CHAPTER III.
It became evident very soon after Miss Rhoda Daye’s appearance inCalcutta that she was not precisely like the other young ladies insailor hats and cambric blouses who arrived at the same time. For onesuperficial thing, anybody could see that she had less colour; and thisher mother mourned openly—a girl depended so entirely for the firstseason on her colour. As other differences became obvious Mrs. Daye hadother regrets, one of them being that Rhoda had been permitted soabsolutely to fashion her own education. Mrs. Daye had not foreseen onetrivial result of this, which was that her daughter, believing herselfdevoid of any special talent, refused to ornament herself with anyspecial accomplishment. This, in Mrs. Daye’s opinion, was carryingself-depreciation and reverence for achievement and all that sort ofthing a great deal too far: a girl had no right to expect her parents topresent her to the world in a state of artistic nudity. It was not inthe nature of compensation that she understood the situation with theAmir and the ambitions of the National Congress; such things were almostunmentionable in Calcutta society. And it was certainly in the nature ofaggravation that she showed, after the first month of it, aninexplicable indifference to every social opportunity but that oflooking on. Miss Daye had an undoubted talent for looking on; and shewould often exercise it—mutely, motionlessly, half hidden behind apillar at a ball, or abandoned in a corner after dinner—until her motherwas mortified enough to take her home. Presently it appeared that shehad looked on sufficiently to know her ground. She made her valuation ofsociety; she picked out the half-dozen Anglo-Indian types; it may bepresumed that she classified her parents. She still looked on, but withless concentration: she began to talk. She developed a liking for thesociety of elderly gentlemen of eminence, and an abhorrence for that oftheir wives, which was considered of doubtful propriety, until the Headof the Foreign Office once congratulated himself openly upon sittingnext her at dinner. After which she was regarded with indulgence, it wassaid in corners that she must be clever, subalterns avoided her, and hermother, taking her cue unerringly, figuratively threw up her hands andasked Heaven why she of all people should be given a _fin-de-siècle_daughter.
Privately Mrs. Daye tried to make herself believe, in the manner ofthe Parisian playwright, that a _succès d’estime_ was infinitely to bepreferred to the plaudits of the mob. I need hardly say that she waswholly successful in doing so, when Mr. Lewis Ancram contributed tothe balance in favour of this opinion. Mr. Ancram was observing too:he observed in this case from shorter and shorter distances, andfinally allowed himself to be charmed by what he saw. Perhaps that isnot putting it quite strongly enough. He really encouraged himself tobe thus charmed. He was of those who find in the automatic monotony ofthe Indian social machine, with its unvarying individual—a machine, hewas fond of saying, the wheels of which are kept oiled with theessence of British Philistinism—a burden and a complaint. In London hewould have lived with one foot in Mayfair and the other in the Strand;and there had been times when he talked of the necessity of chaininghis ambition before his eyes to prevent his making the choice of acareer over again, though it must be said that this violent proceedingwas carried out rather as a solace to his defrauded capacity forculture than in view of any real danger. He had been accustomed totake the annually fresh young ladies in straw hats and cambric blouseswho appeared in the cold weather much as he took the inevitablefunctions at Government House—to be politely avoided, if possible; ifnot, to be submitted to with the grace which might be expected from aperson holding his office and drawing his emoluments. When he foundthat Rhoda Daye was likely to break up the surface of his blankindifference to evening parties he fostered the probability. Among allthe young ladies in sailor hats and cambric blouses he saw his singlechance for experience, interest, sensation; and he availed himself ofit with an accumulated energy which Miss Daye found stimulating enoughto induce her to exert herself, to a certain extent, reciprocally. Shewas not interested in the Hon. Mr. Lewis Ancram because of hisreputation: other men had reputations—reputations almost as big astheir paybills—who did not excite her imagination in the smallestdegree. It would be easy to multiply accounts upon which Mr. Ancramdid not interest Miss Daye, but it is not clear that any result wouldbe arrived at that way, and the fact remains that she was interested.From this quiet point—she was entirely aware of its advantage—shecontemplated Mr. Ancram’s gradual advance along the lines ofattraction with a feeling very like satisfaction. She had only tocontemplate it. Ancram contributed his own impetus, and reached thepoint where he believed his affections involved with an artistic shockwhich he had anticipated for weeks as quite divinely enjoyable. Shebehaved amusingly when they were engaged: she made a little comedy ofit, would be coaxed to no confessions and only one vow—that, as theywere to go through life together, she would try always to beagreeable. If she had private questionings and secret alarms, she hidthem with intrepidity; and if it seemed to her to be anythingridiculous that the wayward god should present himself behind thecareful countenance and the well-starched shirt-front of earlymiddle-age, holding an eyeglass in attenuated fingers, and mutelyimplying that he had been bored for years, she did not betray herimpression. The thrall of their engagement made no change in her; shecontinued to be the same demure, slender creature, who said unexpectedthings, that she had been before. That he had covetable new privilegesdid not seem to make much difference; her chief value was still thatof a clever acquaintance. She would grow more expensive in time, hethought vaguely; but several months had passed, as we have seen,without this result. On the other hand, there had been occasions whenhe fancied that she deliberately disassociated herself from him inthat favourite pursuit of observation, in order to obtain a point ofview which should command certain intellectual privacies of his. Hewondered whether she would take this liberty with greater freedom whenthey were one and indivisible; and, while he felt it absurd to object,he wished she would be a little more communicative about what she saw.
