CHAPTER XXI
"THINK IT OVER"
The Reverend Arthur Eliot, "Padre Eliot," as his people called him, was a notable figure in society, an active, well-built man of six or seven and thirty, with a square, clean-shaven face and an exceedingly sweet smile. He never preached longer than fifteen minutes, he was an admirable bowler, played a hard set of tennis and sang a good song. All this went far to account for his popularity. He was also unmarried—though this in India is unimportant—but, more than all, he was a fearless, outspoken pastor, whose example and works did far more good amongst his flock, especially the young men, than constant services and ornate ritual.
He worked indefatigably among the soldiers and Eurasians, their wives and children, and strove to provide occupation and amusement for them all, fully endorsing Dr. Watt's opinion respecting "Satan and idle hands." In sickness and in health it was the Padre they all turned to, and many a poor soul had leaned on his arm, as it groped its way to another world. He lived plainly and simply in a little cheap bungalow, and was a near neighbour to Major Gascoigne, between whom and himself there existed a most cordial friendship. The Padre was such a busy man that Gascoigne knew, the instant he saw him, that only important business had brought him to call in the golden hours of the morning.
"Hullo, Gascoigne," he said cheerily, as he entered, "I am glad to see you back."
"Yes, thank you, only arrived last night. I've had a tremendously big job up the hills—they all seemed determined to run down into the plains; I never remember such rains," and he threw himself into a chair, and tossed his cap on the table.
"And now you are home for good," said the Padre, and his face took a more serious expression, as he sat erect and crumpled his terai hat in his vigorous hands.
"Look here, Gascoigne," he continued with an effort, "I've come to have a good square jaw with you, about something that will be disagreeable, but you know it's the Padre's duty to stand in the forefront, when talking has to be done."
"I know," assented his companion. "I suppose you want me to take back Johnson, the overseer—I honestly would if I could—I'm sorry for his family—I've given him two chances."
"My dear fellow," interrupted the chaplain, stretching out his hand, "it is not that at all. I've come to speak to you about Miss Gascoigne, your ward."
"What about Miss Gascoigne?" inquired her cousin. His manner stiffened, and his voice assumed an Arctic coolness.
"I suppose you know how a station gossips—in the billiard-room, barracks, and bazaar?"
"I suppose I do," he said contemptuously.
"Have you any notion of the talk there has been respecting Miss Gascoigne?"
"Every new-comer has to pass through that ordeal—by tongue," interrupted the other man with a gesture of impatience.
"Please allow me to finish," protested his friend gravely. "Of course you are not likely to hear a breath—no one would venture to tell you; but the air is thick with rumours concerning your cousin and yourself."
"And where do I come in?" he asked sharply, "in what character?"
"The usual character a man assumes when a very pretty woman is in question—the rôle of lover."
Gascoigne kicked over a footstool, and rose to his feet. He had grown suddenly white.
"Who dares to couple our names in that way?" he asked hoarsely. The veins in his temples swelled, and his eyes flashed.
"Most people," was the staggering reply; "you see, you and she were alone at your forest bungalow. Mrs. Flant has been drawing a highly-coloured picture of your ménage—she has thrown out hints."
"To which no one who knows her will listen," broke in Gascoigne.
"Oh, yes, I regret to say, that there is a large class who like to hear ill-doings attributed to others—especially when those others have been sans peur, and sans reproche."
Gascoigne stared at the Padre for some seconds. At last he spoke. "I'll tell you the plain facts, Eliot. Ten years ago I adopted my little cousin, and took over the charge from her dying mother. I sent the child to England and educated her; latterly her grandmother has given her a home. They have had a violent quarrel, and the impulsive girl came straight off to me. She arrived exactly two hours before Mrs. Flant and her sister. I need scarcely say that her unexpected descent embarrassed me a good deal. That's the whole affair—I know it is unnecessary to explain myself to you"——
"Quite," was the laconic reply, "but you are in an awkward position, as guardian to a young lady; and one of such a remarkable and out of the common character. When you accepted the post she was a child—now you have a beautiful woman on your hands. You are a young man, and unmarried. This gives the enemy occasion to blaspheme."
