The Great Amulet

by Maud Diver

  BOOK II.-JUST IMPEDIMENT.

  CHAPTER IX.

  "So many men; so many loves." --M. O. Willcocks.

  A dinner of native dishes served on leaves--to each guest his ownportion on his own leaf--eaten picnic-fashion on a Kashmir carpet inthe presence of twelve regally reproachful chairs, is a form ofentertainment only to be met with in India; and when, to theseincongruities, is added the crowning one that the host may not defilehimself by sharing the meal with his guests, you have a situationtypical of the land where all things are possible.

  Prompted by Colonel Mayhew, the Chumba Rajah, a shy taciturn boy ofsixteen, had despatched a formal invitation, hoping that the Residencyparty would honour him with their company at the Palace on the eveningof their arrival from Dalhousie; though in truth he wished themanywhere else in the world; and Colonel Mayhew, who was by no means tooold to enjoy a spasmodic daylight flirtation with a woman of Quita'sintelligence, had devised the native menu mainly for her delectation.

  A large sheet, promoted to the rank of tablecloth, covered the carpet,while ten cushions apologised for the absence of chairs. A bowl ofroses, rigidly arranged in alternate lines of flower and fern, filledthe room with fragrance. In front of each guest a snowy dome of rice,ringed about with a strange assortment of curries, gleamed on a silversalver. A quaint array of flat baskets held fragments of roast chickenand kid; unleavened cakes of a peculiarly greasy nature did duty forbread; and the only concessions to civilisation were knives and forks,table-napkins, and champagne.

  "Why shouldn't we have the courage of our barbarism, and do withoutknives and forks as well?" Quita had suggested airily, at the outset;and a faint look of horror convulsed Mrs Mayhew's bird-like face.

  Her husband saw it, and came promptly to her aid.

  "No forks, no champagne!" he retorted, laughing; and Quita picked upher fork straightway.

  "Hobson's choice!" she said, in a tone of mock resignation. "It wouldbe sheer brutality to deprive six men of champagne!"

  She was sitting now on a cushion, at the Resident's right hand, feettucked away under her skirts, and a napkin laid across her knee. Onthis she had set a leaf piled with saffron-tinted rice, which she wasexploring eagerly for incidental sultanas and yellow lumps of sugar,exchanging bulletins, from time to time, with Desmond, who had takenher in to dinner, and in whom she speedily recognised a morning qualityof mind that matched her own.

  Lenox, sitting opposite between Honor and Elsie, acutely aware that hislegs were too long for the occasion, almost forgot the torment of thepast week in looking and listening, and wondering how he had everattained even a passing hold upon a spirit so lightly poised, socompact of volatile essences, that he shrank, almost with awe, from thebare thought of subjecting her uncaptured loveliness to the pains andpenalties of marriage. He sat for the most part in silence; content tolet the ripple of her voice and laughter play over him like water overparched earth. Her voice had drawn him irresistibly from the first.It was a thing of exquisite modulations. It thrilled like a caress.Its clear, cool tones, pure from passion, intoxicated him like therarefied atmosphere of the heights. Once or twice she flung him aquestion or a remark, as if compelling him to be aware of herexistence. He answered her with grave politeness, and an occasionaldirect look, before which her eyes fell, as if dazzled by a helio-flashfrom the man's inner fire.

  All these things Honor Desmond noted; and, by the searchlight of herwomanhood, discerned more than Quita herself had yet realised.

  Garth, from his uncoveted post of honour at Mrs Mayhew's left hand,noted them also; but with less of understanding. Stung to irritationby a sense of vague happenings in which he counted for nothing, and bythe fact that Quita was evidently enjoying herself far more than theoccasion seemed to warrant, he was in no mood to do justice to thesupreme event of the day--his dinner. Strange foods, too, were anabomination to his clockwork order of mind; and when, in addition, hefound himself condemned to eat them sitting cross-legged on the ground,a leaf balanced precariously on one knee, he began to entertain gravedoubts as to the comparative values of the game and the candle.

