The Hosts of the Lord Part 10

CHAPTER VII

THE WORLD'S DESIRE

The Viceroy's camp was no longer a city of dreams.

Its silence had gone, lost in that indefinable sense of sound which seems to come from the heart-beats, even, of unseen humanity; and the whiteness, the purity of it, was stained and smirched by the scarlet-as-sin coatees of the innumerable orderlies, who bustled about from tent to tent, with huge files of references, or lingered at the tent doors extorting shoe-money from the native visitors, who came in shoals to plead for patronage from one or another of the bigwigs belonging to the Hosts of the Lord-_sahib_. Groups of these pet.i.tioners, awaiting their turn for an interview, were to be seen at most tents; but they stood in crowds round one, in which the Commissioner of the Division was making the final arrangements for the coming _durbar_; in consultation with the Under Secretary to Supreme Government. It was a difficult task, involving as it did the cla.s.sification of the aristocracy, plutocracy, and democracy of India, in one generally satisfactory Court-guide.

"It cann't be done in this wurrld," remarked the Commissioner, in one of those suave, plastic, Cork brogues which might be made of Cork b.u.t.ter from the softness and lack of friction they bring to the English language. "An' what's more the Archangel Gabriel couldn't do it in heaven, though he'd have a better chance; for the Cherubim wouldn't be wanting seats at all! We are bound to displease somebody, so let's cast lots before the Lord; it's Scriptural, annyhow."

The Under Secretary looked a trifle shocked, being unacquainted with the Commissioner's methods.

"But we must,"--he began.

The other's keen face looked up from the lists for a second. "Of course we must--we govern India practically, by cane-bottomed chairs. Ye remember old Gunning. No!--before your time, I expect! Well! he kept two hundred miles of North-West frontier as quiet as the grave, for five years, by the simple expedient of awarding thirteen seats in his divisional _durbar_ to each of his districts, and only taking twelve chairs with him into camp. The _maliks_, you see, never could tell which would be chosen odd man out, an' the fear of it kept 'em like sucking doves."

"Indeed!" remarked the Under Secretary, fidgeting with his lists resignedly, for he was under the impression that time was being lost.

"I'm afraid that sort of thing wouldn't answer nowadays." The elder man looked at him gravely; just one short glance, as he dipped his pen in the ink and went on writing, revising, referring.

"Not a bit of it! They'd send down to Whiteway Laidlaw's and get Austrian bent-wood chairs by value payable parcel post! The Teuton, sir, is ruinin' British prestige by cheapenin' the seats of the mighty.

There! that's done--block A's beautiful entirely. Now for block B.

Who's your favourite, and why are you backing him?"

Once more the junior appeared a trifle shocked. "With reference to Roshan Khan," he began. "His Excellency desired me to ask whether it might not be possible to give him a step for being, as it were, in his own division. He belongs to Eshwara, I believe."

"The very reason why he cann't get an inch more than his due. But you can tell H. E. that I've settled it. I've asked Dering to put him on duty, an' when he is in uniform there's no mistaking his place. And then we'll ask him in to the reception afterwards with the _sahib logue_. Who's your next--Dya Ram! what, the little pleader?--Why the blazes should he come to _durbar?_--attorneys don't go to St. James."

"Mr. c.o.x, the member of parliament--perhaps you may remember him--"

"A little red-haired fellow, was he? who wrote a book about India on the back of his two-monthly return ticket?"

"Mr. c.o.x is a man of great influence with his party, and he supports Dya Ram's--"

"Pestilential little fool," interrupted the Commissioner impartially, impersonally. "It wouldn't be bad, though--stop his scurrilous tongue for a bit. Favour does, you know. But I cann't see my way to it. Old Hodinuggur would be refusing his '_atta_ and _pan_[7] again. He did it once, ye know, when some low-caste fellow was within sight of him. Said he didn't eat with sweepers; and if Crawford--he was Commissioner at the time--"

"Yes!" said the Under Secretary, still more resignedly. He had not yet grasped the fact that his coadjutor talked while he worked--

"Hadn't been six foot four and broad in proportion," went on his tormentor imperturbably, "so that the--let us call them the subsequent negotiations--diplomatic negotiations--it sounds well!--didn't reach the eye of His Honour the Lieutenant-Governor, the Thakoor--one of our best men let me tell you--would have got into trouble--more'd have been the pity."

