Devil's Wind (9 page)

“I sha'n't be at home this afternoon.”

Adela was pouring herself out some more tea, and she did not look at her cousin.

“Why, where are you going?”

“I am going to ride with Mr. Purslake.”

Helen passed her own cup.

“What are you going to ride, my dear?” she asked in an indifferent manner.

“He has a very nice horse which will carry a lady perfectly,” said Adela, but she did not meet Helen's eyes.

“I wonder what lady it has carried,” said Helen. “Miss Crowther, I suppose.”

Adela put her chin in the air.

“What any one can see in that straw-coloured wisp!” she began, but Helen interrupted her:

“Adie, I wouldn't,” she said in a soft, hesitating voice.

“Well, I am going to.”

Adela flushed.

“Why? Really, Helen, do you suppose I am going to sit indoors all day long with my hands folded, and nothing to think of except how hot it is? I have said all along that it was perfectly odious of Richard to expect us to stay down in this heat. Inhuman I call it. I dare say Dick would like me to die, but I don't intend to oblige him, and riding is very good for me—and if Richard won't take the trouble to buy me a horse of my own, he cannot be surprised if I allow a friend to lend me one.”

“A friend?”

“Yes! And an old friend too.”

“Now, Adela!”

“It is quite true. I met Mr. Purslake at a dance quite five years ago.”

“And you had completely forgotten that he existed, until you met him here last week.”

“I suppose you are jealous,” said Adela, her colour rising. “It is all very well to talk, but if you aren't jealous, why should you object to any one admiring me? And you do. I mustn't speak to any one or have a friend, or go for a ride, or do a single thing. If you don't take care you'll be an old maid, Helen. Men simply hate a jealous woman!”

Helen's eyes grew vague. She looked over the tree-tops, and appeared to be thinking of something else.

Suddenly she looked at Adela, and laughed.

“Adie, how many feathers has a pink parrot got in his tail?” she said.

Adela stared, and Helen's eyes danced.

“Oh, Adela, don't; it isn't kind of you; it really isn't.”

To which Mrs. Morton responded with dignity:

“Well, of course I don't want to hurt your feelings, but it is true, and if I were not fond of you, I shouldn't take the trouble to give you a warning.”

“But you haven't.”

“I haven't done what?”

“Warned me. What will happen when I find out how many feathers—no, I really must not laugh any more—a pink parrot—has in its tail? Oh, dear!”

“Helen, are you quite mad?”

“No, my child.”

“Is there such a thing as a pink parrot?”

“I expect not.”

“Then what on earth—”

Mrs. Morton paused for enlightenment.

“Just a little mental slide,” said Helen gravely. “If I had been capable of blushing, I should have blushed just now. It is quite easy. Blushes—red—pink—a parrot on the peepul tree, a conviction that it was too hot to quarrel, a strong desire to change the subject, natural result the evolution of a creature hitherto unknown to history. Mrs. Morton, allow me to introduce to your esteemed notice that rare and curious bird—the pink parrot—only still I don't know how many feathers it has in its tail!”

“Sometimes I think you are mad,” said Adela resignedly.

“So do I, but it is ever so much better than being cross. We will now do another mental slide. Shut your eyes and hold on. Pink is the starting-point. Slide from there to pink muslin. Now let go of the pink, steady yourself on the muslin, and catch hold of the next shade that comes. Rose—rose and grey—a combination common to cockatoos and your new muslin dress. And I've got a perfectly splendid idea for the trimming. So you had better come and see the dirzee with me at once, before it evaporates. He could fit you this afternoon.”

“This afternoon I shall be out riding,” said Adela in a small obstinate voice.

CHAPTER IX

HOW HELEN GAVE A TEA-PARTY

Oh! to hear the Piper calling,

Oh! to hear the echoes falling,

They are rising, falling, calling,

At the wayward Piper's will.

And he who has heard the Piper play

Has the moon, and the stars, and the sun, and the day,

And the path to the hills of the Far-a-way,

Where the Piper is calling still.

