Devil's Wind (8 page)

“Enough of a fact to make the authorities give a whole batch of the Umballa men a month's leave, and orders to rejoin at the depot—at the depot—afterwards.”

Captain Morton whistled.

“That's bad.”

“Damn bad,” said George Blake, his pensive gaze still fixed on the rafters.

After a time he looked down, and observed:

“Ever seen chupattis passed round, Dick?”

“Passed round?”

“Passed from hand to hand, and from village to village, all over the country.”

“I've heard the talk, of course. Has it been going on here?”

Captain Blake nodded.

“And at Cawnpore,” he said, “and round Agra. Everywhere else for all I know.”

“When?”

“Just before you came.”

“What do the natives say?”

“They don't say anything. There have been lotus leaves passed round in the lines too.”

Captain Morton put down his pipe.

“Lotus leaves?”

“Yes.”

“That's queer. I never heard of them.”

“Did you ever hear of chupattis going round—before this, I mean?”

“Yes, I did, when I was a child. We were at Mahumdee at the time, and there was a lot of talk. The servants all talked, and of course I took it all in.”

“What did they say?”

“They wondered what was going to happen. Apparently they at once expected something to happen—something calamitous. But they didn't know what.”

“Did anything happen?”

“Yes, a very bad smallpox epidemic.”

“But how, in Heaven's name?”

“Yes, I know, but it did happen, and every one believed the chupatti had been a warning.”

Captain Blake looked at his watch.

“We had better get vaccinated in the morning,” he observed, “and meanwhile we had better go to bed; I've got an early parade.”

CHAPTER VIII

HOW MISS MONSON PAID A CALL

Have you heard the Piper calling?

Have you heard the echoes falling?

Have you heard the Piper calling,

The Piper on the hill?

For if you have heard the Piper play

You must follow by night, you must follow by day,

Though it's over the hills and far away,

You must follow the Piper still.

Helen Wilmot lay in bed and watched the light creep lower and lower upon the whitewashed wall. The verandah shaded the doors which opened upon it, but a dusty shaft of sunshine slanted through a small oblong window set high up under the rafters. As the light shifted slowly downwards it was reflected in faint rose and violet tints upon the white expanse above the long glass doors. The doors themselves stood wide, and a delicious freshness came through the screens of split bamboo which filled the open spaces.

A chattering of birds, a murmur of voices from the servants' houses—little mud huts clustering at the edge of the compound,—and the far-away droning of a Persian wheel made up a most soothing, drowsy noise, and Helen, though she had been awake for an hour, felt lazy, and by no means inclined to get up. She closed her eyes, and listened to the sparrows fighting under the eaves. Perhaps she even dozed.

Suddenly she was roused by a little fidgeting sound, and in a moment she turned and was aware of a small person, who was standing just inside the nearer of the two long windows. It was a quaint small person in a white frock and starched white pantalets. In one hand she held a broad-brimmed grey felt hat that obviously belonged to some one several sizes larger than herself. The other hand rested on the chick behind her, as if to secure her line of retreat. When she saw Helen's eyes open, she stared into them with a pair of very round brown ones, and then said in a particularly clear and emphatic manner:

“I have come to pay a call.”

“Dear me,” said Miss Wilmot. “How rude of me not to be up!”

“I like you in bed. I like paying calls. I did forget to bring a card, but my name is Miss Margaret Elizabeth Monson.”

“Oh,” said Helen, much impressed. “Must I call you all that?”

“It would be polite.”

Miss Monson advanced into the room with a slow and stately step. With her left hand she retained her hold of the hat, and held up an already sufficiently abbreviated skirt. Her right hand she offered to Helen, who had an instant recollection of Mrs. Elliot's languid manner of shaking hands.

“How do you do, Miss Wilmot?” she said in the accents of polite society. “I hope you are well. I hope you are quite well.”

“Yes, thank you.”

The conversation languished a little. Miss Monson suddenly dropped the grey felt hat, and put her hand on Helen's arm.

“I am bored of being polite. Are you bored of being polite? I am very bored of it. I am bored of calling you Miss Wilmot. I would much rather call you Helen lady. You are the Helen one, aren't you? And I am bored of being Miss Margaret Elizabeth Monson. If you like you can call me Megsie Lizzie, like my papa does.”

Helen received the permission with gravity.

“And what does your mamma call you?” she inquired.

Megsie Lizzie was climbing on to the foot of the bed.

“‘My lamb,'” she answered in matter-of-fact tones. “She calls me ‘my lamb' and ‘my precious,' and ‘my own lovey darling,' but you couldn't call me all those things.”

“No, of course not.”