They were to be married in March, when Ancram would take a year’sfurlough, and she would help him to lave his stiffened powers ofartistic enjoyment in the beauties of the Parthenon and the inspirationsof the Viennese galleries and the charms of Como and Maggiore. Theytalked a great deal of the satisfaction they expected to realise in thisway. They went over it in detail, realising again and again that it mustrepresent to him compensation for years of aridity and to her a storeagainst the future likely to be drawn upon largely. Besides, it was atopic upon which they were quite sure of finding mutual understanding,even mutual congratulation—an excellent topic.
Meanwhile Ancram lived with Philip Doyle in Hungerford Street under theordinary circumstances which govern Calcutta bachelors. Doyle was abarrister. He stood, in Calcutta, upon his ability and hisindividuality, and as these had been observed to place him in familiarrelations with Heads of Departments, it may be gathered that they gavehim a sufficient elevation. People called him a “strong” man because herefused their invitations to dinner, but the statement might have had amore intelligent basis and been equally true. It would have surprisedhim immensely if he could have weighed the value of his own opinions, orobserved the trouble which men who appropriated them took to give them atinge of originality. He was a survival of an older school,certainly—people were right in saying that. He had preserved acourtliness of manner and a sincerity of behaviour which suggested anAnglo-India that is mostly lying under pillars and pyramids in rankCalcutta cemeteries now. He was hospitable and select—so much of boththat he often experienced ridiculous annoyance at having asked men todinner who were essentially unpalatable to him. His sensitiveness toqualities in personal contact was so great as to be a conspicuousindication, to the discerning eye, of Lewis Ancram’s unbounded tact.
Circumstances had thrown the men under one roof, and even if the youngerof them had not made himself so thoroughly agreeable, it would have beendifficult to alter the arrangement.
It could never be said of Lewis Ancram that he did not ch
oose hisfriends with taste, and in this case his discrimination had a foundationof respect which he was in the habit of freely mentioning. Hisadmiration of Doyle was generous and frank, so generous and frank thatone might have suspected a virtue in the expression of it.Notwithstanding this implication, it was entirely sincere, though hewould occasionally qualify it.
“I often tell Doyle,” he said once to Rhoda, “that his independence ispurely a matter of circumstance. If he had the official yoke upon hisneck he would kow-tow like the rest of us.”
“I don’t believe that,” she answered quickly.
“Ah well, now that I think of it I don’t particularly believe it myself.Doyle’s the salt of the earth anyhow. He makes it just possible forofficials like myself to swallow officialdom.”
“Did it ever occur to you,” she asked slowly, “to wonder what he thinksof you?”
“Oh, I daresay he likes me well enough. Irishmen never go in foranalysing their friends. At all events we live together, and there areno rows.”
They were driving, and the dogcart flew past the ships along theStrand—Ancram liked a fast horse—for a few minutes in silence. Then shehad another question.
“Have you succeeded in persuading Mr. Doyle to—what do the newspaperssay?—support you at the altar, yet?”
“No, confound him. He says it would be preposterous at his age—he’s nota year older than I am! I wonder if he expects me to ask Baby Bramble,or one of those little boys in the Buffs! Anyway it won’t be Doyle, forhe goes to England, end of February—to get out of it, I believe.”
“I’m not sorry,” Rhoda answered; but it would have been difficult forher to explain, at the moment, why she was not sorry.