Mrs. Brown Jones was unfashionably punctual. All her garments appeared to have been freshly starched for the occasion. For a time it seemed as if some of the surplus starch had affected her manners, and the etiquette observed would have put the Austrian Court to shame.

“I have brought my daughter,” said Mrs. Brown Jones, after many preliminary bows and compliments had passed, and the daughter, a very limp, dishevelled doll, was encouraged to extend a battered hand.

“Her name is Miss Anna Maria Matilda Jenkins Sweet Pea,” said the fond mamma, in the accents of lofty pride. Then with an abrupt transition she became Megsie Lizzie, and entered upon a rapid explanation.

“It isn't really, you know, Helen lady, because mamma called her Caroline, after Aunt Caroline, who sent her to me when I was only four, but now Aunt Caroline is dead, so we call her something else.”

“I think Anna Maria Matilda Jenkins Sweet Pea is a beautiful name,” said Helen.

“Yes, isn't it? It is prettier than Caroline, only I must not say so because of Aunt Caroline being dead. People who are dead are always better than other people, aren't they?”

Helen had noticed this phenomenon herself, but she did not say so. Fortunately Mrs. Brown Jones did not wait for an answer. Experience had taught her that grown-up people scarcely ever answered questions about really interesting things.

“She has a terrible lot of relations,” she sighed.

“Your aunt has?”

“No. We was her relations. She hadn't any others. We hadn't got any relations to speak of, because of both my grandmothers being only children,” explained Megsie Lizzie at her most grown-up. “But Anna Maria Matilda has got lots and lots of relations. She has got all the ones what we haven't got. They are her relations. They are not my relations.”

“Oh, dear,” said Helen, “that doesn't sound as if they were very nice.”

“Some of them are nice, and some of them aren't,” said Megsie Lizzie in a resigned sort of way. “There is Uncle Henry Albert.”

“Is he nice?”

“Would you call a person nice, if they broke their leg—all to bits?”

“Did he do that?”

“Yes. Anna Maria did think it was tiresome of him.”

“Oh!”

“Yes. She went to see them, and there he was, lying in bed, and screaming like twenty parrots, and like forty hundred mynas. I have got a myna; mamma says they are like the English starlings.”

“Have you? But Uncle Henry Albert—how distressing!”

“Yes. Wasn't it? He screamed and screamed, and Aunt Henry Albert cried, and cried, and he got so dreadfully wet with her crying that he got immonia!”

“Immonia? Goodness!”

“Yes, like Mooniah's little boy got, and he died, and I expect Uncle Henry Albert will die if it is immonia.”

Perhaps it was just as well that tea should make its appearance at this harrowing juncture. Even mourners must eat.

Megsie Lizzie sprang up with great alacrity.

“I'm to pour out! I'm to pour out! You said I was to pour out,” she cried, discarding Mrs. Brown Jones and the conventions. “Put the table here, Ali Bux. I am a burra Miss Sahib to-day. Put it in front of me. Helen lady, do you take three pieces of sugar? I do. May Ali Bux put the cakes close beside me?—because then I needn't get up. I don't think it is proper to get up when you are pouring out the tea. Asides, I might knock something down. The dhobi has put such an astravagan' lot of starch in this dress.” The teapot wobbled alarmingly as she spoke, and Helen drew a breath of relief as it was set down again.

“Here. This is your tea, but you didn't say about the sugar.”

“I was waiting for a chance,” said Helen gravely. “And I am so very sweet myself that I think one piece will be enough. If I got too sweet, I don't know what might happen. The bees might want to make me into honey, and I shouldn't like that at all.”

“Oh!”

Megsie Lizzie made round eyes of wonder. Then she helped herself to a flat round cake, and changed the subject.

“Perhaps Gideon's cake was like this,” she observed, and Helen answered idly:

“No, I expect it was more like a chupatti.”

“A chupatti wouldn't roll,” said Megsie Lizzie, severely practical. “I shall ask Ram Chand.”

“And who is Ram Chand?”

“He is our bearer. I don't like him much. He is a rude man. But he knows all about chupattis.”