“I'm five. It's rather old for India, isn't it?” Again there was a reminiscence of some older person. “But if I went away from my mamma, her heart would break—right across in two pieces.”

“Oh, dear!”

“Yes, indeed,” said Megsie Lizzie, screwing up her button of a mouth, and nodding with an uncanny air of wisdom.

A distant, unhappy cry of “Missee Baba!” became audible. After a moment it was repeated. Megsie Lizzie frowned.

“Is that some one calling you?” asked Helen.

Megsie Lizzie's frown deepened.

“It is Mooniah. She is a most iggerant woman. I suppose I have told her three million times that I will not be called ‘Missee Baba.'”

“Missee Baba—a—a!” wailed the voice, shrilly nasal on the high note at the end.

Mooniah was a good deal nearer.

“Megsie Lizzie,” said Helen, “I'm afraid you've run away.”

Megsie Lizzie tossed her head; seven brown ringlets tossed too.

“She is a stupid thing. Let us talk' bout something else.”

“Very well, what shall we talk about?”

“Shall I tell you a story?”

“That would be very nice.”

“Well, once upon a time there was a man, and his name was Gideon and “Megsie Lizzie stopped abruptly.

“I forgot—it's a Sunday story,” she explained.

“Never mind—do go on.”

“But this is a Wednesday. You can't tell Sunday stories on a Wednesday day.”

“Why not?”

Megsie Lizzie looked doubtful. Then she said firmly:

“Because Sunday days is different from Wednesday days. They are quite different. They are a different colour.”

Helen looked at the earnestly frowning little face, and did not smile. Instead she said in a soft, lazy voice:

“What colour is Sunday?”

“White,” said Megsie Lizzie, screwing up her eyes as if she were trying to see something. “A very shiny white, and up at the top there are some little goldy speckles. And Wednesday is green, so of course you couldn't mix them, without getting the Sunday colour all spoilt.”

Helen thought for a moment.

“Supposing we were to pretend it was Sunday,” she suggested.

“Are you a good pretender?” inquired the child.

“Very good, and I am sure you are. Let us both pretend very hard.”

Megsie Lizzie put both hands over the damp little forehead, and pressed them so tightly that the knuckles stood up white on her plump, brown hands.

There was a pause. Then she sat up very straight.

“Have you pretended? I have. Now it is Sunday, and I have said my prayers, and had my breakfast, and so have you, and you are my fifth daughter, and I am going to tell you a Sunday story. A real proper one, so you must attend.”

“Missee Baba—a—a—a!” called the afflicted Mooniah in tones of despair.

Helen could see her now, standing at the edge of the verandah where an abandoned doll betrayed its mistress's passage.

Megsie Lizzie turned her head, and saw too.

“Mooniah—chup—be silent,” she cried, and Mooniah fidgeted from one bare foot to the other, and called again:

“Ai Missee Baba! Very narty Missee Baba.”

“There isn't
any
Missee Baba here 't all,” retorted Miss Monson hotly. “There is only a Miss Sahib, a big Miss Sahib. I am paying a call. I am with Wilmot Miss Sahib. I also am a Miss Sahib. Mooniah, daughter of an owl, am I a Miss Sahib, or am I not?”

“God knows,” snuffled Mooniah.

“I know,” said Miss Monson with decision. “Thou also knowest. Sit down and wait till I come, and be silent. The Miss Sahib and I are talking.”

Mooniah collapsed into a despondent heap, and Megsie Lizzie abandoned the vernacular.

“Now I will begin,” she said. “That is a most inrupting woman—inrupting and iggerant. Well, there was a man called Gideon, and he rolled a cake into a tent. No, that's not the beginning. First of all he made a lot of soldiers come, and they didn't want to come, and they lapped water out of their hands, and God was angry with them. And do you know why He was angry with them?” she demanded impressively.

Helen experienced a slight confusion of mind in face of this rapid presentment of the Scriptural tale.

“Do you know why?” she inquired.

“Because they hadn't any faith, not even the mustard-seed sort,” said Megsie Lizzie. Then she relaxed the intensity of her expression, and said calmly:

“Of course it would have been all right if there hadn't been any God.”

Helen gasped.

“Megsie Lizzie, what do you mean?”

“Well, it would, because if there wasn't any God they wouldn't have been wicked about not having faith. But of course there is, so they were.”

“Yes, of course,” murmured Helen, feeling a little incoherent

“Yes,” said Megsie Lizzie, nodding wisely. “And what I think about it is this. If there wasn't any God, where do the trees come from, and the flowers, and the little weeny teeny tiny seeds what the trees come out of, because there was seeds before there was any trees, wasn't there, and if God didn't make them, who did?”