  He quite resented the manifest contentment of Elsie Mayhew and herpartner, who sat facing him, absorbed in the low-toned talk ofincipient lovers, blind and deaf to the insignificant doings aroundthem. Nor was he greatly blest in his left-hand partner, Bathurst, theRajah's tutor--a clean-limbed athlete of the two-adjective genus, whodiscoursed complacently of "bags," "mounts," and handicaps; the stapletopics of his kind. And while the stream of words flowed on, uncheckedby his flagrant inattention, Garth's ears were tantalised by snatchesof talk from the lively end of the table, where Desmond and Quita werebehaving like two children; by the silver quality of her laughter thatwhipped his senses, while it lulled his conscience like a narcotic, andset him devising a moonlight stroll with her later on, in the Palacecourtyard, by way of compensation for present martyrdom endured on heraccount. For since the night of the dance she had been so uniformlygracious, that he was beginning to regard his rebuff on Dynkund aslittle more than a delicate prelude to surrender after all.

  Such absorbing reflections made him so neglectful of his hostess, thatthe little lady's spasmodic efforts to enliven him with spiced snippetsof gossip--more than one item of which had emanated fromhimself--fizzled out dismally, long before the meal was over; and itwas with an audible sigh of relief that she glanced across at MrsDesmond, and got upon her feet with as much dignity as a cushion, aplump figure, and cramped limbs would allow.

  "What? You do not desert us?" Quita asked, as Desmond offered her hisarm.

  "No--I do not desert you!" He spoke lightly, but significance lurkedin his tone. "The Rajah and his suite are waiting to receive us in theDurbar Hall, and unless you object to my cigar, or send me to theright-about, I claim you as my prisoner of war for the evening!"

  "_A la bonheur_! Smoke as much as you please. You will not need totie a thread round my ankle, I promise you. Why didn't I get to knowyou sooner?"

  "Perhaps because you discovered metal more attractive?"

  The light thrust drew blood. She flushed, and laughed uneasily.

  "A palpable hit! I might retaliate with a coal of fire in the shape ofa compliment. But you don't deserve it. Anyway, let's make up forlost time now. I have a feeling that we shall be good friends,only . . . ."

  "Only--what?"

  "Mrs Desmond may disapprove of me."

  "You'd not say that if you knew her better," he answered, warmly. "Sheisn't one of your good women who make a hobby of disapproval."

  "That's a mercy! It is the pet vice of the virtuous; and Mrs Mayhewdeals in it largely. No doubt it keeps her happy, and makes her feelsuperior; and I wouldn't rob my worst enemy of such a heavenlysensation! I'm sorry for her to-night, though. She hates nativesalmost as much as Colonel Mayhew loves them; and I'm afraid she's notenvying herself; nor will poor Elsie, if Captain Lenox makes _her_ aprisoner of war for the evening! He hardly vouchsafed her half a dozenwords through dinner."

  "Lenox is no conversationalist," Desmond answered, looking straightbefore him. "But he is a splendid fellow--worth fifty of yourdrawing-room acrobats."

  "You like him so much, then?"

  "I do more than that. I admire him."

  "You are an enthusiast!"

  The shadow of change in her tone did not escape him.

  "Is that also one of the vices you detest?"

  "But, no! I gave you credit for more discernment. Enthusiasts andidealists are the salt of the earth. That's why I want to know more of_you_. There! In spite of myself I have crowned you with a coal offire after all! Now, please introduce me to our resplendent RajahSahib. I am going to make him talk. Colonel Mayhew has dared me tosucceed!"

  They entered the Durbar Hall as she spoke--a long room overloaded withgilt furniture, gilt-framed mirrors, and the inevitable chandeliers andmusical boxes that are the insignia of semi-civilised opulencethroughout India. No self-respecting Maharajah, or
Rana, or Nawabwould dream of living in a Palace devoid of either.

