Before the sun was up the next morning, the younger woman was awake and staring out with frightened eyes as the train ran through a country entirely strange to her. And when the old woman woke up and announced that soon she must be getting off, the girl"s fear seemed to increase.
"Is the Ganges River near here, too?" she asked.
"Why, I think so," the old woman replied and her statement was confirmed by another woman in the next seat.
"Then I"ll get off here with you," announced the girl with a brighter look. "If the Ganges River is here, this place should do as well as Benares, I think."
The older woman looked astonished but offered no objections to the girl"s sudden change of plan.
In a few minutes the train stopped at Allahabad and again arose the mad confusion of a large railway station at train time. But the old woman got out safely, followed closely by the girl, holding her bundle tightly in her arms.
They stepped aside from the crowd and the old woman looked at the younger in curiosity as to what she would do here in Allahabad. The appearance of the latter had suddenly changed. Her face was eager and her eyes were bright.
"Take me to the Ganges River quickly," she demanded, "for I must throw these into the sacred river," and she held out her bundle.
"What is in it?" asked the old lady, eyeing the strange bundle with a frightened look such as the girl herself had worn until the excitement of being near her goal had driven it from her face.
"I must throw them into the Ganges River," repeated the girl. "They are my husband"s bones," she whispered eagerly, lowering her voice.
"When they burned his body I crept along and after all had left I picked them out of the pile of ashes and here they are!" she exclaimed triumphantly. "For two years I have kept them near me day and night and saved all my money to come to Benares to throw them into the Ganges River that I might be forgiven for his death and that he might have life and happiness as the priest said. But if the Ganges River is here, surely this place will do as well as Benares.
I am so tired! I am so tired of being a cursed woman!" she sobbed, her excitement giving way to tears. "I want to be happy. Take me to the Ganges River!"
The old woman"s expression had turned from fright to astonishment as she heard what the bundle contained; but at the girl"s sobs her face grew sweet with a motherly tenderness. She turned away as if to think, murmuring to herself, "The memsahib will surely forgive me if I come a little late. She would like to have me help this poor child, I know, and perhaps she might make her an ayah like me if I take her with me. That would make the girl happy, indeed. Yes, I will help her."
Then she turned back to the girl. Tenderly taking her free hand, for one still tightly clasped the precious bundle, the old woman said, "Come, we will find the way to the sacred river."
Quickly the two went down the platform, now somewhat thinned of the earlier crowd, and pa.s.sed through the station gate, the old woman still holding the girl"s hand and the girl still tightly holding the bundle which was to be the price of life and happiness to her.
IX
Bachelor Dreams
Caldwell-Sahib, opening his eyes, let his head roll slowly over on his pillow. As the veranda door came within his line of vision the delicious drowsiness which had held him was suddenly disturbed, for there stood, looking out across the rows of potted plants to the dry lawn beyond, a woman whom he had never seen. For several moments he simply stared in weakness. Then, trying to brush away the strange, sickly haze which enveloped his brain, he let his eyes rove over the room as far as he could without physical effort. There in the corner was his desk. There, hanging above it, was the picture of the Taj which he had bought when Parsons had paid him a flying visit from England and they had gone to Agra together. Just to the right, out of the edge of his eye, he could see the foot of his steamer chair and, extending from beneath it, the hand-woven rug which he himself had spent a week in buying from a native dealer in Delhi, holding grimly to his first bid each day as he had pa.s.sed the shop on his const.i.tutional until a bargain had been struck the very day his train pulled out. Those things certainly belonged to him, but the woman did not. Where had she come from? For there she was still as his eyes again reached the door.
His strangely tired mind was just getting to the point of realizing what she looked like--that she was tall and fair--when the woman turned her face towards him and with a smile came to the bed.
"So you are awake and better. That"s good! You will be all right now. Let me feel your pulse, please," and pulling the omnipresent mosquito netting aside, she laid a cool hand upon his wrist. "That is all right too. Your pulse is normal. Isn"t that splendid!
"Now, listen to me," she continued after a deft fluffing of his pillows and a careful tucking in of the netting. "I"m sorry, but you"ve got to be your own nurse now. Your boy is frightened to death, but he"ll stay with you and do your bidding. You"ll be all right. I must go. Take one teaspoonful of this every hour," and she lifted a tumbler from the table. "At seven o"clock take half of this in the cup here," and she brought a flowered teacup into view.
"Don"t get up until you really feel strong enough to. Have your boy give you broths to-morrow, an egg the next day, and so on, getting back to your regular diet by degrees. I guess you are used to being your own nurse."
