Mr. Jervis, Vol. 1 (of 3)

“I suppose I must write, and say she may come. Personally, I shall be delighted to have her; but I’m afraid Granby will think a girl in the house rather a bore. Three is such an awkward number in India!”

“And sometimes in other places,” added a lady who sat on the fender-stool, blowing a great wood fire, with a preposterously small pair of bellows.

“You know what I mean, Milly,” retorted her companion, a handsome, indolent-looking woman, who reclined in an easy-chair, with an open letter in her lap. “Houses out here are only built for two, as a rule—especially in cantonments. A victoria or pony-cart holds but two, and two is a much more manageable number for dinners and tiffins. Still, I shall be glad to have a girl to chaperon; it will give me an object in life, and more interest in going out.”

“Could you take more?” asked the lady with the bellows, casting a sly smile over her shoulder.

“To be sure I could, you disagreeable little creature! When a woman is no longer quite young, and her days of romance are at an end, the hopes and prospects of a pretty companion give her another chance in the matrimonial lucky-bag—a chance at second-hand, but still sufficiently exciting. Alas! life after a certain age is like a bottle of flat soda-water.”

“I do not think so,” rejoined the lady with the bellows, stoutly.

“No; I should be surprised if you did. You are so sympathetic and energetic. You throw yourself heart and soul into Dorcas meetings, bazaars, nurse-tending, and other people’s joys or afflictions. Now, my sympathies and energies rarely extend beyond Granby and myself. I am becoming torpid. I can scarcely get up the steam for a ball; even the prospect of cutting out old Mother Brande fails to rouse me. However, when I have a charming niece to marry—and to marry well—things will assume a different aspect. How amusing it will be to eclipse the other girls and their scheming mothers; how gratifying to see all the best partis in the place grovelling at her feet! Her triumphs will be mine.” And Mrs. Langrishe slowly closed her heavy eyelids, and appeared—judging from her expression—to be wrapped in some beatific vision. From this delicious contemplation she was abruptly recalled by the prosaic question—

“How old is she?”

“Let me see—dear, dear me! Yes,” sitting erect and opening her fine eyes to their widest extent, “why, strictly between ourselves, she must be twenty-six. How time flies! She is my eldest brother’s daughter, one of a large family. Fanny, my sister in Calcutta, had her out eighteen months ago, and now she is obliged to go home, and wants to hand Lalla over to me.”

“I understand,” assented her listener, with a sagacious nod.

“Can you also understand, that, simply because Fanny and I have no children of our own, our people seem to expect us to provide for their olive-branches? I don’t quite see it myself, though I do send them my old dresses. Now let me read you my letter,” unfolding it as she spoke.

“Fanny is quite right,” said Mrs. Langrishe, with a slight tinge of contempt in her tone. “She is by no means clever—just an impulsive, good-natured goose, without a scrap of tact, and is taken in and imposed on on all sides. I won’t have the pony, that is positive, and gram ten seers for the rupee.”

“Then you have quite decided to take the young lady?” exclaimed her companion incredulously.

“Yes;” now leaning back and clasping two long white hands behind her head. “Pretty, amusing, accomplished, good-tempered—I don’t see how I can possibly say no this time, though hitherto I have steadily set my face against having out one of my nieces. I have always said it was so dreadfully unfair to Granby. However, this niece is actually stranded in the country, and it would look so odd if I declined; besides, I shall like to have her; we shall mutually benefit one another. She will amuse me—rejuvenate me; be useful in the house—arrange flowers, write notes, read to me, dust the ornaments, make coffee and salad, and do all sorts of little odd jobs, and ultimately cover me with glory by making the match of the season!”

“And on your part—what is to be your rôle?”

“I will give her a charming home; I will have all the best men here, and I will take her everywhere; give her, if necessary, a couple of smart new ball-dresses, and that too delicious opera-mantle that has grown too small for me.”

“Or you too large for it—which?” inquired Mrs. Sladen, with a slight elevation of her eyebrows.

“Milly, how odious you can be!”

“And about Major Langrishe?” continued Milly, unabashed.

“Oh, Granby will be all right; but I must write to Fanny by this post, and say that I shall be delighted to have Lalla. Pour out the tea like a good little creature, whilst I scribble a line; the dâk goes down at six.”

The other lady, who had kindled the fire and was now making tea, was not, as might be supposed, the mistress of the house, but merely an old friend who had dropped in for a chat this cold March afternoon. She was a slight, delicate-looking woman, with dark hair, dark eyes, and numerous lines on her thin, careworn face, though she was barely thirty. No one ever dreamt of calling Mrs. Sladen pretty, but most women voted her “a darling,” and all men “a little brick.” Married in her teens, before she knew her own mind (but when her relations had thoroughly made up theirs), to an elderly eligible, she had become, from the hour she left the altar, the slave of a selfish, irascible husband, whose mental horizon was bordered by two tables—the dinner-table and the card-table—and whose affections were entirely centred in his own portly person. Milly Fraser’s people were on the eve of quitting India; they were poor; they had a large and expensive family at home; otherwise they might have hesitated before giving their pretty Milly (she was pretty in those days) to a man more than double her age, notwithstanding that he was drawing good pay, and his widow would enjoy a pension. They would have discovered—had they made inquiries—that he was heavily in debt to the banks; that he could not keep a friend or a servant; and that, after all, poor young Hastings, of the staff-corps, whom they had so ruthlessly snubbed, would have made a more satisfactory son-in-law.