  Rajah Govind Singh and his four companions stood together by amarble-topped table, laughing and whispering over a book filled withphotographs of music-hall celebrities, while beside it a spuriousalbum, whose heart was a musical box, tinkled an age-old air from "LesCloches" with maddening precision. At the far end of the room a nativeconjurer had established himself, and was already performingindefatigably for the benefit of no one in particular.

  The group by the table showed a medley of colour quite in keeping withthe flash and glitter of the whole. Over spotless shirts and trousersthe boys wore brilliant silk _chogas_[1] cunningly patterned with goldwire, and surmounted by turbans of palest primrose, orange, and green.But Govind Singh, by divine right of Rajahdom, eclipsed the rest.Beneath his scarlet coat gleamed a waistcoat of woven gold, and thejewelled buckle of his Rajput _chuprass_.[2] Three strings of pearlsformed a close collar at his throat, and in front of his sea-greenturban a heron's plume sprang from a cluster of brilliants. The facesof all were no darker than ripe wheat; for your high-caste hill-mannever takes colour, like his brother of the plains.

  They had long since eaten their own simple dinner, in the scantiestclothing, and in a solemn silence, squatting on a bare mud floor. Forto the Hindu a meal is a sacred ceremony, and the Sahib's idiosyncrasyfor making merry over his food can only be accepted as part and parcelof his bewildering lack of sense and dignity in regard to the conductof life.

  During a long minority this boy had been zealously inoculated withWestern knowledge and Western points of view; and with the deceptivepliancy of the Oriental he had smilingly submitted to the process. Butdeep down in the unplumbed heart of him he waited for the good day whenhe would be rid of these well-meaning interlopers,--tireless as theirown fire-carriages,--who troubled the still waters of life and talkedso vigorously about nothing in particular; when he would be free toforget cricket and polo and futile efforts to cleanse the State fromintrigue; free to sit down in peace and grow fat, unhindered by thesenseless machinations of the outer world.

  And in the heart of Govind Singh you have a fair epitome of the greatheart of India herself: aloof, long-suffering, illogical to a degreeinconceivable by Western minds; ready to lavish deep-hearted devotionupon individual Nicholsons and Lawrences when they come her way; yet,for all her surface submission and progress, not an inch nearer toracial sympathy, or to the inner significance of English life andcharacter than she was fifty years ago.

  But, in the meanwhile, our concern is with a minor Maharajah, and hispassion for musical boxes.

  At the Resident's approach, the laughter and whispering ceased; and thefour boys endured with impassive politeness the mysterious rite ofintroduction. The tinkling album gave Quita her cue. She insisted onhearing its entire repertoire, which was mercifully limited; and hernatural ease of manner, her knack of plunging whole-heartedly into thesubject of the moment, soon put Govind Singh's shyness to flight. Hedeserted monosyllables for clipped, hurried sentences, jerked out withan odd mixture of nervousness and self-satisfaction. Quita flashed asmile at Desmond, who stood sentry at her elbow, in seeming ignoranceof the fact that Garth was making tentative attempts to usurp his place.

  "You must show me some of the others, Rajah Sahib," she declared, asthe complacent album clicked into silence, "and when I go home toEngland I will hunt you up a new kind to add to your collection!"

  The boy's eyes lost their look of lazy indifference; a gleam of superbteeth illumined his face.

  "An upright grand is the last trifling addition to it, Miss Maurice,"Colonel Mayhew informed her, "but the Rajah was a little disappointedwhen he found that it couldn't be set going by the turning of a key."

  "I am liking the big noise--the big _tamasha_," the young monarchexplained in all gravity. "And I think that one is too much price fora box that will do nothing unless somebody knows to make it speak."

  "Mrs Desmond can make it speak for you, Rajah Sahib," Colonel Mayhewsuggested; and the boy turned upon her with shy eagerness.

  "Can you really do a tune?" he asked.

  "Several tunes!" she answered, smiling. "A big noise, if you like."