Helen's curiosity was faintly stirred. Like every one else she had heard some idle gossip about the mysterious passing from hand to hand of the flat unleavened cakes which take the place of bread all over Upper India.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

Megsie Lizzie put her head on one side and considered.

“Mooniah, and Anna Maria, and I were in the garden, under the big peepul tree, and Mooniah was asleep, and Ram Chand was on the other side of my mamma's rose hedge, and he was talking to his brother, who is in Captain Blake's regiment, and he said, ‘The chupattis have gone everywhere now, and the word has gone with them.' Then he said, ‘Sub lal hojaega'—everything will be red. And his brother said, ‘And our hands too'; and then they went away. So you see he knows all about chupattis. I shall ask him.”

Helen felt a little crisping of the short hair at the nape of her neck. She was not consciously aware of matter for alarm. It was all part of some foolish superstition, some sacrifice perhaps. The word passed through her mind and left, as it were, a little seed of dread behind it. Sacrifice—sacrifice. The confused memories of her childhood gave up one sudden, definite picture. She saw Aunt Lucy's room, and the big illustrated Bible lying open on Aunt Lucy's knee. Quite clearly she heard Aunt Lucy's voice saying, “No, my dears, we will pass over that picture”; and it was a picture of the slaughter of Amalek. Helen had stolen down in the night and looked at it, holding the big book close to the window in the moonlight. It was a dreadful picture, and there were dreadful words written under it, words which made her child's soul shudder for years afterwards.

“Thou shalt slay man and woman, infant and suckling.”

For a moment the page seemed to be before her eyes. Then it was gone, and Helen heard herself saying:

“I don't think I should ask Ram Chand.”

“Well, I won't,” said Megsie Lizzie graciously. “Not if you say not.” And just then Richard Morton rode up in a cloud of dust, and seeing the tea-table, made for it, and demanded a large cup, and much tea.

“I thought gentlemen drank pegs,” said Megsie Lizzie.

“Does that mean that you and Helen want all the tea for yourselves?” inquired Captain Morton.

Megsie Lizzie was much shocked.

“We are not so rude” she declared. “We have got proper nice manners. It isn't at all proper nice manners to snatch, and to say, ‘I want it all for myself.' Jackie Hill does that. I don't.”

Richard's eyes looked very blue.

“I don't know that I can behave well enough for this tea-party,” he said, as Megsie Lizzie handed him his cup with her grandest air.

Next minute she was back again with cake, apparently forgetting the impropriety of getting up. Having performed the duties of her sex by ministering to man's hunger, she now proceeded to gaze upon him with an admiration too open to be overlooked.

“I am afraid it is my manners that want mending,” said Helen. “I never introduced you. How dreadful of me! Mrs. Brown Jones, let me present—”

“No,” said Megsie Lizzie with decision. She edged nearer to the object of her admiration.

“No, I've finished being Mrs. Brown Jones. Now I'm Megsie Lizzie again, and I know quite well who he is, because I've seen him riding by our house every day for two weeks.”

“Well, and who am I?”

“You are Captain Morton.”

Megsie Lizzie sighed.

“It's a very polite name.”

“Is it? Would you rather call me Richard?”

“That's very polite too.”

“My friends call me Dick. Is that rude enough, or do you wish to proceed to actual abuse?”

Megsie Lizzie's eyes grew rounder.

“Dick will do,” she said. “Captain Dick. It sounds lovely, it isn't at all polite. Captain Dick and Helen lady. These are two quite nice names”; and she turned a smile of royal condescension upon Miss Wilmot, who felt absurdly gratified.

It was whilst she was smiling at Helen that Captain Morton took a base advantage of a lady's back being turned. With a strong brown hand on either side of her waist, he tossed Megsie Lizzie into the air. She shrieked with joy, and came down on his knee, screaming, “Do it again, do it again! Go on doing it!”

“It is too hot,” groaned Richard, after complying with the lady's request once or twice.

“No, it isn't; it really isn't. Not for me. Do it, do it, Captain Dick.”

