Under the Deodars. Rudyard Kipling
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have I for four months. But that didn’t console me in the least. I hated the man. Will you stop smiling in that inscrutable way and tell me what you mean?’
Mrs. Mallowe told.
‘And you mean to say that it is absolutely Platonic on both sides?’
‘Absolutely, or I should never have taken it up.’
‘And his last promotion was due to you?’
Mrs. Mallowe nodded.
‘And you warned him against the Topsham Girl?’
Another nod.
‘And told him of Sir Dugald Delane’s private memo about him?’
A third nod.
‘Why?’
‘What a question to ask a woman! Because it amused me at first. I am proud of my property now. If I live, he shall continue to be successful. Yes, I will put him upon the straight road to Knighthood, and everything else that a man values. The rest depends upon himself.’
‘Polly, you are a most extraordinary woman.’
‘Not in the least. I’m concentrated, that’s all. You diffuse yourself, dear; and though all Simla knows your skill in managing a team.’
‘Can’t you choose a prettier word?’
‘Team, of half-a-dozen, from The Mussuck to the Hawley Boy, you gain nothing by it. Not even amusement.’
‘And you?’
‘Try my recipe. Take a man, not a boy, mind, but an almost mature, unattached man, and be his guide, philosopher, and friend. You’ll find it the most interesting occupation that you ever embarked on. It can be done you needn’t look like that because I’ve done it.’
‘There’s an element of risk about it that makes the notion attractive. I’ll get such a man and say to him, “Now, understand that there must be no flirtation. Do exactly what I tell you, profit by my instruction and counsels, and all will yet be well.” Is that the idea?’
‘More or less,’ said Mrs. Mallowe, with an unfathomable smile. ‘But be sure he understands.’
Dribble-dribble trickle-trickle
What a lot of raw dust!
My dollie’s had an accident
And out came all the sawdust!
So Mrs. Hauksbee, in ‘The Foundry’ which overlooks Simla Mall, sat at the feet of Mrs. Mallowe and gathered wisdom. The end of the Conference was the Great Idea upon which Mrs. Hauksbee so plumed herself.
‘I warn you,’ said Mrs. Mallowe, beginning to repent of her suggestion, ‘that the matter is not half so easy as it looks. Any woman even the Topsham Girl can catch a man, but very, very few know how to manage him when caught.’
‘My child,’ was the answer, ‘I’ve been a female St. Simon Stylites looking down upon men for these these years past. Ask The Mussuck whether I can manage them.’
Mrs. Hauksbee departed humming, ‘I’ll go to him and say to him in manner most ironical.’ Mrs. Mallowe laughed to herself. Then she grew suddenly sober. ‘I wonder whether I’ve done well in advising that amusement? Lucy’s a clever woman, but a thought too careless.’
A week later the two met at a Monday Pop. ‘Well?’ said Mrs. Mallowe.
‘I’ve caught him!’ said Mrs. Hauksbee: her eyes were dancing with merriment.
‘Who is it, mad woman? I’m sorry I ever spoke to you about it.’
‘Look between the pillars. In the third row; fourth from the end. You can see his face now. Look!’
‘Otis Yeere! Of all the improbable and impossible people! I don’t believe you.’
‘Hsh! Wait till Mrs. Tarkass begins murdering Milton Wellings; and I’ll tell you all about it. S-s-ss! That woman’s voice always reminds me of an Underground train coming into Earl’s Court with the brakes on. Now listen. It is really Otis Yeere.’
‘So I see, but does it follow that he is your property!’
‘He is! By right of trove. I found him, lonely and unbefriended, the very next night after our talk, at the Dugald Delanes’ burra-khana. I liked his eyes, and I talked to him. Next day he called. Next day we went for a ride together, and to-day he’s tied to my ‘richshaw-wheels hand and foot. You’ll see when the concert’s over. He doesn’t know I’m here yet.’
‘Thank goodness you haven’t chosen a boy. What are you going to do with him, assuming that you’ve got him?’
‘Assuming, indeed! Does a woman do I ever make a mistake in that sort of thing? First’ Mrs. Hauksbee ticked off the items ostentatiously on her little gloved fingers ‘First, my dear, I shall dress him properly. At present his raiment is a disgrace, and he wears a dress-shirt like a crumpled sheet of the Pioneer. Secondly, after I have made him presentable, I shall form his manners his morals are above reproach.’
‘You seem to have discovered a great deal about him considering the shortness of your acquaintance.’
‘Surely you ought to know that the first proof a man gives of his interest in a woman is by talking to her about his own sweet self. If the woman listens without yawning, he begins to like her. If she flatters the animal’s vanity, he ends by adoring her.’
‘In some cases.’
‘Never mind the exceptions. I know which one you are thinking of. Thirdly, and lastly, after he is polished and made pretty, I shall, as you said, be his guide, philosopher, and friend, and he shall become a success as great a success as your friend. I always wondered how that man got on. Did The Mussuck come to you with the Civil List and, dropping on one knee no, two knees, a la Gibbon hand it to you and say, “Adorable angel, choose your friend’s appointment”?’
‘Lucy, your long experiences of the Military Department have demoralised you. One doesn’t do that sort of thing on the Civil Side.’
‘No disrespect meant to Jack’s Service, my dear. I only asked for information. Give me three months, and see what changes I shall work in my prey.’
‘Go your own way since you must. But I’m sorry that I was weak enough to suggest the amusement.’
‘“I am all discretion, and may be trusted to an in-fin-ite extent,”’ quoted Mrs. Hauksbee from The Fallen Angel; and the conversation ceased with Mrs. Tarkass’s last, long-drawn war-whoop.
Her bitterest enemies and she had many could hardly accuse Mrs. Hauksbee of wasting her time. Otis Yeere was one of those wandering ‘dumb’ characters, foredoomed through life to be nobody’s property. Ten years in Her Majesty’s Bengal Civil Service, spent, for the most part, in undesirable Districts, had given him little to be proud of, and nothing to bring confidence. Old enough to have lost the first fine careless rapture that showers on the immature ‘Stunt imaginary Commissionerships and Stars, and sends him into the collar with coltish earnestness and abandon; too young to be yet able to look back upon the progress he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the dead-centre of his career. And when a man stands still he feels the slightest impulse from without. Fortune had ruled that Otis Yeere should be, for the first part of his service, one of the rank and file who are ground up in the wheels of the Administration; losing heart and soul, and mind and strength, in the process. Until steam replaces manual power in the working of the Empire, there must always be this percentage must always be the men who are used up, expended, in the mere mechanical routine. For these promotion is far off and the mill-grind of every day very instant. The Secretariats know them only by name; they are not the picked men of the Districts with Divisions and Collectorates awaiting them. They are simply the rank and file the food for fever sharing with the ryot and the plough-bullock the honour of being the plinth on which the State rests. The older ones have lost their aspirations; the younger are putting theirs aside with a