CHAPTER XXII
THE APPROACHING DREAD
The cold weather was waning in the month of March, women and children were flocking to cooler climes than Lower Burma—chiefly to May Myo, north-east of Mandalay. Once a stockaded village, it was now a fair-sized and attractive station, with a garrison, a club, many comfortable bungalows, an overflowing abundance of flowers and fruit, and in its neighbourhood beautiful moss-green rides. When the hot weather had begun to make itself felt, and the brain-fever bird to make himself heard, Mrs. Krauss had insisted on dispatching her niece to this resort, chaperoned by Mrs. Gregory; but as far as she herself was concerned nothing would induce her to leave home.
“I love my own veranda and my own dear bed,” she declared; “I shall have lots of electric fans and ice, all the new books, and Lily will look after me; but you, Sophy, being a new-comer and not acclimatised, must positively depart.”
Sophy exerted her utmost eloquence to induce her aunt to follow the fashion and spend, at least, two months in the hills, and her efforts were warmly supported by Mr. Krauss, but his wife made no reply—she merely beamed and shook her head. Eloquence and persuasion were wasted. He and Sophy might just as well have appealed to the alabaster Buddha in the drawing-room. Flora Krauss never argued—possibly this was one phase of her indolent nature. She merely assumed an immovable, negative attitude and met every suggestion with a smile and a shake of the head.
Sophy had no desire to leave Rangoon; she protested that she had only been out seven months and really required no change; but her appeal was silenced by the voice of authority.
“My dear child,” said her aunt, “you’ve no idea what you would be like in three months’ time. I am hardened and acclimatised, but your nice complexion would soon take leave, never to return. You would be covered with hideous spots and you would probably get fever. Mrs. Gregory is most anxious for your company and I am equally anxious for your departure. You will have a very good time up at May Myo and go you must!”
Sophy had no alternative and was compelled to obey orders.
“I shall miss you most dreadfully, my dear,” said her aunt; “it is so nice to have you flitting about the house, not to speak of your vivacious company and delicious music. Your music is really wonderful; it seems to exorcise an evil spirit that gives me no peace.”
“Oh, Aunt Flora,” expostulated the girl, “how can you say such things? Surely you don’t believe in evil spirits?”
“But, my dear child, how can I help it when I live in a country where millions of people worship and fear them?”
“Those are only ignorant natives; you would not allow their superstitions to affect you.”
“Well, at any rate, your playing uplifts and soothes me; I can’t imagine how you inherited this gift; your mother was not particularly musical, nor was I. I recollect my misery as a girl in struggling through ‘The Harmonious Blacksmith,’ and I never remember hearing that we had any musical genius in the family. Of course, the natives here would find an easy answer and say that you had been a great musician in another incarnation.”
On hearing this solemn explanation Sophy burst into peals of laughter, at which rejoinder Mrs. Krauss looked both shocked and hurt and, after an awkward silence, the subject dropped.
And so, in spite of Sophy’s efforts to remain in Rangoon, she was figuratively driven into the arms of Mrs. Gregory. The Maitlands and the Pomeroys had also invited her to May Myo, but Mrs. Gregory overbore all competition and insisted that she must have Sophy as a companion to share her bungalow and accompany her songs, and departed in triumph, carrying the girl with her.
Mrs. Krauss attended her niece to the railway station, loaded her with books and fruit and saw her off with urgent and affectionate injunctions and many kisses. During the last few months Mrs. Krauss appeared to have become a transformed person; she went about continually in her smart new car, was seen at dances, little dinners and the theatre, and had recovered a faint shadow of her former good looks and something of her old animation.
Herr Krauss naturally attributed this change to her niece, and showed his gratitude to Sophy in various abrupt ways, suffering her to mix with the English society without sneers or interference. Sophy did not now see so much of the German community; she was aware that Mrs. Muller and others no longer approved of her, and Frau Wurm had said openly, “that although the girl had done her best to learn how to keep a house, her heart had never been in the business and she was not schwärmerisch to German people or German ways!”
Whilst Sophy Leigh had been enjoying herself at May Myo, among the green hills and soft airs of Upper Burma, Shafto, in the oppressive sultry heat, had had some pleasant and unpleasant experiences.
The pleasant experience was that his salary had been raised. Now he could afford to buy another horse and keep a tum-tum; with a heavier purse he was able to send home some well-chosen and handsome presents—a China crêpe shawl for Mrs. Malone, ivory carvings to the Tebbs, an Indian chuddah to his aunt and a heavy gold bangle for each of the girls. Unfortunately one gift to “Monte Carlo” had a dire and unexpected result—it brought him a deluge of letters from Cossie, who was rapturous over his promotion and “his beautiful, exquisite, darling gift,” which she wore on her arm day and night!
“I felt sure you had not forgotten me,” was her ominous opening; “you could not; there is a secret telepathy between us, and I am always thinking of you, dear old boy.”