She turned towards the door. "I"ll get your boy in but you will have to make him stay. I can"t wait to do that."
She left the room, but soon returned followed slowly and reluctantly by his "boy," only a boy in Anglo-Indian nomenclature, for he was a tiny native man about forty years of age, who was bowing and salaaming but keeping as near to the door as possible.
"Come," said the lady in a low but compelling tone. "Come. Come along quickly," she added a trifle sharply as he lagged behind.
"Aren"t you ashamed to have left your master when he was sick! Now,"
for he had reached the bed by this time, "lift the netting and take hold of the sahib"s hand."
"There!" she exclaimed as he touched the Englishman"s hand and took his own quickly away. "There! You see it didn"t hurt you. You haven"t caught the cholera. Now, do as your master tells you; take good care of him and behave as a boy should," and she was gone.
Ah! Cholera! That explained it all to Caldwell. So he had had the cholera, he--Caldwell--who had served the government for fifteen years in India, had taken every risk, and had considered himself immune! That explained his extreme weakness, his befuddled brain, and the unusual soreness of his muscles. That explained the terror of his boy. But it did not explain the woman. Where had she come from? Who was she?
For some time Caldwell thought over this interesting matter, for it was easier just to think than to question the shivering boy who was still crouching as close to the outside door as possible. Who was she? She was tall and thin; her face was very fine-featured and intelligent. And she was an American. He knew that last fact from her speech and from her appearance, too, for although Caldwell never had looked at ladies in his life, especially American ladies, except when politeness absolutely compelled him to, yet even he could not mistake the something in the appearance that marks every American girl, and,--yes, secretly approve, although his English nature would not let him acknowledge it. And she wasn"t very old either!
Suddenly a thought struck him, so suddenly and such a thought that he almost started up in spite of his weakness. There was only one other European in Baihar besides himself and that was a missionary, a woman,--a doctor, he had understood, and--an American.
"Boy," as strong a voice as a usually strong Englishman could command after a fit of cholera demanded, "was that the missionary?"
"Yes, Sahib, I got her. She"s a doctor-memsahib, master."
"Boy, did you run away and leave me?" Caldwell continued, remembering the words of the woman to the boy and making his tone as sepulchral as possible in order to frighten the man still more.
"I ran to get the doctor-memsahib, master," shivered out the unhappy fellow, ignoring in his reply his later entire disappearance while the doctor-memsahib was left for five hours to struggle alone for Caldwell-Sahib"s life.
But Caldwell-Sahib, although suspecting the truth, was in no state just then either by chastis.e.m.e.nt or preaching to teach the beauty of courage and self-sacrifice. So he sank back upon his pillow and gave himself to thought.
During the next few days, while his strength was returning, Caldwell-Sahib had plenty of time to think and, for the first time in his bachelor life, his thoughts centred about a woman--for he knew cholera and he knew that the doctor-memsahib had saved his life.
The boy, emboldened by feeling no symptoms of the dread disease in his own system, gradually took up his accustomed duties and cared for his master"s wants in the quick, noiseless, and perfect way of the well-trained Indian servant that soothes a man"s soul. So for several days with the punkah swinging over him the convalescent lay stretched out upon his steamer chair, the very picture of comfort and pleasant dreams. To have one"s life saved by a woman and a good-looking one, too, touches even a crusty heart. But to find that this was the very woman whom for a whole month he had thought of only with contempt and disgust broke clear through the crustiness of Caldwell-Sahib"s heart and added a little pleasurable anxiety to the tenderness engendered within.
One month before this time very suddenly the government had sent him up to Baihar to look after some matters which would consume about a year"s time. So having taken possession of the bungalow built by the government for such official visits and having moved up enough of his belongings to be comfortable, Caldwell-Sahib had settled down for a "dead" year such as so many government officials live through in parts of India, as in duty bound. Baihar, a city of about ten thousand inhabitants, is a purely religious city, where no business is transacted but religious business and where no pleasures are indulged in but those of religion; those of the Hindu religion being so vile that "Baihar" is almost another name for h.e.l.l. Caldwell had expected to be the only European in that whole city of blackest Hinduism; so the prospects of a year alone in such a place had been, indeed, anything but inviting to an Englishman who despised the natives and who could find no pleasure in Indian life apart from the sports of a large cantonment or the resources of a well-stocked library.
