And she, too, held her breath before the vision; for she saw it also.
Saw herself, as he had described her, and the glamour of it, the desire of it, a.s.sailed her, body and soul.
Yet she made a desperate, a pa.s.sionately resentful effort to ignore them. "I didn"t know you were so well up in _chiffons_, Mr. Carlyon,"
she said, with a forced laugh. "Did you ever think of setting up a milliner"s shop? One is badly needed in Eshwara."
But the glamour of it had come to Lance Carlyon like a revelation, and the blood was leaping in his veins. "I will, if you--" he began.
She scarcely recognized his voice in one way. In another she knew it must be his; for all the vitality and strength, the single-mindedness and simplicity which she had seen in him so often, were crowded into it; brought into it by fancy, concentrated by a mere suggestion--of herself.
The magic of this seemed to encompa.s.s her; she sought shelter from it recklessly.
"I?" she interrupted. "I don"t go in for that sort of thing, Mr. Carlyon. You seem to forget my work--work which I value above--milliners! Try Mrs. Smith--there she is coming in her victoria; she is one of the best-dressed women I ever saw."
She could not certainly have looked better than she did as, seeing Lance Carlyon, she called to him as her carriage drove up.
"Do you know where Captain Dering is? He promised--"
Here Lance, with guilty haste, interrupted her. He was just about to drive over and give her a message. Dering had had a touch of fever; he had been over at the palace arranging about the Chinese lanterns for the decorations till late the evening before, and--
"He might have sent a little sooner," put in Mrs. Smith. "I have been waiting; he said he would drive me in his dogcart." There was no vexation, only an almost pathetic surprise in her voice; and Lance looked guiltier still.
"I"m awfully sorry--it"s all my fault--I was late to begin with, and then--" He glanced at Erda involuntarily,--compromisingly, it seemed to her.
"I am afraid I kept Mr. Carlyon," she said, haughtily; "most unwillingly, I a.s.sure you. Thanks so much, but I can get in quite well by myself."
As she drove off, however, her head was in a whirl; and as, when pausing to pick up Dr. Campbell, the whole panorama of the camp, the hills behind it, the distant temples of Eshwara, the busy place-seekers in the foreground, the scarlet-sin-stains of the _chupra.s.sies"_ coats against the dazzling whiteness of the tents, lay before her, one of those rare, incomprehensible moods came upon her when the soul retreats into its spiritual body, so that the sight grows clear, the touch keen, and you can feel the round world spin beneath your feet, see the shadow of earth stretching far among the stars.
The World"s Desire! What was it?
Brought up to believe that the heart of man--that mainspring of the spinning world--was vile, she had never asked herself why this was so.
She had read the story of Adam and Eve with unquestioning faith, yet never sought to know what had changed the good to evil.
But now, as her eyes rested on those far-distant peaks with that faint mist about their feet hiding the "Cradle of the G.o.ds," and followed, as far as the eye could follow in the nearer hills, the climbing track worn by the weariness of that eternal search after righteousness, she asked herself what it was which kept mankind so long upon the road; asked herself, for the first time, what that first sin had been which had lost Paradise.
No lack of desire after salvation, surely. Generation on generation of Eastern pilgrims had worn that path out of the sheer rock, had agonized after good, and remained evil. A little shudder of memory ran through her at the thought--how evil! And now the West, with its white tents, its white face, its white creed, had come to show a newer, a better way.
Had it? But what had it done for itself? She had worked for two years in London ere coming out to India; and another shudder of memory swept over her of what she had seen there.
The World"s Desire! Lance Carlyon had called her that--a woman with a red-gold apple in her hand.
The sound of angry dispute brought her back to realities. They were pa.s.sing out of the camp under the triumphal arch, and one of its sentries was barring the entrance of an ash-smeared figure which was brandishing a stamped pet.i.tion paper, as if it had been a card of admission, and yelling excitedly for "Justice! justice!"
"It is that pernicious fellow, Gorakh-nath," remarked Dr. Campbell, sententiously. "He wishes, no doubt, to appeal against Captain Dering"s order, of which I, for one, am heartily glad. A Christian government is bound to refuse sanction to the practice of a faith which, it is impossible not to see, is degrading in the extreme to those who hold it."
Erda"s eyes were still clear; clear with what those who do not see, call dreams.
"Yet it seeks what we do--peace--forgiveness--the cradle of the goodness, the innocence it left behind--somehow."
Dr. James Campbell turned to her in dignified, amazed displeasure. "May I ask what has caused--"
"That"s easy tellin"," interrupted Mrs. Campbell, comfortably. "It"s yon hat with feathers, when she is accustomed to a pith one. An" she standin" in the sun talkin" to Mr. Carlyon! It"s just got to the la.s.sie"s head. I was the same myself when I was young, Erda; but Dr.
James thought it a duty--
"And so I do now, my dear," put in her husband. "It is a distinct duty on the part of mission workers to take every precaution, and if her head is Erda"s weak point, I shall warn David--"
Mrs. Campbell nodded hers and smiled, and almost winked. "Oh! Davie will take care of her, never fear; he is not a ninny!"
Erda flushed scarlet all over her face and neck. It seemed to her as if she had forgotten her cousin, the Reverend David Campbell, altogether.
And yet she was engaged to be married to him as soon as he returned from a well-earned holiday in England.