Several mails later there arrived a letter from Sandy, the contents of which almost made his cousin’s hair stand on end. After one or two preliminary sentences, Shafto’s eyes fell upon these lines:
“By this you will have heard that our Cossie will be afloat; she has been very restless and unsettled for a long time—almost ever since you left; nothing seems to please her. First she took up nursing and soon dropped that; then she took up typing and soon dropped that. At last she has got the wish of her life, which is to go abroad. She has answered an advertisement and secured a top-hole situation, as lady nurse in Rangoon. She starts in ten days in the ship that took you out—the Blankshire, and is so busy and excited that she is nearly off her nut.”
The same post delivered a thick letter from Cossie, which her ungrateful and distracted relative tore up unread. Already, in his mind’s eye, Shafto could see Cossie permanently established in Rangoon, informing everyone that she was his cousin, bombarding him with chits, worrying him for visits, treats and attentions. Heaven be praised! neither of his horses carried a lady, it was as much as he could do to ride them himself. He could not possibly leave Rangoon and so effect his escape; he was nailed down to his work, not like his lucky chums, whose business duties occasionally carried them up the country. His job was confined to Rangoon itself, for eight hours a day.
The prospect filled him with despair; life would become intolerable. A vivid imagination painted the picture of Cossie, helpless and plaintive, appealing for information and advice, coming to him to patch up disputes between her and her employer, to take her on the lakes, to the gymkhana, or the theatre on her days out. And what would Sophy Leigh think when she saw him accompanied by Mrs. So-and-So’s European nurse? Putting her absurd partiality for him on one side, Cossie in her normal condition was a good-natured, amiable creature, and, of course, when she arrived in Burma he, as her only relative in the country, would be bound to look after her and show her attention; probably all the world would believe that they were engaged! Unchivalrous as was the idea, he had a hateful conviction that it would not be Cossie’s fault if they did not arrive at that conclusion.
With this sword of Damocles hanging over his head, and the object of his apprehension being daily brought nearer and yet nearer, Shafto was and looked abjectly miserable. FitzGerald rallied him boisterously on his glum appearance, and on being “off his feed.”
“What on earth ails you?”
To his well-intended queries he invariably received the one brief unsatisfactory answer: “Nothing.”
Roscoe, too, endeavoured to puzzle out the mystery. It was not the lack of money—Shafto was prompt in his payments; his door was never haunted by bill-collectors, nor had he got into hot water in his office; both his horses were sound. What could it be?
In due course the Blankshire was signalled and arrived, and the usual mob of people swarmed aboard to meet their friends. Among these, carrying a heavy heart, was Shafto; after all, he realised that he must do the right thing and go to receive his cousin; but, amazing to relate, there was no Miss Larcher among the passengers! On inquiry he was presented to an excited lady, who had brought her all the way from Tilbury, filling the situation of lady nurse. Miss Larcher had not completed the voyage, but had landed at Colombo! On hearing of his relationship to her late employé, Mrs. Jones, a hot-tempered matron, fell figuratively tooth and nail upon defenceless Shafto. In a series of breathless sentences she assured him that “his cousin, Miss Larcher, was no better than an adventuress, and had behaved in the most dishonest and scandalous manner.”
After a moment—to recover her breath—she went on in gasps:
“I took her on the recommendation of a mutual acquaintance, and at our interview she appeared quite all right and most anxious to please; but once on board ship, with her passage paid, I soon discovered that she was not anxious to please me, but any and every unmarried man she could come across! Such a shameless and outrageous flirt I never saw. As to her duties, she was absolutely useless; I don’t believe she had ever washed or dressed a child in her life before she came to me; she did nothing but dress herself and sit about the deck with men, leaving me to do her work. When I spoke to her she simply laughed in my face; the children couldn’t endure her and screamed whenever she came near them. So I was obliged to do nursemaid whilst she danced and amused herself—and all at my expense. She made no secret of the fact that she was on the look out for a husband; and she has gained her end—for she is married.”
“Married!” repeated Shafto. The news was too good to be true.
“Well, at least they landed at Colombo with that intention,” announced the lady sourly; “she and a coffee planter, a widower, with a touch of black blood. They were going up country to his estate, and she declared that she was about to have the time of her life—but I doubt it.”
This piece of news was an unspeakable relief to Shafto. The hypocrite listened to the long list of his cousin’s enormities with a downcast and apologetic air, whilst all the time he could have shouted for joy. When at last he was permitted an opportunity of speaking, he assured the angry matron that he much deplored Miss Larcher’s shortcomings. His sympathy even took a practical form, for he generously offered to refund Mrs. Jones half of Miss Larcher’s passage money; this the lady vouchsafed to receive and subsequently always spoke of young Shafto as “a remarkably nice, gentlemanly fellow.” Little did she suspect that the cheque so punctually lodged at her banker’s was in the form of a heartfelt thank-offering—the price of a young man’s peace!