Gascoigne muttered something which is absolutely unsuitable for print. Aloud he said, "I wish I were seventy years of age. I suppose that would shut people's mouths?"
"It would simplify matters, certainly," acquiesced the Padre. "Miss Gascoigne did an extraordinarily foolish thing when she rushed out to India and hurled herself into your charge. She never realised the gravity of the step she was taking. I gather that she is a girl to act first, and then to sit down and think? In the present instance she will have to sit down and repent in sackcloth and ashes for the injury she has done to herself—and you."
"Oh, never mind me," broke in his companion impatiently, "what is to be done about her? I cannot offer her a home here—I cannot leave her with the Gordons—I have promised not to send her back to England—what am I to do?" and Gascoigne, who had been pacing the room with his hands behind his back, suddenly came to a halt, directly in front of his pastor.
"Why cannot you have her to live here?" asked Mr. Eliot, gravely.
"Why?" echoed the other man, "good Lord—is not your visit a plain answer to the question? If people are such brutes as to make a scandal out of—"
Mr. Eliot extended his hand with a gesture of deprecation.
"Oh, then, go on," said Gascoigne impatiently; "tell me what I can do? Say the word."
"You can—marry her," was the totally unexpected answer.
Gascoigne's reply was equally astonishing; it took the form of a long pause, and then a loud derisive laugh. "I—marry Angel!" he cried at last. "Excuse me, but the idea is too absurd."
"I fail to see anything ridiculous about it," rejoined the Padre. "I think it would be a capital match. You are a man in the prime of life, she is a charming girl—is there any just cause or impediment?"
"Twenty."
"Give me one, then," he asked impatiently.
"She is a mere child."
"No; she is a grown-up woman."
"We—would be a most incongruous couple, a butterfly, and a black working ant."
"I cannot see that."
"Besides, Angel is not to be disposed of in such a summary fashion; she would laugh at the bare idea."
"Is she not well disposed to you?" and Padre Eliot eyed him searchingly.
"Oh, yes; as a child she was extremely fond of me."
"'On revient toujours a ses premiers amours,'" quoted his visitor with significance.
"Eliot, you are a clever fellow, and my friend," said Gascoigne, suddenly, "but you are neither going to talk me, or quote me, into matrimony. I have never—that is to say, not for years—thought of marrying."
"Then it is time you did," rejoined his visitor, with decision. "It is a great mistake for a man to put off marrying too long; marriage is an honourable estate. It is not good for man to live alone."
"Well, I find the estate extremely comfortable. There was peace in Eden till Eve appeared, and I, too, can quote scripture, 'Physician, heal thyself.'"
"Yes, I thought you knew," and Mr. Eliot's face grew grave; "I've had my romance—she died."
Gascoigne did not reply.
"I've had my romance—she jilted me," he merely said.
"I did not know."
"Pardon me, I'm sorry for you; but marriage would change the whole current of my life."
"And make it deeper and broader and more unselfish," suggested his visitor.
"I never realised that I was selfish—I expect I am! I like my own way, my own pursuits, my own friends. I would be selfish, indeed, if I brought a gay young life to share my fossilised routine. Eliot," he continued, still more forcibly, "speaking as man to man, surely there is some way of escape from this situation? Help me, for my mind is not fruitful in devices. I am thinking of Angel, not of myself. Is she to be compelled to marry a man she has always looked on as a sort of uncle, simply because a wicked woman has started an infernal scandal? What is your opinion?"
"You have already had it," now rising. "I have told you what I came here to say. Scandal is hard to stifle, even when it has not a tittle of foundation—evil minds continue to repeat. 'There is no smoke without a fire.' I believe there is no fire, nothing but the cold, wet sticks of early companionship. I say, that I know you to be a good fellow, Gascoigne; Miss Angel is a beautiful, high-spirited, warm-hearted girl. Accept what fate sends you—marry her if you can, and be thankful."