“Megsie Lizzie, would you like me to turn all purple, and cockle up, and be a crumpled heap, and melt, and nothing be left of me at last but a pile of clothes, and a moist, moist pool?”

“Can you? Is that what would happen?”

Megsie Lizzie's eyes were like saucers.

“Dick!” protested Helen.

“Most probably,” sighed Captain Morton, mopping his brow.

“Oh, then do!” and Megsie Lizzie clasped beseeching hands whilst Richard and Helen broke into unmannerly laughter.

“Cruel person! And I've had such a day already. Don't you think it would do if I melted some other time, when I am not quite so busy?”

Megsie Lizzie gave the question some earnest thought.

“You are very busy?”

“Yes, dreadfully.”

“Oh!”

A pause, during which Helen opened her workbag, and took out a strip of embroidery.

Then Megsie Lizzie delivered her ultimatum.

“Very well. You may tell me a story instead.”

“Good Lord, I don't know any!”

“About a little boy and a girl. You haven't got any little girl, have you?”

“No.”

“Nor any little boy?”

“No,” said Richard Morton.

A little mist came between Helen and her work. Through the mist she saw her needle tremble. Something in Dick's voice hurt her dreadfully, she did not feel as if she could bear to look up and see him with the child on his knees. She wondered if Adela felt so. Perhaps that was why she had spoken so sharply of the child. Oh, poor Adela!

Helen's foolish, soft heart was stirred with compunction, but the next moment Helen's clear brain told her truly enough that Adela had never been fond of children, and had made scarcely a pretence of regretting her baby's death.

Helen's affection for her cousin had ceased to be the old blind, adoring love. It was more maternal now. Adela's faults were clear—her weakness manifest. And Helen gave of her strength, and gave, and kept on giving. The time when she expected any return was quite gone by.

These thoughts passed in her like a flash, and as she bent her head she heard Megsie Lizzie say calmly:

“I thought you hadn't any little boy or girl. When I am grown up, I am going to have eighteen children and six of them will be boys, and seven of them will be girls, and three of them will be grown-ups, so as to help look after the others.”

“Very thoughtful arrangement,” murmured Richard.

“Yes—and I must have plenty of stories to tell them. So now, please, will you tell me about when you was a little boy?”

“You are a very dexterous person, Madam.”

“What is dexerous?”

“It means right-handed,” said Richard, with the utmost gravity.

Megsie Lizzie looked at both her hands. They might have been cleaner.

“Oh!” she said, in her solemn way. “And now will you please tell me about when you was a little boy.”

“No escape!” groaned Captain Morton; he looked at Helen, and she smiled and shook her head.

In spite of quickly lowered lids he had caught the dazzle of tears in her eyes when Megsie Lizzie had asked the question a few minutes before. An instant's resentment had given place to a strange feeling of sympathy and companionship, oddly coupled with a quick memory of having seen Adela push away a child who was trying to climb on her lap. That was when they were just married. He had felt a little chill then. He felt it again now. He made haste to speak.

“It is such a long time since I was a little boy that I have forgotten all about it.”

“Is it a hundred years?” asked Megsie Lizzie with interest.

“No, not quite.”

“Then I'spect you could amember it if you tried; I don't forget things even if they happened a hundred and fifty years ago.”

“What can you remember that happened a hundred and fifty years ago? That would be much more interesting than my story.”

“Lots of things,” said Megsie Lizzie shortly. “Heaps and heaps, and heaps, an' jungles, an' tigers, an' snakes, an' hippomuses—an' now will you please tell me about when you was a little boy?”

Richard capitulated.

“When I was a little boy, I lived in a tent with my father and mother.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really. I thought it great fun. And my father used to go out and shoot leopards, and all sorts of wild beasts.”

“Hippomuses?”

“No—not—er—hippomuses.”

Megsie Lizzie looked suspicious and he went on hastily:

“One day my father was out for a ride in the morning, and a man ran out of a village and said that a leopard had clawed his little boy, and was lying up in some long grass not far away.”