"Yes," a.s.sented the man of Secretariats, "but about Dya Ram--"

"Dya Ram, is it now? Could we put him in under the head 'benevolence'

think you? Did he ever vaccinate a baby, or breed a horse, or give anything to a female hospital? No! Then the devil fly off with him for complicating the problem of British rule in India. Why should he want to come to _durbar_ at all? When people change their dress they should change their desires, but the only effect our civilization has upon some men I know, is to make them want to keep their hat and their boots on at the same time! Well, that's done! I've found a place for him where Hodinuggur can't see the tail end of him unless he squints.

Now--who's your next?"

While this sort of thing was going on inside the tent, Dya Ram and the Thakoor of Hodinuggur were in full view of each other, outside it. The former, having scorned the sinful scarlet coatees even to the point of refusing to have his patent leather shoes dusted, was walking up and down in English fas.h.i.+on. The latter, in a wonderful parcel-gilt coach, was awaiting the effect of his ten-rupee tip with perfect patience and serenity; while his retinue, which consisted of a dozen ragged retainers carrying lances festooned with tinsel and yaks' tails, stared contemptuously at the two sentries pacing up and down below the flagstaff; who--to tell truth--seemed so monotonously part of the general show as to suggest that they also were under the charge of the two yellow-legged policemen who stood on either side of the rose-bed.

It was high noon, and the various departmental gongs had begun to give their version of the meridian, with that unbiased disregard for that of their neighbours which makes the time of day an absolute uncertainty in a big camp. But it was calling time evidently; for two superb red-coats, blazoned with gold, appeared in company with two big books and a silver inkstand, and disappeared with them into the _durbar_ tent. And shortly afterwards an _aide-de-camp_ sloped over to it, yawning.

Both Dya Ram and the Thakoor knew that this meant preparation for those, who, having the _entree_ to the Government House, had the right to put down their names in those big books; but the fact itself affected their two types very differently. The old Rajput's visit of ceremony was of another sort. He, obeying definite orders, would come at a specified time, and get his specified salute with his compeers.

But Dya Ram was like the wild tribes in one way; he was unspecified! He was neither fish nor fowl, flesh nor good red herring.

So, as he watched a young Englishman drive up in a bamboo cart, dash into the tent, and dash out again as if the place belonged to him, he felt aggrieved. He even went so far as to formulate his grievance in mental words, and then these appeared to him so apposite to a leading article, that he took out a note-book, and, after some corrections, stored away, for future use, the a.s.sertion, that '_the time will come when the colour of the hand which holds the pen will be no bar to its writing its name in the Book of_----?' He did not feel sure of the qualitative noun, and after trying Fate, Fame, Life, and Lord, left a blank instead.

Meanwhile carriages and dogcarts all of sorts had begun to drive up, their occupants disappearing into the tent for a second or two, then coming out with the smile of the elect on their faces. Father Ninian was one of the first, resplendent in a new _soutane_ and sash, with Akbar Khan in his orderly's get-up, oscillating between a palsy of delighted servility, and a catalepsy of dignity; the one for his superiors, the other for his equals.

And, after a while, in one of those mysteriously nondescript four-wheeled vehicles that defy cla.s.sification, but may be said to come under the head "_phitton_" (phaeton) of which mission people seem to have a monopoly, came good Mrs. Campbell and her niece, Erda Shepherd; the former full of indignant, yet meek alarm, because Dr. James, having come across an old friend further down the avenue, had bidden her go on and write his name as well as her own.

"I ken weel how it will be," she a.s.serted to her niece, "for I havena brought my specs, an' a body cannot but be nervous with a young man in a scarlet coat glowering at them! I shall put the doctor into the wrong book; for, you see, I canna write the two names ane after the ither like a marriage lines; for there is one big bookie for the women, and one for the men-folk, like a Puseyite chapel! Ay! an' for the matter o'

that, like a divorce court--and I sou'd never hear the last o't if I evened the doctor to myself!"

"Let me do all three, Auntie," said Erda, with a laugh, as she got out of the carriage. "Really, there's no need for you to come,--I'll be back in a minute."