  "Oh, that is very good business. Thanks awfully."

  He spoke the slang phrases, picked up from Bathurst, with mechanicalprecision; and Honor, still smiling, went over to the piano--aflamboyant instrument of rosewood and gold. After a second ofhesitation Lenox followed, opened it for her, and resting a hand on thegilt back of her chair, bent down to speak to her before she began toplay. The suggestion of intimacy in his attitude was not lost onQuita, who saw it all, without glancing in their direction. Her lipstightened; and she started slightly when Desmond spoke to her.

  "Will you go round the musical boxes with me?" he asked, in anundertone that bordered on tenderness. For he saw that something inher suffered, whether it were pride or love.

  "But yes--by all means," she answered, with a lift of her head whichsuggested to Desmond a jerk on the curb-chain. In moving off togetherthey passed close to Garth. But Quita, who was abstractedly openingand closing her fan, did not seem aware of his presence; and he stoodlooking after them--nonplussed and inwardly blaspheming. He did nothold the key to this new phase of the situation.

  Mrs Mayhew--noting his detachment from the Palace group, and quiteneedlessly alarmed lest politeness should impel him to return toher--sought out a strategic seat near the piano; though in truth HonorDesmond's masterly rendering of Chopin's heroic polonaise was, for her,no more than a complicated tumult of sound without sense, and her wraptexpression resulted from the fact that she was debating whether her_durzi_ could possibly reproduce at sight the subtle simplicity of MrsDesmond's evening gown. For she had sons growing up at home--thisinsignificant woman, whose plump proportions and bird-like eyes hadearned her the nickname of "the Button Quail"; and even a goodappointment did not annul the vagaries of the rupee, which was behavingpeculiarly ill just then. In the intervals of imaginary dressmaking,she was enjoying shrewd speculations as to the nature and extent of thebudding "affair" between the two at the piano; for her small mind clungtenaciously to the Noah's Ark view of life. Also it seemed thatElsie's own "little affair" was assuming quite a promising aspect.Personally, she disliked the man, but his talent was undeniable. Shesupposed he must be making money by it; and he was quite clearly makinga right-of-way into her daughter's heart.

  They had drifted apart from the rest without need of spoken suggestion;and now, under cover of Honor's music, which produced a tendency togravitate towards the piano, the man grew bolder.

  "There is moonlight out in the courtyard," he said, very low; and hetried, without success, to look into her eyes. "_Que dites-vous_?Shall we go?"

  She did not answer at once. A new spirit of boldness was awake in her,urging her to take hold of her golden hour with both hands, nothingdoubting. But the man, even when he charmed her most, failed toinspire her trust. And while she stood hesitating, his gaze never lefther face.

  "Are you thinking it would scandalise _la petite mere_?"

  "It might. She is easily scandalised!"

  "But you would like to come?"

  "Yes--I would like to come."

  "_Eh bien_--that is enough."

  "Is it?"

  She looked up at him now with those great, truthful eyes of hers, whichhe found oddly disconcerting at times.

  "Enough for me, at all events!" he answered boldly. "Come!"

  And she came.

  The flagged quadrangle, walled in with darkness and worn with the treadof numberless women's feet, showed silver-grey in the light of a moonnearing the full; and above it, in a square patch of sky, starssparkled with a veiled radiance like diamonds caught in a film ofgossamer. As Elsie emerged from the shadow of the verandah, she had asense of stepping into an unreal world, and the Palace walls, shuttingout the familiar contours of earth, strengthened the illusion. Thenight seemed the accomplice of her mood, in league with her
ownexquisite sensibility; a night created for sheltering tenderness.

  Michael Maurice, divining her sensations with the uncanny accuracy ofhis type, pressed a little closer to her as they walked, so that nowand again, as if by chance, his arm brushed her own, and each contactquickened her happy commotion of heart and pulse. They came upon arough stone bench, and he paused.

  "It is pleasanter to sit, _n'est-ce pas_?"

