The Elephant God Part 26

"Now, dear, we'll go," said Ida. "I have a couple of _dandies_ waiting for us."

"_Dandies_?" echoed the girl in surprise. "What do you mean?"

The older woman laughed.

"Oh, not dandies like Captain Charlesworth. These are chairs in which coolies carry you. In Darjeeling you can't drive. You must go in _dandies_, or rickshas, unless you ride. Here, Miguel! Have you got the missie _baba's_ luggage?" This to her Goanese servant.

"Yes, _mem sahib_. All got," replied the "boy," a native Christian with the high sounding name of Miguel Gonsalves Da Costa from the Portugese Colony of Goa on the West Coast of India below Bombay. In his tweed cap and suit of white ducks he did not look as imposing as the Hindu or Mohammedan butlers of other Europeans on the platform with their long-skirted white coats, coloured _kamarbands_, and big _puggris_, or turbans, with their employers' crests on silver brooches pinned in the front. But Goanese servants are excellent and much in demand in Bombay.

"All right. You bring to hotel _jeldi_ (quickly). Come along, Noreen," said Mrs. Smith, walking off and utterly ignoring the Hindu engineer who had stood by unnoticed all this time with rage in his heart.

Noreen, however, turned to him and said:

"What are you going to do, Mr. Chunerb.u.t.ty? Where are you staying?"

"I am going to my father at His Highness's house," he replied. "I should not be very welcome at your hotel or to your friends, Miss Daleham."

"Oh, of course you would," replied the girl, feeling sorry for him but uncertain what to say. "Will you come and see me tomorrow?"

"You forget. You are going to the gymkhana with that insolent English officer."

"Now don't be unjust. I'm sure Captain Charlesworth wasn't at all insolent.

But I forgot the gymkhana. You could come in the morning. Yet, perhaps, I may have to go out calling with Mrs. Smith," she said doubtfully. "And how selfish of me! You have your own affairs to see to. I do hope that you'll find your father much better."

"Thank you. I hope so."

"Do let me know how he is. Send me a _chit_ (letter) if you have time. I am anxious to hear. Now I must thank you ever so much for your kindness in looking after me on the journey. I don't know what I'd have done without you."

"It was nothing. But you had better go. Your haughty friend is looking back for you, angry that you should stop here talking to a native," he said bitterly.

Ida was beckoning to her; even at that distance they could see that she was impatient. So Noreen could only reiterate her thanks to the Hindu and hurry after her friend, who said petulantly when she came up:

"I do wish you hadn't travelled up with that Indian, Noreen. It isn't nice for an English girl to be seen with one, and it will make people talk. The women here are such cats."

Noreen judged it best to make no reply, but followed her irate friend in silence. Their _dandies_ were waiting outside the station, and as the girl got into hers and was lifted up and carried off by the st.u.r.dy coolies on whose shoulders the poles rested, she thought with a thrill of the last occasion on which she had been borne in a chair.

CHAPTER XIII

THE PLEASURE COLONY

A town on the hill-tops; a town of clubs, churches, and hotels, of luxury shops, of pretty villas set in lovely gardens bright with English flowers and shaded by great orchid-clad trees; of broad, well-kept roads--such is Darjeeling, seven thousand feet above the sea.

At first sight there is nothing Oriental about it except the Gurkha policemen on point duty or the laughing groups of fair-skinned, rosy-cheeked Lepcha women that go chattering by him. But on one side the steep hills are crowded with the confused jumble of houses in the native bazaar, built higgledy-piggledy one on top of the other and lining the narrow streets and lanes that are thronged all day by a bright-garbed medley of Eastern races--Sikkimese, Bhuttias, Hindus, Tibetans, Lepchas.

Set in a beautiful glen are the lovely Botanical Gardens, which look down past slopes trimly planted with rows of tea-bushes into the deep valleys far below.