The blaze of suns.h.i.+ne blinded her for the darkness of the tent, and she could scarcely tell whose hand it was which stretched itself frankly, eagerly, for hers as she entered. Yet, even through her glove she knew the touch, before Lance Carlyon's voice said joyfully,--

"Come to write your name? I've just written mine. Funny our hitting off the same time, isn't it?"

The tone of his voice, joined to that startling recognition of his touch--which she could not conceal from herself--made her shrink, as if from actual intrusion. "I have to write my uncle's and aunt's first,"

she said coldly. "There was no use in us _all_ coming in."

She walked on as she spoke to where the two books lay on a sort of lectern, while the _aide-de-camp_, seeing the visitor was a lady, came forward politely to a.s.sist.

"Not that book, Mansfield," remarked Lance, coolly. "Miss Shepherd wants--Miss Shepherd, will you allow me to introduce Captain Mansfield--to write her uncle's name first."

She looked back at him almost angrily, full of resentment at his persistence; but, even in the semi-blindness which was still hers, his face showed too kind for that; and as, at that moment, another lady came in with a flutter of laces and ribbons to appropriate Captain Mansfield's ready services, Erda had to allow Lance to find her a pen.

"That's right! Now for the other book," he said. The _aide-de-camp_ had by this time gone to see the laces and ribbons back to their carriage, so the two were alone.

"Your aunt's first, you know." There was a suspicion of friendly chaff in his tone, this time, but it was gone in a minute as he went on quickly--"Erdmuth!--is that your name? Why!--it means earth-mood--or--or world's desire, doesn't it?"

She felt herself flush. "I did not know that you were such a German scholar," she replied, sarcastically. "Yes! my name is Erdmuth Dorothea. I was called so after--after some one you most likely know nothing about, Countess Zinzendorf. She was famous enough, though,--"

she paused, feeling savagely desirous of snubbing him--"But I daresay you never even happened to hear of Jean Ziska, Mr. Carlyon?"

He smiled suddenly, broadly. "Jean Ziska!" he echoed. "Rather! We had a pony called Ziska at home--a Hungarian--used to eat thistles like a donkey!"

He stopped to laugh, and she was about to turn and rend him, when he continued, half apologetically, "Of course I have--only the name, you see, brought back such jolly old times. Ziska was the beggar who had his skin made into a drum when he was dead. I don't expect it's true, but it's a fine tale; the drum ecclesiastic with a vengeance, and no mistake!"

"Oh! but it is," interrupted the girl, forgetting her annoyance in her eagerness. "My grandfather--we are really Moravians, you see, and our name should be Schaeffer,--saw it when he was a child. He used to tell me that people said if it was beaten, everybody must--"

But Lance's attention had wandered. He was looking at her signature with a curious, almost wistful smile. "Erdmuth!" he repeated thoughtfully; then turned to her. "I say! you really ought to come to the ball with that name--do!"

He was simply, she told herself, the most distractingly irrelevant, yet at the same time the most appallingly direct, person she had ever come across. "Really, Mr. Carlyon," she began, with such heat that the _aide-de-camp_, returning, stared; until Lance coolly asked him if he didn't think Miss Shepherd very unkind not to come to the Bachelor's Ball? Whereupon he, having by this time had enough of laces and ribbons, and begun to recognize a distinct charm in the glistening coils of hair, half-hidden by a wide hat, promptly asked her for the pleasure of a dance.

Erda looked from one to the other aghast, and to her own intense surprise fell back upon the woman's all-embracing excuse, "I--I really haven't a dress." It seemed the simplest and easiest.

"Oh! anything does for a fancy ball," persisted Lance, argumentatively, as he followed her out. "A tailor in the bazaar would run you up a Greek dress in no time, and it would do awfully well. All white, don't you know--" his voice slackened and grew soft, as if he saw what he described, and the sight made him glad--"all straight folds with a little edge of red-gold like--" he paused, then went on boldly--"like the suns.h.i.+ne on your hair. And red-gold bracelets high up on your arms--and a red-gold apple in your hand--the World's Desire--" He stopped abruptly, with a quick catch in his breath, startled at his own words.