CHAPTER XVIII.
“It was all very well for _him_, poor man, to want to be buried in thathole-and-corner kind of way—where he fell, I suppose, doing his duty:very simple and proper, I’m sure; and I should have felt just the sameabout it in his place—but on _her_ account he ought to have made itpossible for them to have taken him back to Calcutta and given him apublic funeral.”
Mrs. Daye spoke feelingly, gently tapping her egg. Mrs. Daye never couldinduce herself to cut off the top of an egg with one fell blow; shealways tapped it, tenderly, first.
“It would have been something!” she continued. “Poor dear thing! I _was_so fond of Mrs. Church.”
“I see they have started subscriptions to give him a memorial of sorts,”remarked her husband from behind his newspaper. “But whether it’s to beput in Bhugsi or in Calcutta doesn’t seem to be arranged.”
“Oh, in Calcutta, of course! They won’t get fifty rupees if it’s to beput up at Bhugsi. _Nobody_ would subscribe!”
“Is there room?” asked Miss Daye meekly, from the other side of thetable. “The illustrious are already so numerous on the Maidan. Is thereno danger of overcrowding?”
“How ridiculous you are, Rhoda! You’ll subscribe, Richard, of course?Considering how _very_ kind they’ve been to us I should say—what do youthink?—a hundred rupees.” Mrs. Daye buttered her toast with knittedbrows.
“We’ll see. Hello! Spence is coming out again. ‘By special arrangementwith the India Office.’ He’s fairly well now, it seems, and willing tosacrifice the rest of his leave ‘rather than put Government to theinconvenience of another possible change of policy in Bengal.’ _That_means,” Colonel Daye continued, putting down the Calcutta paper andtaking up his coffee-cup, “that Spence has got his orders from DowningStreet, and is being packed back to reverse this College Grantsbusiness. But old Hawkins won’t have much of a show, will he? Spencewill be out in three weeks.”
“I’m very pleased,” Mrs. Daye remarked vigorously. “Mrs. Hawkins was badenough in the Board of Revenue; she’d be un_bear_able at Belvedere. AndMrs. Church was so _per_fectly unaffected. But I don’t think we would bequite justified in giving a hundred, Richard—seventy-five would beample.”
“One would think, mummie, that the hat was going round for Mrs. Church,”said her daughter.
“Hats have gone round for less deserving persons,” Colonel Dayeremarked, “and in cases where there was less need of them, too. St.George writes me that there was no insurances, and not a penny saved.Church has always been obliged to do so much for his people. The widow’sincome will be precisely her three hundred a year of pension, and nomore—bread and butter, but no jam.”
“Talking of jam,” said Mrs. Daye, with an effect of pathos, “if youhaven’t eaten it all, Richard, I should like some. Poor dear thing! Andif she marries again, she loses even that, doesn’t she? Oh, no, shedoesn’t, either: there was that Madras woman that had three husbands andthree pensions; they came altogether to nine hundred a year in the end.Of course, money is out of the question; but a little offering ofsomething useful—made in a friendly way—she might even be grateful for.I am thinking of sending her a little something.”
“What, mummie?” Rhoda demanded, with suspicion.
“That long black cloak I got when we all had to go into mourning foryour poor dear grandmother, Rhoda. I’ve hardly worn it at all. Ofcourse, it would require a little alteration, but——”
“_Mummie!_ How beastly of you! You must not _dream_ of doing it.”
“It’s fur-lined,” said Mrs. Daye, with an injured inflection. “Besides,she isn’t the wife of the L.G. _now_, you know.”
“Papa——”
“What? Oh, certainly not! Ridiculous! Besides, you’re too late with yoursecond-hand souvenir, my dear. St. George says that Mrs. Church sailsto-day from Calcutta. Awfully cut up, poor woman, he says. Wouldn’t goback to Belvedere; wouldn’t see a soul: went to a boarding-house andshut herself up in two rooms.”
“How un_kind_ you are about news, Richard! Fancy your not telling usthat before! And I think you and Rhoda are _quite_ wrong about thecloak. If _you_ had died suddenly of cholera in a a dâk-bungalow in thewilds and _I_ was left with next to nothing, I would accept littlepresents from friends in the spirit in which they were offered, nomatter _what_ my position had been!”
“I daresay you would, my dear. But if I—hello! Exchange is going upagain—if I catch you wearing cast-off mourning for me, I’ll come andhang around until you burn it. By the way, I saw Doyle last night at theClub.”
“The barrister? Did you speak to him?” asked Mrs. Daye.
“Yes. ‘Hello!’ I said: ‘thought you were on leave. What in the worldbrings you up here?’ Seems that Pattore telegraphed askin’ Doyle todefend him in this big diamond case with Ezra, and he came out. ‘Well,’I said, ‘Pattore’s in Calcutta, Ezra’s in Calcutta, diamond’s inCalcutta, an’ you’re in Darjiling. When I’m sued for two lakhs over astone to dangle on my tummy I won’t retain you!’”
“And what did Mr. Doyle say to that, papa?” his daughter inquired.
“Oh—I don’t remember. Something about never having seen the place beforeor something. Here, khansamah—cheroot!”
The man brought a box and lighted a match, which he presently applied toone end of the cigar while his master pulled at the other.
“Well,” said Mrs. Daye, thoughtfully dabbling in her finger-bowl, “aboutthis statue or whatever it is to Mr. Church—if it were a mere questionof inclination—but as things are, Richard, I really don’t think we canafford more than fifty. It isn’t as if it could do the poor man anygood. Where are you going, Rhoda? Wait a minute.”
Mrs. Daye followed her daughter out of the room, shutting the doorbehind her, and put an impressive hand upon Rhoda’s arm at the foot ofthe staircase.
“My dear child,” she said, with a note of candid compassion, “what doyou think has happened? Your father and I were discussing it as you camedown, but I said ‘Not a word before Rhoda!’ They have made Lewis AncramChief Commissioner of Assam!”
The colour came back into the girl’s face with a rush, and theexcitement went out of her eyes.
“Good heavens, mummie, how you—— Why shouldn’t they? Isn’t he a properperson?”
“Very much so. _That_ has nothing to do with it. Think of it, Rhoda—aChief Commissioner, at his age! And you _can’t_ say I didn’t prophesyit. _The_ rising man in the Civil Service I always told you he was.”
“And I never contradicted you, mummie dear! My own opinion is that whenAbdur Rahman dies they’ll make him Amir!” Rhoda laughed a gay,irresponsible laugh, and tripped on upstairs with singular lightness ofstep. Mrs. Daye, leaning upon the end of the banister, followed her withreproachful eyes.
“You seem to take it very lightly, Rhoda, but I must say it serves youperfectly right for having thrown the poor man over in that disgracefulway. Girls who behave like that are generally sorry for it later. I knewof a chit here in Darjiling that jilted a man in the Staff Corps and ranaway with a tea-planter. The man will be the next Commander-in-Chief ofthe Indian Army, everybody says, and I hope she likes her tea-planter.”
“Mummie!” Rhoda called down confidentially from the landing.
“Well?”
“Put your head in a bag, mummie. I’m going out. Shall I bring you somechocolates or some nougat or anything?”
“I shall tell your father to whip you. Yes, chocolates if they’refresh—_insist_ upon that. Those crumbly Neapolitan ones, insilver-and-gold paper.”
“All right. And mummie!”
“What?”
“Write and congratulate Mr. Ancram. Then he’ll know there’s noill-feeling!”
Which Mrs. Daye did.