"That is your last word?"
"Yes; I say no more. Think it over, my dear fellow," and here he laid his hand affectionately on the shoulder of his friend; "you might see Mrs. Gordon. Women are instinctively clever and quick-witted in these affairs. Think it over," and with this injunction Mr. Eliot put his terai hat on his head, and hastily took his departure.
For some time after the Padre had left him, Major Gascoigne remained sitting in a chair, mentally benumbed. By-and-by he roused himself with an effort, and set all his wits to work upon the subject so brusquely brought to his knowledge. The more he reviewed the question, the less he liked it. He knew how a breath of gossip can tarnish a stainless name, whether at home or abroad; how no amount of rubbing will remove the speck of rust which eats it away. Poor Eliot, he was sorry he had raked up a dead memory. Eliot was too emotional, too sensitive about his flock, very easily frightened—and all parsons were match-makers. There must be some way out of the wood. He would change his clothes at once, swallow some breakfast, and ride over and talk the thing out with Mrs. Gordon. She was generally sewing or writing all the morning in the north verandah. Then he suddenly recalled the fact that his hostess had seemed a little grave and preoccupied the previous evening; that once or twice he had caught her gazing at him with a mysterious expression—that once or twice she had been about to say something to him during the morning ride, and paused; and that she had given him an unusually pressing invitation to "come over soon—and tell her all the news."
Major Gascoigne was perfectly correct in his surmise. As he walked up to the north verandah, Mrs. Gordon rose, and held out her hand; in the other were several letters.
"Do come and sit down," she said. "You are the very person I was thinking about, and particularly wish to see." As she concluded she held up a letter, and said: "This is all about you."
"Then it is bound to be stupid," he rejoined, heaving a dog out of a chair, and taking its place. "I've come over to have a talk with you—great wits, you see, jump together; but, bar all jokes, I shall be glad if your wit will clear up a puzzle for me."
Mrs. Gordon looked at him inquiringly, and faintly coloured as she said:
"You have had a visit from Mr. Eliot, good, brave man."
"Good, yes; but there was no particular question of courage," said Major Gascoigne, rather sharply. "Did you fear I would knock him down, or shoot him?" and his tone was sarcastic.
"I'm thinking of moral courage," she answered quickly. "It required a certain amount to go and beard you—and tell you—that you had been tried by the tribunal of the station and sentenced to—marry——"
"Angel," he supplemented, half under his breath.
"Yes, it appears that Mrs. Flant has been assiduously spreading reports," continued his companion, "and nothing will appease Mrs. Grundy—short of—your marriage."
"And is it not shameful?" he broke out, with a ring of passion in his voice, "that I should have to marry that poor child, in order to shut Mrs. Flant's mouth?"
"To shut everyone's mouth," corrected Mrs. Gordon; "even Donald says it is desirable. Mrs. Flant has the pen of a ready writer, as well as hosts of correspondents—she has a hideous mind, and, you see, you were promoted over her brother's head."
"Simply because he was incompetent. An unmitigated duffer—his work was notorious. I'm still patching and repairing and destroying."
"I always thought it was a hazardous experiment, your taking charge of Angel," observed Mrs. Gordon, as she meditatively surveyed her visitor.
What a handsome fellow he was! with his sun-bronzed, clear-cut face—at present clouded with gloom. What an excellent husband he would make; it was a pity he was unmarried, and only (she secretly felt assured) some extraordinarily tidal wave of circumstance such as the present, would ever sweep him into the net matrimonial. He would be so much happier with a wife. And Angel? With a woman's instinctive knowledge of another, Mrs. Gordon knew that Angel—beautiful, bewitching, fascinating Angel—loved no one as she did this good-looking, dark-eyed cousin, who lay back in his chair with his hands locked behind his head, his gaze riveted on his well-cut riding boots, and an expression of tragic protestation on his countenance.