  "Yes. But we mustn't sit long."

  "Mustn't we? How does one measure time on such a night as this? Bythe beating of hearts, or by the pulsations of stars?"

  She laughed softly.

  "How foolish you are!"

  "It is good to be foolish at the right time, and with the right person!Wisdom is the death's-head at the feast of life. But we are going toshut her outside the door for a whole week--you and I."

  The strangely sweet magic of those linked pronouns stirred Elsie asnever before; though the sound of them had pleased her once, not alittle, on the lips of Kenneth Malcolm. Bud she answered lightly, aswomen will, when they feel barriers giving way.

  "I never knew I had agreed to anything so desperate!"

  He had laid his arm along the back of the seat; so that his hand waswithin an inch of her shoulder. He moved it closer.

  "You have done more than that without knowing it--_petite amie_," hesaid, yielding himself, as always, to the witchery of the moment. "Itis your doing that I have achieved an inspired picture. It is yourdoing that I want this week in Arcadia to be an idyll we shall neitherof us forget--an idyll of sunlight, moonshine, and blessed freedom from_les convenances_. No past--no future--only the present; and in it twospirits tuned to one key. That is the secret of perfect enjoyment."

  She shook her head.

  "I don't quite understand. It sounds too fantastic. The past and thefuture are there always. One can't get rid of them."

  "But one can shut the door on them when they threaten to disturb thepresent, which is the great reality after all."

  "Can one? You seem to have a talent for shutting doors!"

  "A convenient talent; worth cultivating! You may take my word for it."

  Something in the statement or its manner of utterance jarred, ever soslightly,--threatened to break the charm that held her.

  "Dangerously convenient," she murmured, in gentle reproof.

  "Little Puritan! What a narrow track you walk upon. Hardly room on itfor two abreast. Is there?"

  The last words were almost a whisper. He pressed nearer, bringing hisface close to hers. At the same moment she felt a light touch on hershoulder, and drawing back to escape the disturbing eloquence of hiseyes, she discovered the presence of his encircling arm. The discoverybrought her to her feet--flushed, palpitating, aquiver with anger atthis first shadow of insult to her maidenhood.

  "Will you take me in again, please?" she said quietly, and the requestsavoured of command. For her gentle nature was founded on a rock; anda very little below the unresisting surface one came upon adamant, pureand simple. But the unabashed Frenchman caught one of her hands, andcrushed it against his lips.

  "_Petite amie_--forgive me! I was overbold. I am not fit to touch thehem of your dress. But one is only flesh and blood; and you . . . sayyou are not angry with me, in your heart . . . ."

  She drew her hand away decisively; and with unconscious cruelty rubbedthe back of it against her dress, as if to remove a stain.

  "I am angry--I have a right to be angry," she answered in the sametoneless voice. "And if you will not come in with me, I shall goalone."

  He rose then; and they crossed the enchanted courtyard together--aclear foot of space between them.

  The brilliance of the Durbar Hall smote the girl painfully. It was asthough the light had power to penetrate and reveal her hiddenperturbation. Without looking up, she felt her mother's eyes upon her;and the wild-rose tint of her cheeks deepened under their scrutiny.But she avoided meeting them, and, going straight to her father,slipped a small hand under his arm. She felt indefinably in need ofprotection, not only from the man, whose kiss had moved her more thanhe guessed, but from herself, and the new emotions quickening at herheart; and in all times of trouble she turned spontaneously to herfather. He was the true parent of her spirit; and, but for thematter-of-fact, half-condescending devotion of three boys at home, MrsMayhew might, at times, have felt left out in the cold.

  "Enjoying yourself, little girl?" the father asked, smiling down at her.

  "Yes, of course, dear--ever so much," she replied, with braveuntruthfulness; and the lie must have been forgiven her in heaven.

  But the veil of enchantment was rent; and no needle of earth has everbeen ground fine enough to draw its frayed edges together.

  [1] Long loose coats.

  [2] Cross-belt.