A swift remorse left her pale again. Davie, who was so much in earnest, who looked to her as--as--
That vision of a woman with a red-gold edging to her white robe and a red-gold apple in her hand came to send the blood to her face once more.
CHAPTER VIII
FALLING STARS
The long _durbar_ tent was packed from end to end with the cane-bottomed seats of the mighty; and in each sat its appointed occupant,--patient, grave, silent.
But in the two rows behind the Viceroy"s still empty chair of state the Englishmen in political dress or uniform who sat in the front, and the Englishwomen in the latest Paris fashions who sat behind, were talking and laughing; in a perfectly well-bred way, yet, to the majority of those silent spectators, at the expense of decency, since a _durbar_ is, like a West Indian ball, not for "_talkee_." There was, however, no disapproval on those indifferent dark faces. Such things were part and parcel of that general eccentricity of the _Huzoors_, before which it behoved calmness to remain calm. Yet those same faces would have been quick to notice and resent the faintest breach of etiquette in regard to their own treatment, or position. Those being correct, the rest was immaterial.
And now, the sudden strains from without of "G.o.d Save the Queen" sent those talking, laughing rows to their feet silently, with the proud alacrity so noticeable in India when the act is a confession of faith, indeed! But the ma.s.s beyond followed suit obediently, with a starry shiver of diamond-flash, a milky way of pearl-shine; for Eugene Smith"s electric light was working full power.
Finally, as if wafted on the full chords, came a small man, with that inevitable look of coming into church which Englishmen consider dignity; possibly because public worship is, really, the only function in which they are not inwardly ashamed of taking part. The great gold chair, the great gold footstool, seemed all too large for everything about their occupant, save the diamond star, the ribbon on his breast.
Yet, in a way, the scene gained by his inadequacy when, after a decent pause, a decent silence, he rose, small, insignificant, to give voice to Empire--in a strong Scotch accent, it must be admitted, which equalled the Commissioner"s Irish one, when, its proper exponent, the Secretary, having a cold, he read a translation of the Viceroy"s speech, and his soft brogue ran riot among the clamorous Persian vowels.
"_Ai Maharajahan, rajahan, nawaban wa sahiban alishan_."
The diamonds and pearls sat too still for play, so the electric light contented itself with the white teeth of Englishwomen as they yawned.
But even these failed it when, the speech ending, that front row began its file past; the civilians first, the soldiers next. A quick file, a formal bow as a rule; but, every now and again, a pause would come in the monotonous string of names, for a few words from the Viceroy, and another bow ere the recipient pa.s.sed on. Muriel Smith, who sat behind--the best dressed woman there, as Erda Shepherd had judged her--watched her husband"s tall gaunt figure approaching, and wondered if that pause would come to him. Her heart beat so when it did that she could hear nothing except "graciously pleased," "eminent services,"
"distinguished order"; but a whisper from her neighbor, "All right!
C. S. I., not C. I. E.," left her sick and faint with relief. Even so, her eyes instinctively sought Vincent Dering"s sympathy; but he, to her surprise, was looking at the tall gaunt man whose face was a "_nunc dimittis_" in itself, as he made his way back to his seat, forgetful even of his wife.
But he had forgotten her, amid a host of other things, for three whole years: forgotten them in a ceaseless effort, an untiring energy. And now that the necessity for this was over, sleep and rest were his first thoughts. He took both, apparently, in his chair, while the Commissioner, causing this time a fresh flashing of jewels, began on a fresh string of t.i.tles.
"_Sri raja-i-rajan_, _furzund-i-khas-munsoor-i-zaman-maharaj-dhiraj-rasakh_."
And, as they rolled on, the atom of humanity belonging to them--someone in faded brocade, with ropes of ill-shaped pearls and uncut stones wound about him, or a jauntier figure fresh and glittering from a Calcutta jeweller"s shop--would be singled out by its political in charge, like a sheep from a flock, and guided dexterously to the exactly proper spot in the whole round world wherein obeisance and offering could be made with dignity to itself, and the recipient. Then it would be swept on, regardless of an invariable desire to break back, in an endless circle to its seat, while fresh t.i.tles rolled out, and a fresh owner was hemmed in and swept forward. For two whole mortal hours, this, and nothing but this; with, every now and again, that pause for a few words, translated now into Irish-Urdu, producing an expression as of a cat licking cream, on a face as it was was hustled back, blindly obedient, as sheep are with a collie they know and trust.
So, at last, long after everyone, even Dya Ram--who looked terribly disjointed between his frock coat, white tie, grey trousers, and the gold mohur which he persisted in holding after native custom in his gloved right hand--had pa.s.sed, the politicals gathered in a knot, like church-wardens for the offertory plates, and the distribution of _atta_ and _pan_, that sacrament of servitude and sovereignty, began. It, too, was exactly like an offertory; that is, a languid pa.s.sing round of a plate by an official, and yawns for the rest of the congregation.
Finally, with a vigour savouring--like a voluntary--of relief, the band attacked "G.o.d Save the Queen" once more, the Viceroy retired, the _durbarees_ trooped out, still calm and silent, yet satisfied, and the Commissioner, sinking into a vacant seat, said:--
"Thank the Lord! That"s over without a hitch. So India"s safe for another six months at the cost of a trumpery t.i.tle or two."