Mrs. Sladen had two little girls in England, whom her heart yearned over—little girls being brought up among strangers at a cheap suburban school. How often had her husband solemnly promised that “next year she should go home and see the children;” but, when the time came, he invariably hardened his heart, like Pharaoh, King of Egypt, and would not let her go. If she went, who was to manage the house and servants, and see after his dinner and his comforts? He was not going to be left in the hands of a khansamah! And, moreover, where was the money for her passage to come from? He had not a rupee to spare (for her).

Colonel Sladen was a shrewd man when his own interests were concerned. He was alive to the fact that he was not popular, but that things were made pleasant to him all round for the sake of the unfortunate lady whom he harried, and bullied, and drove with a tongue like the lash of a slaver’s whip. Yes; if she went home, it would make a vast difference in his comfort, socially and physically. Many a rude rebuff she had saved him; many a kindness was done to him for her sake; and many a woman fervently thanked her good genius that she was not his wife. In spite of her uncongenial partner, Mrs. Sladen managed to be cheerful, and generally bright and smiling, ready to nurse the sick, to decorate the club for dances, to help girls to compose ball-dresses, to open her heart to all their troubles, and to give them sympathy and sound advice. “Oh, do not marry a man simply because your people wish it,” she might have said (but she never did), “and merely because he is considered a good match; far better to go home and earn your bread as a shop-assistant, or even a slavey. Take a lesson from my fate.”

Mrs. Langrishe, on the other hand, ruled her dear Granby with a firm but gracious sway. Their match had been made in England, and had proved in one respect a severe and mutual disappointment. Well, “disappointment” is an ugly word; shall we say “surprise”? Captain Langrishe had been attracted by Ida Paske’s handsome face, stately deportment, and magnificent toilettes. He was impressed by her superb indifference to money—rumour endowed her with a large income, and rumour had no real grounds for this agreeable assertion. Ida was one of a numerous family, was good-looking, self-reliant, ambitious, and eight and twenty. Her dresses were unpaid for, and her face was her fortune. She, on her part, believed the insignificant-looking little officer—whose pale profile looked exactly as if it were cut out of a deal board—to be enormously rich. He, too, affected to despise outlay, and kept hunters, and talked of his yacht. He was going to India, immediately, and the wedding was hurried on; but long ere the happy pair had reached Bombay, they had discovered the real state of affairs. He knew that his bride was penniless; and she was aware that the hunters had been hired, the yacht had been a loan, and that three hundred a year, besides his pay, was the utmost limit of her husband’s purse. They were a wise couple, and made the best of circumstances; and by-and-by Captain Langrishe came to the conclusion that he had got hold of a treasure, after all! His Ida was full of tact and worldly wisdom, and possessed administrative powers of the highest order. She understood the art of keeping up appearances, and laid to her heart that scriptural text which says, “As long as thou doest well unto thyself, men will speak well of thee.” She ensured her husband a comfortable home, studied his tastes, flattered his weaknesses, was always serene, affectionate, and well-dressed. Her dinners were small but celebrated; her entrées and savouries, a secret between her cook and herself. She did not dispense indiscriminate hospitalities—no, she merely entertained a few important officials, smart women, and popular men, who would be disposed to noise abroad the fame of her dainty feasts, and to pay her back again with interest. Shabby people, and insignificant acquaintances, never saw the interior of her abode, which was the embodiment of comfort and taste. Her dresses were well chosen and costly; diamonds sparkled on her fingers and on her neck; and though but till recently a captain’s wife, her air and manner of calm self-approval was such, that the wives of higher officials meekly accepted her at her own valuation, and frequently suffered her to thrust them into the background and usurp their place. Such was her ability, that people took the cue from her, and valued an invitation to afternoon tea with Mrs. Langrishe far above an elaborate dinner with less exclusive hostesses.

Neither the furious attacks of her enemies (and she had not a few), nor the occasional indiscretions of her friends, ever ruffled the even temperament of this would-be “grande dame.” It was an astonishing but patent fact that she invariably occupied, so to speak, a chief seat; that she was always heralded on her arrival at a station—met, entertained, and regretfully sped. Whilst ladies as worthy languished in the dâk bungalow, and drove in rickety ticca gharries, she had the carriages of rajahs at her disposal, and was overwhelmed with attentions and invitations. Surely all this was amply sufficient to make these women “talk her over” and hold her at arms’ length. Men who knew Captain Langrishe’s resources marvelled amongst themselves, and said, “Gran has very little besides his pay; how the deuce does he do it? Look at his wife’s dresses! And they give the best dinners in the place. There will be a fine smash there some day!” But years rolled on, and there was no sign of any such crisis. The truth was that Granby Langrishe had married an exceedingly able woman—a woman who thoroughly understood the art of genteel pushing and personal advertisement. She had persistently edged—yea, driven her husband to the front, and he now enjoyed an excellent appointment at the price of the two dewy tears that stood in his Ida’s expressive eyes when bemoaning his bad luck to an influential personage. The Langrishes were drawing two thousand rupees a month,—and were held in corresponding esteem.

Mrs. Langrishe does not look forty—far from it. She has taken excellent care of herself—no early rising, no midday visiting, for this wise matron. She is tall, with a fine figure, alas! getting somewhat stout; her brows are straight and pencilled; beneath them shine a pair of effective grey eyes; her features are delicately cut; if her face has a fault, it is that her jaw is a little too square. Whatever people may say of Ida Langrishe, they cannot deny that she is remarkably handsome, and as clever as she is handsome. As a spinster, she had not been entirely successful in her own aims; but it would go hard, if, with her brains, her circle of acquaintances, and her valuable experience, she did not marry her niece brilliantly.