Angel was not in love yet. She loved him (there is a difference)—she loved him as the champion of her childhood, the bond between her and her mother, her ideal, champion, and friend. This love was well hidden away from all unsympathetic eyes, for Angel had made no foolish boast, when she had declared that she would conceal her feelings, but the love, a rare, strong, pure love, was there.
Once or twice it had peeped out timidly, and Mrs. Gordon had seen it. She was a born match-maker; of her matches she was inordinately proud, and generally with good reason. She felt that she had contributed to the happiness of many, and that, just at the critical moment, she had supplied the little look, or hint, or word, that brought the whole story to a happy ending.
As she sat with her eyes fastened reflectively on her visitor, she rapidly made up her mind that he should marry Angel. The "talk" would eventually blow over; in fact, if she were to dress herself up as a Japanese, or a negress, and go to the club, the talk would instantly be diverted to herself. So much for talk! Here was a tide in Philip's affairs and Angel's, and she resolved to take it at the flood.
"I think you and Angel would be an ideal couple," she said. "I'm sure you would make her happy."
"What!" he exclaimed, struggling back out of a day dream; "you are not in earnest?"
"You would be April and July."
"No, but a March hare, and a Michaelmas goose," he retorted, scornfully. "I'm much too old for her."
Mrs. Gordon made no effort to combat this statement—her husband was seventeen years her senior. Was not her bleak married life an awful warning to other girls?
"She would have someone to lean on," she resumed; "someone to guide her."
"I'm not sure that she'd care about that," her visitor protested, with a short laugh.
"She always—liked you—she likes you still. The king can do no wrong," she urged, insistently.
"He would do her a great wrong if he asked her to be his queen to silence lying tongues. A gay young fellow of five-and-twenty, who dances well and is a good polo player, is far more in Angel's line that I am—even supposing she would have me—which she would not." Here Mrs. Gordon made a gesture of dissent. "I'm too settled in my ways. After a man passes the twenties, and gets on into the thirties without marrying, he does not want a wife—she's a sort of extra."
"What heresy," cried his listener, indignantly.
"Besides, you know, I—was once—in love with another girl."
"Oh, yes; but that was twelve years ago," said his listener, quickly; "she is no girl now. You cannot pretend you have not got over that. We all know that men's hearts, like crabs' claws, grow again."
"What heresy," he repeated, with a laugh; "but, come, Mrs. Gordon, let us be serious. Surely you can suggest some nice retired family in a hill station who would receive Angel? I'll allow her four hundred a year—a family with girls preferred."
"No," she replied; "for although Mrs. Flant's hints are abominable falsehoods, her lie has had three weeks' start. Whilst you have been absent it has been travelling rapidly, and growing like a snowball. How are you to overtake it? and what family of girls would receive a young woman—with a—story?" The lady's methods were cruel, but it was all for the good of the subject, and his ultimate happiness; the end justified the means. "Angela's name has been bandied about; you must change it from Miss to Mrs."
"I'll be——" he began, and pulled himself up. "I shall go straight off to Mrs. Flant, and cram her words down her throat, and make her eat them. If she were a man, I declare, I would flog her. What is her tale?"
"Merely a hill idyll—which she discovered one stormy evening."
"But Angel came out in the Arabia; she had only the start of Mrs. Flant by about one hundred moments, and there are two hundred witnesses to prove it."
"True, but if you make a stir, you stir up mud," was Mrs. Gordon's damping rejoinder. "You will make matters worse. At present, talk is confined within a certain limited radius; surely you don't wish Angel to be the talk of India?"
Here came Angel running, in a flowing, white gown, with a note in her hand. She was accompanied by two frolicking puppies, and looked like the spirit of youth.
"Good morning again, Philip," she said; then glancing at her friend, she continued, "I declare, you two are like a couple of conspirators—where is the dark lantern? Who is to be the victim?"
"You are," was Mrs. Gordon's unexpected reply. "We are meditating carrying you off into camp for six weeks."
