Plain Tales from the Hills

  THE BRONCKHORST DIVORCE-CASE.

  In the daytime, when she moved about me, In the night, when she was sleeping at my side,-- I was wearied, I was wearied of her presence. Day by day and night by night I grew to hate her-- Would to God that she or I had died!

  Confessions.

  There was a man called Bronckhorst--a three-cornered, middle-aged manin the Army--gray as a badger, and, some people said, with a touch ofcountry-blood in him. That, however, cannot be proved. Mrs. Bronckhorstwas not exactly young, though fifteen years younger than her husband.She was a large, pale, quiet woman, with heavy eyelids, over weak eyes,and hair that turned red or yellow as the lights fell on it.

  Bronckhorst was not nice in any way. He had no respect for the prettypublic and private lies that make life a little less nasty than it is.His manner towards his wife was coarse. There are many things--includingactual assault with the clenched fist--that a wife will endure; butseldom a wife can bear--as Mrs. Bronckhorst bore--with a long course ofbrutal, hard chaff, making light of her weaknesses, her headaches, hersmall fits of gayety, her dresses, her queer little attempts to makeherself attractive to her husband when she knows that she is notwhat she has been, and--worst of all--the love that she spends on herchildren. That particular sort of heavy-handed jest was specially dearto Bronckhorst. I suppose that he had first slipped into it, meaningno harm, in the honeymoon, when folk find their ordinary stock ofendearments run short, and so go to the other extreme to express theirfeelings. A similar impulse make's a man say:--"Hutt, you old beast!"when a favorite horse nuzzles his coat-front. Unluckily, when thereaction of marriage sets in, the form of speech remains, and, thetenderness having died out, hurts the wife more than she cares to say.But Mrs. Bronckhorst was devoted to her "teddy," as she called him.Perhaps that was why he objected to her. Perhaps--this is only a theoryto account for his infamous behavior later on--he gave way to the queersavage feeling that sometimes takes by the throat a husband twentyyears' married, when he sees, across the table, the same face ofhis wedded wife, and knows that, as he has sat facing it, so must hecontinue to sit until day of its death or his own. Most men and allwomen know the spasm. It only lasts for three breaths as a rule, must bea "throw-back" to times when men and women were rather worse than theyare now, and is too unpleasant to be discussed.

  Dinner at the Bronckhorst's was an infliction few men cared to undergo.Bronckhorst took a pleasure in saying things that made his wife wince.When their little boy came in at dessert, Bronckhorst used to give himhalf a glass of wine, and naturally enough, the poor little mite gotfirst riotous, next miserable, and was removed screaming. Bronckhorstasked if that was the way Teddy usually behaved, and whether Mrs.Bronckhorst could not spare some of her time to teach the "little beggardecency." Mrs. Bronckhorst, who loved the boy more than her own life,tried not to cry--her spirit seemed to have been broken by her marriage.Lastly, Bronckhorst used to say:--"There! That'll do, that'll do.For God's sake try to behave like a rational woman. Go into thedrawing-room." Mrs. Bronckhorst would go, trying to carry it alloff with a smile; and the guest of the evening would feel angry anduncomfortable.

  After three years of this cheerful life--for Mrs. Bronckhorst had nowoman-friends to talk to--the Station was startled by the news thatBronckhorst had instituted proceedings ON THE CRIMINAL COUNT, againsta man called Biel, who certainly had been rather attentive to Mrs.Bronckhorst whenever she had appeared in public. The utter want ofreserve with which Bronckhorst treated his own dishonor helped us toknow that the evidence against Biel would be entirely circumstantial andnative. There were no letters; but Bronckhorst said openly that he wouldrack Heaven and Earth until he saw Biel superintending the manufactureof carpets in the Central Jail. Mrs. Bronckhorst kept entirely to herhouse, and let charitable folks say what they pleased. Opinions weredivided. Some two-thirds of the Station jumped at once to the conclusionthat Biel was guilty; but a dozen men who knew and liked him held byhim. Biel was furious and surprised. He denied the whole thing, andvowed that he would thrash Bronckhorst within an inch of his life.No jury, we knew, could convict a man on the criminal count on nativeevidence in a land where you can buy a murder-charge, including thecorpse, all complete for fifty-four rupees; but Biel did not care toscrape through by the benefit of a doubt. He wanted the whole thingcleared: but as he said one night:--"He can prove anything withservants' evidence, and I've only my bare word." This was about a monthbefore the case came on; and beyond agreeing with Biel, we could dolittle. All that we could be sure of was that the native evidence wouldbe bad enough to blast Biel's character for the rest of his service; forwhen a native begins perjury he perjures himself thoroughly. He does notboggle over details.

  Some genius at the end of the table whereat the affair was being talkedover, said:--"Look here! I don't believe lawyers are any good. Get a manto wire to Strickland, and beg him to come down and pull us through."