However, after he had been in Baihar but a few days, he had heard that there was another European in the city, a woman, an American missionary, who for six years had lived alone in that horrible place in order to bring Christian, medical help to the poor women of that city, especially to the four thousand Hindu widows devoted to temple worship and the l.u.s.ts of the priests. To say that Caldwell-Sahib had been horrified at the thought of a lone woman in that place would have put it too strongly, for he was simply disgusted. He said that she must be mad, certainly far beyond the realm of sense, let alone common sense, to have undertaken such a thing. This woman"s presence in Baihar would not make any difference with the beastly dullness of the life ahead of him, that was certain, for he would have nothing to do with her and he did not even want to see her; for he hated women in general and this one must be an especially objectionable specimen of the species.
But now Caldwell-Sahib had seen her and she was sweet and wholesome to look upon. Now this very woman had saved his life. If she had not been there engaged in her foolish work, he would have died.
Therefore, he was full of regret for his former unkind thoughts and he was, moreover, exceedingly grateful, for he put considerable value on his life, did Caldwell-Sahib, and to be less than grateful to her who had saved it would be to prove himself less than a man.
During the days of convalescence the Englishman"s thoughts turned often to the probable experiences of the six years that this sweet American woman had spent alone in this "h.e.l.l." Even his stout English heart recoiled at the mental pictures his mind conjured up.
He could see her threading her way alone through the crowded bazaars where vile Hindu priests, dirty shopkeepers, men red-faced with smallpox, or hideous lepers must again and again have jostled rudely against her. He saw her, unattended, with difficulty pa.s.sing the frenzied religious processions which accompany the silver car of the great G.o.d as it makes its sacred rounds, or being pushed to the wall by a surging ma.s.s of religious devotees, eager to reach the sacred river to bathe in its holy waters. But the worst picture to him was of the nights of those six years when unprotected she must have crouched within her chamber in fright at the awful and unholy confusion of night in a Hindu city.
"My----!" He pulled himself up short. "I must not swear, for she is a missionary, but by--by--by Oliver Cromwell, I"ll save her from all that."
The instinct of grat.i.tude will a.s.sert itself and it is easy for grat.i.tude to pa.s.s over into affection and enduring devotion. When the rescuer is a beautiful and capable woman, who can measure the consequences? All of Caldwell-Sahib"s philosophy of life was thrown into confusion. His complex nature would no longer run according to his will. Staid, cold, hard, matter-of-fact Englishman though he was, his imagination played fantastic tricks with him and so through all these days while his body was regaining its lost strength, her face lived in his memory and the memory gave him a warm and comforting sensation about the heart, a sensation intensified in its delight by the thought that she was probably thinking about him, for so the old romance has run since the beginning of the human drama.
As soon as Caldwell-Sahib was able to get out, he inquired his way to her home. He had an easy time finding it, for everybody seemed to know where she lived and every face brightened at her name. But when he reached the compound and through the gate saw the plain but comfortable bungalow within, his courage gave way and he turned back home. However, he got into the habit of strolling around that way towards nightfall and standing a few minutes at the point of the wall nearest to what he thought her window and watching the people who came and went from her compound; but never on these occasions did he catch a glimpse of her. As a courageous and polite Englishman, he should have gone in and thanked the good American lady for having saved his life, but he had grown to feel that there was only one way in which he wanted to thank her and he had not yet reached the height of courage where he could tell her how she had wrecked his philosophy of life. So he lingered around outside the compound walls and watched the natives; "lucky beggars" he called them to himself, as they came and went from a small, low building at one side of the compound which he knew from appearance must be her dispensary. Those who pa.s.sed him were lame and halt and, yes, even blind. But they were all "lucky" in his sight because they had been in her presence and had been speaking to her.
He overheard their remarks occasionally and now it was: "It hurt awfully but she put her hand on my head and took all the pain away;"
or "She gave me the worst medicine to take, but since she said "Take it!" I will;" and even the blind man said as he pa.s.sed, a strange light in his face, "She says to come to-morrow and she will cut something in my eyes and then she thinks I shall see again.
Since she says it will be all right, I am coming back to-morrow, but I wouldn"t believe any one else."
Caldwell-Sahib"s heart ached for the sweet, clean American woman who must touch, heal, and minister to such foul, dirty creatures. Every night as he watched them he felt that he ought to go in and tell her of his love and take her away from such a dreadful life at once.
Possibly she was wondering why he had not come. How cruel he was to delay! But every night home he would go again and put off the visit, bachelor-like, until the next day.
However fate took a hand in the affair at last. One day a couple of months after his illness, as Caldwell-Sahib was standing in the narrow bazaar with, for a wonder, very few people about, he saw a lady"s topi above some sari-covered heads turn into the street at the corner.