from the tea-table to put on her hat. "Will you come for a run in the car, Mr. Alderbury?"

"I should like it immensely," he replied with a promptness that did not escape the ears of the housekeeper.

She was not satisfied with the result of her interruption to the conversation. By despatching Miss Wenaston on a shopping errand she had aimed at putting an end to the _tete-a-tete_. The guest, she supposed, would be driven to his room or into the garden until Dr. Wenaston was released from his duties and could join him. As Eola disappeared in the direction of her room Alderbury turned in his impulsive way to Mrs. Hulver.

"I haven't had a moment to ask you after yourself. How have you been since we last met?"

"I've been keeping pretty well, thank you, sir. All that troubles me is the haricot veins in my legs. If I stand about too much, they swell and become very painful."

"How is your son?"

Mrs. Hulver beamed suddenly, and the severe expression that she had worn since he appeared in the verandah vanished. Next to talking about her late husbands she loved to expand on the subject of her boy.

"He is very well and grown quite the man. He tells me that he has just been made a corporal. He's in his father's old regiment, and it has been ordered out at once. He ought to be landing in less than a week's time. He has promised to come off and see his old mother the first minute he can get leave. They say that the regiment is going to Bangalore. If so I shall see him often."

"I hope he will prove a good son."

"No fear but what he will," said Mrs. Hulver, with the unshaken confidence of a proud mother. "He is happy in his work and likes soldiering. As William--that was my second and the boy's own father--used to say when I talked of the child following any other trade: 'Bring up the foal to the shafts and don't try to teach him to drive a wheelbarrow.'"

"He was perfectly right; each man should follow the line for which he is best suited."

"But they don't do so always. There are many men--and women, too--who, being square, find themselves in round holes. Now you, sir, I take it, are in the right-shaped hole. So am I; and so is Miss Wenaston. She would do badly in my hole, for instance; for she would be cheated every hour of her life by these budmashes of servants; and she would be still worse off in your hole. There's nothing of the missionary about her, as any one can see with half an eye. As William--that was my third--used to say: 'It doesn't need a uniform to show you who's a born soldier.' He was a fine figure and had a handsome----"

Miss Wenaston appeared and the car drew up under the portico, cutting Mrs. Hulver short. She watched the pair drive away with renewed misgivings. "I don't like that look in her face. She's feeling just as I used to feel when William, my second and the father of my boy, took me out walking in the bazaar, he looking so fine in his corporal's uniform." She called to the butler. "Ramachetty! Come here; I want you. To-morrow is pay-day. I'm going out into the garden to count the roses. Where's the gardener?"

She descended the steps of the front verandah and walked slowly, displaying an imposing dignity, to the spot where the roses stood. She counted the pots.

"--six--seven--" As she arrived at the seventh the gardener pointed with feverish anxiety to the eighth. It bore a beautiful double pink blossom full of fragrance, proclaiming itself a true and genuine _La France_, "Eight; good! Wasn't it just as I said?" she asked the butler triumphantly. "With care the roses would turn back to their proper sort. Why haven't the others turned, too?" she inquired, looking severely at the gardener.

"They are turning now; all coming nicely if missus will please wait."

"Mind they do come," she replied, lifting a warning finger that indicated a determination to exact the fulfilment of her demand.

"Missus will let off the fine!" said the gardener in an insinuating voice.

"Certainly not! There will be four rupees fine to-morrow; four rupees kept back until the missie has twelve good, sweet-smelling double pink roses."

"I am a very poor man!" whined the gardener. "I have a large family and two wives, both big hungry women. What can I do if missus stops my pay?"

"You should have thought of that before you spoilt the roses," said Mrs. Hulver, showing no sign of relenting.

"I am not a bad man," pleaded the gardener. "Missus must please forgive. I am same religion as missus--a Christian----"

"What!" cried Mrs. Hulver, with such startling emphasis that they all jumped, butler, gardener and gardener's assistants.

"A Christian, a poor worm of a Christian, same religion as missus and master and missie!"

"How dare you call yourself a Christie?" cried Mrs. Hulver, in deep indignation. "How dare you say that you belong to the same religion as me and the master and our missie? You! a spoiler of roses! you! a lazy idle budmash of a gardener! You! with two big hungry wives!"

The unfortunate bigamist trembled visibly before this outpouring of wrath. He felt that he had made a false step.

"Ramachetty! is that man a Christian?" she asked, turning to the butler with an abruptness that upset his self-possession.

"I never heard that he was, ma'am. He doesn't belong to my Church, the Roman Church."

"Is it true that he has got two wives?"

"Yes, ma'am; one to cook and keep the house, and the other to mind the field and the buffalo and make the butter. My Church doesn't allow two wives."

"No; nor any other Christian Church. He calls himself a Christian because he thinks I shall be sorry for him and let him off his fine. Tell him that only heathen people marry two wives and turn pink roses into red. He is the sort of budmash who brings Christianity into disgrace. I'll double his fine if he dares to say again that he belongs to my religion. When he has learned to keep pink double roses pink and double, then we will talk about his being a Christian and belonging to our religion; but mind! I don't give him much hope. I never knew any missionary that allowed two wives."

The butler was not indifferent to the pronoun used by Mrs. Hulver when she spoke of "our religion." He dismissed the gardener to his duties and followed the housekeeper to the back verandah. She retired to her room to make out the pay-list for the establishment. Against the gardener's name she ventured to write the full sum of his wages and made no note of any fine.

"Those four missing plants will all be back by to-morrow unless I am very much mistaken. Christian or heathen, I'll keep him and the rest of them up to the Christian standard or my name is not Maria Hulver. As William my third used to say, he having been in the Artillery: 'Drive your team straight whether they're horses or mules, and you and your guns will get over the ground without a spill.'"