"How delightful—there's nothing I shall enjoy so much. Are you going to invite Philip?" glancing at him.
"I don't think I can get away," he stammered—"at least, not for more than a couple of days at a time."
"I always had an idea that there was next to no work in India; that it was all racing and polo, and dancing and flirting."
"Well, my dear child, you see you were wrong," said Mrs. Gordon. "Who is the note from, my dear?"
"Only a line from Miss Lennox, to say that she and her sister regret that they cannot come over to have a game of tennis this evening—such a funny stiff little note," and she tendered it to her hostess between two fingers, whilst Mrs. Gordon's and Major Gascoigne's eyes met in a glance of quick significance.
As Major Gascoigne was walking home across the parade-ground, a pony-carriage and pair of fat Pegu ponies drew up on the road, and awaited him. Then a lady's head was poked out from under the hood, and a smiling face, crowned by an Ellwood helmet, said:
"So pleased to see you back again."
"Thank you, Mrs. Wiggins," he rejoined.
"I want to be the first to congratulate you on your beautiful cousin—she is lovely—everyone is talking of her, and no wonder. And when is it to be?"
"When is—what to be?" he asked stiffly.
"Oh, come, come, you need not play the ostrich with me," and with a laugh and a flip at her ponies, the lady rattled rapidly away, and subsequently bragged of her encounter.
Angel's guardian frequently visited to the Commissioner's bungalow. He came to dine, to early tea, to ride, to accompany Angel and Mrs. Gordon to church or the band. Angel was radiantly happy, and, thanks to her friend's precautions, totally unconscious of the net which was closing round herself and Philip. Mrs. Gordon was merely an interested looker-on, she saw both sides of the drama, she was both before and behind the scenes. On one side there was Major Gascoigne, restrained, reserved, reluctant, and yet who could resist the charm of the daily companionship of the delightful girl who was his ward? There was Angel, whose whole mind seemed to be centred in the wish to please Philip—and to wonder what he thought of her?
Public opinion was favourable to the marriage—public opinion was strong. Those who envied Major Gascoigne his careless bachelor life, those who resented his lack of reciprocity, those mothers whom he had disappointed, all desired to hurry him to the altar.
He could resist, but he had decided not to resist, for, after all, Angel was the most beautiful and charming girl he knew. She was unspoiled, he believed that she cared for him, and that he could make her happy.
Under these reassuring reflections, he decided to accept his fate—Angel. It was not a hard fate, a fate much envied of many, and particularly—of all people—by Shafto. It was true that he had spoken of marriage as a mere "episode" in a man's life—he trusted the opinion would never reach Angel's ears. He was not madly, wildly, in love, no—but he thought he would be lucky if she became his wife.
He would prefer to remain unmarried for the next ten years, and carve out his career unweighted with an encumbrance. Truly, these were very cold-blooded ideas to be harboured by the lover of a bewitching beauty of nineteen. On the other hand, when he became grey, and stiff in the joints, and the meridian of life and its glories had waned, he would be nothing but a lonely, leather-faced veteran, with not a soul belonging to him, and with no one to whom he could leave his money, except Angel's children. Again the charm of his independent life rose into his vision, his happy, quiet hours, his beloved book, his absorbing interest for his work. Must this all be relinquished? Was it true, as a comrade had declared, that his heart was composed of an entrenchment tool? Swayed this way, and that, Philip was ashamed of his vacillation.
For once he found himself in strange conflict with his own character. The faculty of promptly making up his mind—what had become of it? Fresh from the charm of Angel's voice and manner, he determined to speak the very next day.
But when the morning came, the cool, clear morning, it brought counsel, it brought a multitude of papers that absorbed all his thoughts and time. After several hours of this detachment, his mind returned to the attitude of indecision, his ideas were again readjusted.
Whilst Philip was thus balancing his feeling and weighing the pros and cons, the Gordons went away into camp, for the Commissioner's usual cold weather tour, and they took Angel with them.