Helen was speechless. When she came to know Megsie Lizzie a little better, she recognised the fact that argument with that young lady invariably reduced the grown-up participant to speechlessness.

Miss Monson now gave a little sigh, and arose.

“I s'pose I must go,” she said, with regret. “Mooniah! Mooniah! Get up. I am coming. Do you like tea-parties, Helen lady?”

“Sometimes.”

“Would you like a tea-party with me?”

“I should love it.”

Helen smiled as she spoke, but the round, brown eyes which were fixed on hers remained preternaturally grave.

“Oh,” said Megsie Lizzie. Then briskly: “Shall we have a tea-party to-day? Shall we have it here, in your house, in the verandah? It is a nicer verandah than our verandah. And I pour out the tea? And you pretend I'm a lady what has come all the way from England to pay a call?”

“How tired you will be!”

“Yes, I shall want lots of tea. My name will be Mrs. Brown Jones. Yes, Mooniah, I am coming. It's very rude to inrupt ladies what is saying good-bye in a polite way.”

Megsie Lizzie picked up the felt hat as she spoke, and crammed it upon her head. It came well down over her eyes, and was tilted at an extremely rakish angle, which went oddly with the prim starched skirts and crackling pantalets. When she was ready she kissed Helen gravely, and walked to the door, where she paused and turned, one hand on the chick.

“Thank you very much for my kind call,” she said with great dignity, and departed, just in time to preserve Helen from the dangerous effects of laughter too long repressed.

“Whom on earth were you talking to?” said Adela, half an hour later, when Helen and the early tea arrived simultaneously upon the verandah outside her room.

“I have had the honour of a call from Miss Margaret Elizabeth Monson,” said Helen gravely.

“Miss? Oh, that Monson child. I should say she was horribly spoiled. Mrs. Crowther said so last night.”

Helen's lips twitched.

“I wonder what she says about us?” she said lazily.

“Why should she say anything?”

“My child, I should say she was a lady who had a great deal to say about every one. I shouldn't wonder, I really shouldn't wonder, Adie, if she said that you were spoiled too.”

Adela tossed her head.

“As if I should care what she said! And as to being spoiled, I am sure I don't see who there is to spoil me—with Richard as cross as cross.”

“Adie!”

“Well, he is, and if you were married to him, you'd know he was. Why, he wouldn't even kiss me last night!”

Helen changed the subject.

“I am going to have a tea-party this afternoon,” she announced.

“I suppose you mean you are going out to tea?”

“No, I don't. I am going to have a tea-party. Here. On this very spot. No, I suppose it will have to be the other side—outside the office—on account of the sun. Mrs. Brown Jones is coming to tea.”

Adela looked cross.

“It's some nonsense, I suppose,” she said. “How can you be so silly, Helen, and at your age! I'm sure I don't see anything to laugh at. Is it that child?”

“It is.”

“Well, if you like to be bothered with her! Personally I can't imagine anything more tiresome. Children are so wearing—”

Helen laughed.

“That's what I feel about young men,” she said, with a spice of malice in her voice. “It doesn't bother you to have adoring sticks of creatures trailing about after you all day, but I really couldn't stand it, I should want to slap them, or scream, or something, after an hour or two. That is what I call wearing.”

“You've never tried it,” said Adela, her eyes narrowing a little.

“I've never had the chance, you mean, my dear!”

Helen's laugh was so good-tempered that Adela's irritation subsided.

“Well, it is your own fault if you haven't,” she said graciously, “for really you know, Helen, you are quite good-looking. Of course you have no colour, but really some people think you quite handsome. I believe Richard does. I think you have improved too, or perhaps it is that no one has any colour here, so one doesn't notice your being pale. If only you didn't look so—so clever—and forbidding, only you know you will look like a Roman Empress, or something of that sort, whenever a man looks at you, or pays you a compliment, or anything.”

“A great many of the Roman Empresses were anything but repressive,” said Helen pensively. “Some of them weren't even respectable—I think it's rather hard.”

Adela looked shocked.

“Helen—as if—I meant anything like that —you do say things! You know quite well I meant that you looked haughty—and proud.”

“I feel shy,” said Miss Wilmot with the utmost composure.

“Then you should blush. That is becoming, and it doesn't frighten a man.”

Helen began to laugh.

“Oh, Adela—don't! I've laughed more than is good for any one already this morning. Will you teach me to change colour becomingly? Blushing in six easy lessons! My dear, it's a shameful confession, but I really couldn't blush if I tried. I don't know how it's done. Perhaps I take after the Roman Empresses in that too. There was a lady called Messalina who couldn't blush either. I really think you had better begin the lessons this afternoon. Megsie Lizzie could have them too.”