CHAPTER XLI.
“IT WAS A HYENA.”
The rains were over by the middle of August, and Shirani cast off mackintoshes, discarded umbrellas, and society—restless and fluctuating—looked about for some fresh and novel form of out-door amusement.
Among the second-leave arrivals, the most active and enterprising of the new-comers, was a Captain Bevis, the moving power in whatever station he was quartered; the very man for getting up dances, races, and picnics. He was resolved to strike out an entirely original line on the present occasion, and inaugurated a grand joint expedition into the interior—none of your exclusive “family parties,” or a petty little “set” of half a dozen couples. No, this sanguine individual actually proposed to move Shirani en masse. He had heard of the abandoned cantonment, of Hawal Bagh, galloped over to inspect it with his customary promptitude, and came flying back to the station on the wings of enthusiasm. “It was a perfect spot,” this was his verdict; scenery exquisite, good road, good water, lots of bungalows, a mess-house to dance in, a parade ground for gymkanas. Every one must see the place, every one must enjoy a short informal outing, the entertainment to be called the “Hawal Bagh week.” Captain Bevis threw himself into the project heart and soul; he invited another hill station to join; he sent out circulars, he collected entries for gymkanas and polo matches, and the names of patronesses for the grand ball at Hawal Bagh. Dead and long-forgotten Hawal Bagh, that was to awake and live once more!
Subscriptions poured in, parties went over to explore, empty houses were allotted, a vast army of coolies was enlisted, the jungle was cut down, the bungalows cleaned up, the very gardens were put in order. A quantity of supplies and cart loads of furniture were soon en route, and the servants of Shirani entered into the project with the zeal of the true Indian-born domestic, who hails a change, a “tamasha,” anything in the shape of a “feast,” with a joy and energy totally unknown to the retainers of the folk in these colder latitudes.
Hospitable Mrs. Brande was to have a house and a house-party. “P.” was absent on official business; but, under any circumstances, he would not have been a likely recruit for what he called a “new outbreak of jungle fever.” The Dashwoods, the Booles, the Daubenys, the Clovers, were to have a married people’s mess. There were also one or two chummeries, which made people look at one another and smile! The bachelors, of course, had their own mess; moreover, there were tents.
Mrs. Langrishe joined neither mess nor chummery, this clever woman was merely coming as the Clovers’ guest for two days, and Lalla was Mrs. Dashwood’s sole charge. Mrs. Sladen, of course, stayed with Mrs. Brande, who had been relegated to the old commandant’s house, an important-looking roomy bungalow, standing in a great wilderness of a garden and peach orchard. Once or twice during the last twenty years it, and one or two other bungalows, had been let (to the Persian’s great annoyance) for a few months in the season to needy families from the plains, who only wanted air, good hill air, and could afford but little else!
Mrs. Brande and her party arrived a whole day before the general public, travelling comfortably by easy stages through great forests of pine, oak, or rhododendron, along the face of bold, bare cliffs, across shallow river-beds, and through more than one exquisite park-like glade, dotted with trees and cattle—naturally, Mrs. Brande kept a suspicious eye on these latter. When the travellers reached their destination, they found that roads had been repaired, lamp-posts and oil lamps erected, the old band-stand was renovated—servants were hurrying to and fro, carrying furniture, shaking carpets, airing bedding and picketing ponies. There were coolies, syces, soldiers, and active sahibs galloping about giving directions. In fact, Hawal Bagh had put back the clock of time, and to a cursory eye was once more the bustling, populous cantonment of forty years ago!
And how did the scanty society who dwelt in those parts relish the resurrection of Hawal Bagh? To the neighbouring poor hill villagers this event was truly a god-send; they reaped a splendid and totally unexpected harvest, and were delighted to welcome the invaders, who purchased their fowl, eggs, grain, milk, and honey.
Mark Jervis beheld the transformation with mingled feelings. He had broken with his old life; most people, if they thought of him at all, believed him to be in England—two months is a long time to live in the memory of a hill station. Honor—she would be at Hawal Bagh—she had not forgotten him yet. He would hang about the hills, that he might catch a distant glimpse of her, or even of her dress. Surely he might afford himself that small consolation.
As for the Persian, she surveyed the troops of gay strangers from her aerie with a mixture of transports and anguish.
It was a fine moonlight night early in September, the hills loomed dark, and cast deep shadows into the bright white valley. The air was languorously soft, the milky way shone conspicuous, and fully justified its Eastern name, “The Gate of Heaven.”
