Star of India. Alice Perrin
Are you tired?"
"Tired? Certainly not! It would take rather more than a walk across a common to tire me!" He stepped out with vigour.
"What long strides you are taking. Hadn't we better have a race while we are about it? See that oak tree over there—at the edge of the wood? I bet you I'll get there first. One, two, three—off!"
And the Commissioner of Rassih, who could still hold his own at tennis and rackets, accepted the challenge. The race ended in a dead heat.
Stella flung herself down beneath the oak tree, and Colonel Crayfield took a seat, formed by the roots, beside her. The fact that he was scarcely out of breath pleased him.
"Anyway, you can run!" pronounced Stella.
"Why not?" he demanded.
"Oh, I don't know." She was politely evasive; it would hardly do to explain that such agility in anyone of his age and bulk had surprised her, and she hastened to change the subject. "Now, do let us talk about India"—she looked up at him with eager, bright eyes—"you don't know how I long to see India. I suppose it's in my blood; all the Carringtons did things in India, and if I had been a boy I should have gone out to do things, too. I am the last young Carrington left—and I am only a girl!"
Colonel Crayfield took off his hat and ran his fingers through his thick, grey hair; he was proud of its thickness; most men of his age in India were hopelessly bald.
"India isn't what it was; the spirit of romance and adventure has gone, the pagoda tree is dead, prices are rising, and exchange is falling——"
"But haven't you lovely big houses?" interrupted Stella, "and heaps of servants and horses, and the sun and gardens and fruit? What is your bungalow like in India?"
He checked his inclination to grumble. "It isn't a bungalow. It's part of a Moghul fort, built on the walls of the old city; the wall goes right round the compound; a compound is——"
"Yes, I know what compound means! I know compound, and tiffin, and chuprassee, and peg, and lots of words. I find them in all the old family letters put away in the lumber room. Do go on!"
"Well, I believe the city in the old days used to come close up to the wall, but it has gradually been moved farther away. The back of the house looks on to a desert that stretches for miles——"
"Is it a big station?"
"No; it's a small civil station; too small considering that it's the headquarters of a big charge."
"It must be ripping to feel you are ruling, governing all the time! Don't you love power—spelt with a capital P?"
"Who doesn't? But there are definite drawbacks as well as compensations in Indian service."
She sighed. "I shall never see the country; never feel the Indian sun, or smell an Indian bazaar. I shall never hear a tom-tom or the frogs' chorus in the rains, or even see a snake, except in the Zoo or in a bottle!"
Colonel Crayfield gazed at the child in astonishment. He guessed nothing of the grip that the old letters and memoirs, stored in the lumber room, had on her imagination; he had no conception of the strength of hereditary memory, of the spell bequeathed by a long line of forbears whose lives had been spent in the East, whose hearts and minds and souls had been bound up with India—their mighty relentless mistress. He met, in puzzled silence, the frank gaze of the lovely limpid eyes that stirred his blood, tempting him in all opposition to his reason and foresight; yet, just as his activity in the race to the oak tree had pleased him, flattered his pride in his physical preservation, so did this amorous thrill.
Stella looked away, disconcerted; something in his expression reminded her of his first glance on the platform the previous afternoon; she did not understand it, and it made her vaguely uneasy. She rose, brushing her skirt, uttering hasty little remarks—it was getting late, they ought to go back, breakfast would be ready, look at the sun!
Yes, the sun by now was well up in the sky; a hot summer sun that sucked the dew from foliage and turf, creating a mist, like smoke, dispensing strong perfumes of earth, promising great heat for the day. To the man whose youth lay behind him, it strengthened his ardour, tempting him to take possession of this exquisite child by means of her mania for India, her boredom with her present life and surroundings. Then, suddenly, he remembered that his mission to The Chestnuts was to administer reproof; to give profitable advice! As they re-started across the common he said abruptly: "You know why I have come to The Chestnuts?"
The girl flushed. "Yes," she said reluctantly; here it was at last, the lecture, the blame, just when she had almost forgotten. It was beastly of her godfather. "Need we talk about it now?"
"We shall have to talk about it some time, I suppose." His tone reassured her; it sounded as if, after all, he was rather more on her side than on that of grandmamma and the aunts. Still she felt suspicious.
"What did you do, exactly?"
"Well, I made eyes at an awful young man when we were out for a walk in the town," she blushed deeper at the recollection; "it was just to see what would happen more than anything else—like pulling a dog's tail. Oh! I can't explain. Nobody will ever understand——"
"And what did happen?"
With difficulty she told him, and awaited his censure. To her astonished relief he said: "Bad luck! You see the wicked don't always prosper!"
"But was I so wicked?" she asked defensively. "A girl I know told me she had done the same kind of thing often; she didn't think it was so dreadful. It seems to me an awful fuss about very little, and I don't know why you should have been bothered, even though you are my godfather. What shall you advise them to do?"
"At present," he said cryptically, "I am not quite sure."
She glanced at him half-alarmed. He laughed. "How would you like it if I advised them to send you out to India?"
Stella gasped. "Oh! would you? But how? As a missionary, a companion, a governess—what?"
Again he laughed. "As a companion, perhaps. I'm afraid you would not be much good as a missionary or a governess. What do you think yourself?"
"I shouldn't care. I'd do anything to get to India."
"Well, we shall see. Don't be too hopeful," he looked at his watch. "What time is breakfast?"
"Half-past eight—prayers first."
"Then step out!" Enough had been said for the moment.
"Oh! dear," complained Stella, "what a bother things are; you are as bad as Aunt Augusta about being in time. Why don't you marry Aunt Augusta?"
"She mightn't appreciate India," he said with a grin.
Grandmamma seldom came down to breakfast. Augusta read prayers, fiercely, glaring at her congregation as though to remind them of their unworthiness. Ellen kept her eyes shut and responded with fervent contrition. Neither sister was as yet aware of the guest's early expedition with their niece, and, as Stella made no mention of it during the meal, Colonel Crayfield preserved a discreet silence on the subject. There was a letter for Stella on the breakfast table. The aunts eyed her with suspicion as she read it and then hastily consigned it to her pocket. The letter was from Maud Verrall; it contained wonderful news:
"My dear, what do you think? I am engaged to be married in spite of all my resolutions not to commit myself in a hurry. No, it is not poor Fred Glossop, who is wild with despair, but a Captain Matthews in the Indian Cavalry. He is a positive picture, if you like; rather in the style of the riding-master I told you about, but much, much handsomer. My people aren't pleased, but that only adds to the excitement. There is nothing they can object to definitely; he has a little money of his own, and isn't badly connected. Of course, they expected me to choose a lord, or a baronet at least; but I am very unworldly. I am awfully happy, and frightfully in love. I am sure I shall enjoy myself hugely in India. Don't you wish you were me?"
Stella groaned over this letter in the