As Noreen was borne along in her _dandy_ she thought that she had never seen a more delightful spot. Everything and everyone attracted her attention--the scenery, the buildings, the varied folk that pa.s.sed her on the road, from well set-up British soldiers in red coats and white helmets, smartly-dressed ladies in rickshas, Englishmen in breeches and gaiters riding sleek-coated ponies, to yellow-gowned lamas and Lepcha girls with ma.s.sive silver necklaces and turquoise ornaments. She longed to turn her chair-coolies down the hill and begin at once the exploration of the attractive-looking native bazaar--until she reached the English shops with the newest fas.h.i.+ons of female wear from London and Paris, set out behind their plate-gla.s.s windows. Here she forgot the bazaar and would willingly have lingered to look, but Ida's _dandy_ kept steadily alongside hers and its occupant chattered incessantly of the many forth-coming social gaieties, until they turned into the courtyard of their hotel and stepped out of their chairs.

When Ida had shown her friend into the room reserved for her she said:

"Take off your hat, dear, and let me see how you look after all these years. Why, you've grown into quite a pretty girl. What a nice colour your hair is! Do you use anything for it? I don't remember its being as golden as all that at school."

The girl laughed and shook the sunlit waves of it down, for it had got untidy under her sun-hat.

"No, Ida darling, of course I don't use anything. The colour is quite natural, I a.s.sure you. Have you forgotten you used sometimes to call me Goldylocks at school?"

"Did I? I don't remember. I say, Noreen, you're a lucky girl to have made such a hit straight away with Captain Charlesworth. He's quite the rage with the women here."

"Is he? Why?" asked the girl carelessly, pinning up her hair.

"Why? My dear, he's the smartest man in a very smart regiment. Very well off; has lots of money and a beautiful place at home, I believe. Comes from an excellent family. And then he's so handsome. Don't you think so?"

"Yes; he's rather good-looking. But he struck me as being somewhat foppish."

"Oh, he's always beautifully dressed, if that's what you mean. You saw that, even when he had just come off a train journey. He's a beautiful dancer. I'm so glad he asked me for a couple of dances at the L.G.'s ball.

I'll see he doesn't forget them. I'll keep him up to his word, though Bertie won't like it. He's fearfully jealous of me, but I don't care."

"Bertie? Who is--? I thought that your husband's name was William?" said Noreen wonderingly.

Ida burst into a peal of laughter.

"Good gracious, child! I'm not talking of my husband. Bill's hundreds of miles away, thank goodness! I wouldn't mind if he were thousands. No; I'm speaking of Captain Bain, a great friend of mine from the Bombay side. He's stationed in Poona, which is quite a jolly place in the Season, though of course not a patch on this. But he got leave and came here because I did."

"Oh, yes, I see," replied Noreen vaguely, puzzled by Ida's remark about her husband. She had seen the Civil Servant at the wedding and remembered him as a stolid, middle-aged, and apparently uninteresting individual. But the girl was still ignorant enough of life not to understand why a woman after two years of marriage should be thankful that her husband was far away from her and wish him farther.

"But I'm not going to let Bertie monopolise me up here," continued Mrs.

Smith, taking off her hat and pulling and patting her hair before the mirror. "I like a change. I've come here to have a good time. I think I'll go in and cut you out with Captain Charlesworth. He's awfully attractive."

"You are quite welcome to him, dear," said the girl.

"Oh, wait until you see the fuss the other women make of him. He's a great catch; and all the mothers here with marriageable daughters and the spins themselves are ready to scratch each other's eyes out over him."

"Don't be uncharitable, Ida dearest."

"It's a fact, darling. But I warn you that he's not a marrying man. He has the reputation of being a terrible flirt. I don't think you'll hold him long. He's afraid of girls--afraid they'll try to catch him. He prefers married women. He knows we're safe."

Noreen said nothing, but began to open and unpack her trunks. In India, the land of servants, where a bachelor officer has seven or more, a lady has usually to do without a maid, for the _ayah_, or native female domestic, is generally a failure in that capacity. In the hotels Indian "boys" replace the chambermaids of Europe.

Ida rattled on.

"Of course, Bertie's awfully useful. A tame cat--and he's a well-trained one--is a handy thing to have about you, especially up here. You need someone to take you to races and gymkhanas and to fill up blanks on your programme at dances, as well as getting your ricksha or _dandy_ for you when they're over."

Noreen laughed, amused at the frankness of the statement.

"And where is the redoubtable Captain Bain, dear?"