There was to be a ball in the old mess-house, and Mark took his stand on the hill and watched the big cooking fires, the lit-up bungalows, the hurrying figures; listened to the hum of voices, the neighing of ponies, the tuning of musical instruments. Could this be really the condemned, deserted cantonment of Hawal Bagh, that many a night he had seen wrapped in deathlike silence? The dance commenced briskly, open doorways showed gay decorations, the band played a lively set of lancers, and a hundred merry figures seemed to flit round and pass and repass; whilst the jackals and hyenas, who had been wont to hold their assemblies in the same quarter, slunk away up the hills in horrified disgust. Presently people came out into the bright moonlight, and began to stroll up and down. Mark recognized many well-known figures. There was Honor, in white, walking with a little man who was conversing and gesticulating with considerable vivacity. She seemed preoccupied, and held her head high—gazing straight before her. Lookers on see most of the game. The man must be a dense idiot not to notice that she was not listening to one word he said.
There was Miss Paske, escorted by a ponderous companion with a rolling gait—Sir Gloster, of course—and Miss Lalla was undoubtedly entertaining him. It almost seemed as if he could hear his emphatic “excellent” where he stood. Mrs. Merryfeather and Captain Dorrington, Captain Merryfeather and Miss Fleet, and so on—and so on—as pair after pair came forth.
Suddenly he became aware of the fact that he was not the only spectator. Just below him stood a figure, so motionless, that he had taken it for part of a tree. The figure moved, and he saw the Persian lady standing gazing with fixed ravenous eyes on the scene below them. He made a slight movement, and she turned hastily and came up towards him. They were acquaintances of some standing now, and met once or twice a week either among the lepers or about the cantonment. Mark had never ventured to call at the mysterious little bungalow, but he sent her offerings of flowers, fruit, and hill partridges, and she in return admitted him to her friendship—to an entirely unprecedented extent. Whether this was due to the young man’s handsome face, and chivalrous respect for her privacy and her sex, or whether it was accorded for the sake of another, who shall say?
“You are looking on, like myself,” he remarked, as she accosted him. “Are you interested?”
“Nay, ‘the world is drowned to him who is drowned,’ says the proverb. I came to Hawal Bagh to retire from the crowd, and lo! a crowd is at my gates!”
“This, surely, must be quite a novel sight to you?”
She gazed at him questioningly, and made no answer.
“Of course you have never seen this sort of thing before, English people in evening dress, dancing to a band?”
“I have known phantoms—yea, I have seen such as these,” pointing, “in a—dream—thousands of years ago.”
Her companion made no reply, the Persian often uttered dark sayings that were totally beyond his comprehension. Possibly she believed in the transmigration of souls, and was alluding to a former existence.
“Mine are but spirits, whereas to you these people are real flesh and blood,” she resumed. “You were one of them but three months ago. Think well ere you break with your past, and kill and bury youth. Lo, you grow old already! Let me plead for youth, and love. Heaven has opened to me to-day. She,” lowering her voice to a whisper, “is among those—I have seen her—she is there below.”
“I know,” he answered, also in a low voice.
“Then why do you not seek her—so young, so fair, so good? Oh! have you forgotten her sweet smile, her charming eyes? Love, real love, comes but once! Go now and find her.”
Mark shook his head with emphatic negation.
“What heart of stone!” she cried passionately. “Truly I will go myself and fetch her here. I——But no—I dare not,” and she covered her face with her hands.
“Do not add your voice to my own mad inclinations. It is all over between us. To meet her and to part again would give her needless pain.”
“Ah! again the music,” murmured the Persian, as the band suddenly struck up a weird haunting waltz, which her companion well remembered—they had played it at the bachelors’ ball. “Music,” she continued, clenching her two hands, “of any kind has a sore effect on me. It tears my heart from my very body, and yet I love it, yea, though it transport me to——” She paused, unable to finish the sentence. Her lips trembled, her great dark eyes dilated, and she suddenly burst into a storm of tears. The sound of her wild, loud, despairing sobs, actually floated down and penetrated to the ears of a merry couple who were strolling at large, and now stood immediately below, little guessing that another pair on the hillside were sadly contemplating a scene of once familiar but now lost delights, like two poor wandering spirits.
“Surely,” said Mrs. Merryfeather, “I heard a human voice, right up there above us. It sounded just like a woman weeping—crying as if her heart was broken.”
“Oh, impossible!” scoffed the man. “Hearts in these days are warranted unbreakable, like toughened glass.”
“Listen! There it is again!” interrupted the lady excitedly.
“Not a bit of it, my dear Mrs. Merry; and your sex would not feel flattered if they heard that you had mistaken the cry of a wild beast, for a woman’s voice! I assure you, on my word of honour, that it is nothing but a hyena.”