  Strickland was about a hundred and eighty miles up the line. He hadnot long been married to Miss Youghal, but he scented in the telegram achance of return to the old detective work that his soul lusted after,and next night he came in and heard our story. He finished his pipe andsaid oracularly:--"we must get at the evidence. Oorya bearer, Mussalmankhit and methraniayah, I suppose, are the pillars of the charge. I am onin this piece; but I'm afraid I'm getting rusty in my talk."

  He rose and went into Biel's bedroom where his trunk had been put, andshut the door. An hour later, we heard him say:--"I hadn't the heartto part with my old makeups when I married. Will this do?" There was alothely faquir salaaming in the doorway.

  "Now lend me fifty rupees," said Strickland, "and give me your Words ofHonor that you won't tell my Wife."

  He got all that he asked for, and left the house while the table drankhis health. What he did only he himself knows. A faquir hung aboutBronckhorst's compound for twelve days. Then a mehter appeared, and whenBiel heard of HIM, he said that Strickland was an angel full-fledged.Whether the mehter made love to Janki, Mrs. Bronckhorst's ayah, is aquestion which concerns Strickland exclusively.

  He came back at the end of three weeks, and said quietly:--"You spokethe truth, Biel. The whole business is put up from beginning to end.Jove! It almost astonishes ME! That Bronckhorst-beast isn't fit tolive."

  There was uproar and shouting, and Biel said:--"How are you going toprove it? You can't say that you've been trespassing on Bronckhorst'scompound in disguise!"

  "No," said Strickland. "Tell your lawyer-fool, whoever he is, to get upsomething strong about 'inherent improbabilities' and 'discrepancies ofevidence.' He won't have to speak, but it will make him happy. I'M goingto run this business."

  Biel held his tongue, and the other men waited to see what would happen.They trusted Strickland as men trust quiet men. When the case came offthe Court was crowded. Strickland hung about in the verandah of theCourt, till he met the Mohammedan khitmatgar. Then he murmured afaquir's blessing in his ear, and asked him how his second wife did. Theman spun round, and, as he looked into the eyes of "Estreeken Sahib,"his jaw dropped. You must remember that before Strickland was married,he was, as I have told you already, a power among natives. Stricklandwhispered a rather coarse vernacular proverb to the effect that he wasabreast of all that was going on, and went into the Court armed with agut trainer's-whip.

  The Mohammedan was the first witness and Strickland beamed upon him fromthe back of the Court. The man moistened his lips with his tongue and,in his abject fear of "Estreeken Sahib" the faquir, went back on everydetail of his evidence--said he was a poor man and God was his witnessthat he had forgotten every thing that Bronckhorst Sahib had told himto say. Between his terror of Strickland, the Judge, and Bronckhorst hecollapsed, weeping.

  Then began the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the ayah, leeringchastely behind her veil, turned gray, and the bearer left the Court. Hesaid that his Mamma was dying and that it was not wholesome for any manto lie unthriftily in the presence of
"Estreeken Sahib."

  Biel said politely to Bronckhorst:--"Your witnesses don't seem to work.Haven't you any forged letters to produce?" But Bronckhorst was swayingto and fro in his chair, and there was a dead pause after Biel had beencalled to order.

  Bronckhorst's Counsel saw the look on his client's face, and withoutmore ado, pitched his papers on the little green baize table, andmumbled something about having been misinformed. The whole Courtapplauded wildly, like soldiers at a theatre, and the Judge began to saywhat he thought.

  . . . . . . . . .

  Biel came out of the place, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer's-whipin the verandah. Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting Bronckhorst intoribbons behind the old Court cells, quietly and without scandal. Whatwas left of Bronckhorst was sent home in a carriage; and his wife weptover it and nursed it into a man again.

  Later on, after Biel had managed to hush up the counter-charge againstBronckhorst of fabricating false evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, with herfaint watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, but it wasn'ther Teddy's fault altogether. She would wait till her Teddy came back toher. Perhaps he had grown tired of her, or she had tried his patience,and perhaps we wouldn't cut her any more, and perhaps the mothers wouldlet their children play with "little Teddy" again. He was so lonely.Then the Station invited Mrs. Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorstwas fit to appear in public, when he went Home and took his wife withhim. According to the latest advices, her Teddy did "come back to her,"and they are moderately happy. Though, of course, he can never forgiveher the thrashing that she was the indirect means of getting for him.

  . . . . . . . . .

  What Biel wants to know is:--"Why didn't I press home the charge againstthe Bronckhorst-brute, and have him run in?"

  What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is:--"How DID my husband bring sucha lovely, lovely Waler from your Station? I know ALL his money-affairs;and I'm CERTAIN he didn't BUY it."

  What I want to know is:--"How do women like Mrs. Bronckhorst come tomarry men like Bronckhorst?"

  And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of the three.