Read Ebook: Mr. Jervis Vol. 3 (of 3) by Croker B M Bithia Mary

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Ebook has 830 lines and 48155 words, and 17 pages

"You think more of what people will say than of me, Honor!" he exclaimed reproachfully.

"No, no!" filled with instant compunction, and her blushes as she spoke were visible even by moonlight. "I think more of you than of any one, Mark." Then, as if frightened at her own confession, she hastened to add, "Every one is going in, and here is my next partner coming to look for me."

"Let him look!" was the unprincipled answer. "Shall we go down and sit on the seat in the tennis-ground, by the big verbena tree?"

"But I am engaged to Major Lawrence," she objected, though she knew that resistance was useless.

"I have written several times to say that I should like to see him, and asking when I might start--a plain enough hint, surely?"

"You are too punctilious. Why wait to be asked? There, that waltz is over; what a short one it was. Now I must really go in."

"What a thing it is to have a conscience! A strong sense of duty to one's partners!" he exclaimed with a laugh. "However, I am one of them myself, and I will let you off easily."

"No, thank you," she answered, with uncompromising rectitude. "Pray what about your own partners? And you are one of the hosts, too!"

"I see that I may always look to you now to remind me of my duty," he said, rising with extreme reluctance. "And I never felt more inclined to shirk it than now."

"And was it really thirty thousand a year? Was it in soap or pork? At any rate, it was a magnificent match for a penniless girl!" whispered a married lady to her partner.

THE SUMMONS.

In the moonlight, bright as day, Mr. Jervis rode home beside Miss Gordon's rickshaw. Her tell-tale fan stuck out of the pocket of his overcoat.

Yes, their little world was not blind; it was evidently a settled thing. Most people were glad. The Brandes were sure to do the wedding in "style;" and a wedding would be an agreeable variety from dances and picnics.

"I shall come up to-morrow morning," he said, as he reluctantly released her hand, "to-morrow before twelve."

Mr. Brande, who had effected his escape early, had returned home, and been in bed and asleep for some hours.

He was suddenly aroused by his wife standing at his bedside, her cloak hanging off her shoulders, her coiffeur a little deranged, a lamp in her hand illuminating an unusually excited countenance.

"Yes," suddenly sitting erect, his official mind at once on the alert for some pressing and important dispatch.

"He came out with them in the same ship," she panted.

Had Sarabella his wife gone suddenly out of her mind?

"He says that Mark, not Waring, is the rich man."

"Not a bit of it! I tackled Mark himself, and he confessed. I was very angry at being taken in. He declares they did it without meaning a bit of harm at first, and that when it went too far he did not know what to do. He is very sorry."

"That he is a millionaire! Oh yes, I should think so!"

"He is coming up first thing to-morrow to tell you all about it; and, unless I'm mistaken, to speak to you about Honor."

"What about her?" sharply.

"Why, you dear, stupid man, are you asleep still? Can't you guess?"

"What stuff!" she ejaculated indignantly. "He will have thirty thousand a year! I know that I shall never close an eye to-night!"

"And are good-naturedly resolved that I am to keep you in countenance. You might, I think, have reserved this double-barrelled forty-pounder for the morning."

"And that's all the thanks I get," she grumbled, as she slowly trailed away to her dressing-room.

Just about this very time, Mark Jervis was smoking a cigarette in his bare sitting-room. Before him, on the table, lay a white feather fan and a programme. He was much too happy to go to bed, he wanted to sit up and think. His thoughts were the usual bright ones incident to love's young dream, and as he watched the smoke slowly curling up the air was full of castles. These beautiful buildings were somewhat rudely shattered by the entrance of his bearer--wrapped in a resai, and looking extremely sleepy--with a letter in his hand.

"A Pahari brought this for the sahib three hours ago," tendering a remarkably soiled, maltreated envelope.

Of course it was from his father at last. He tore it open, and this was what it said--

"MY DEAR SON,

"I am very ill. If you would see me alive, come. The messenger will guide you. I live forty miles out. Lose no time.

"Your affectionate father, "H. JERVIS."

The letter was forty-eight hours old.

"Is the messenger here?" he asked eagerly.

"Yes, sahib."

"Then call up the grey pony syce; tell him to take gram and a jule, and saddle the pony. I am going off into the interior. I must start in twenty minutes."

The bearer blinked incredulously.

"I need not take you." The bearer's face expanded into a grin of intense relief. "I shall be away several days. Get out my riding kit, shove some clothes in a bag, and ask the cook to put up some bread and meat and things, and tell the coolie I will be ready very shortly."

It was both a keen disappointment and a keen pleasure to the girl when the ayah brought the letter to her at nine o'clock. She read it over and over again, but she will not allow our profane eyes to see it, nor can it be stolen, for she carries it about with her by day, and it rests under her pillow by night: at the end of the week it was getting a little frayed.

When the ayah handed the note to the Miss Sahib, the writer was already twenty miles out of Shirani, following a broad-shouldered Gurwali with his head and shoulders wrapped in the invariable brown blanket.

Their course was by mountain bridle-paths, and in an eastern direction; the scenery was exquisite, but its beauties were entirely lost upon Jervis, who was picturing other scenes in his mind's eye. The road crept along the sheer faces of bare precipices, or plunged suddenly into woody gorges, or ran along a flat valley, with cultivated fields and loosely built stone walls. The further they went, the lovelier grew the country, the wilder the surroundings. At twelve o'clock they halted to rest the grey pony--the messenger's muscular brown legs seemed capable of keeping up their long swinging trot all day. It was four o'clock in the afternoon when they arrived at their journey's end; they abruptly descended into a flat wooded dale, surrounded by hills on three sides, sloping away to the plains on the fourth. A path from the bridle-road led them into a dense jungle of high grass, full of cattle, pack ponies, and mules. Emerging from this, they came to a wall, along which they kept for about three hundred yards, and turning a sharp corner they found themselves outside a great square yellow house, two stories high.

It seemed as if it had been bodily transplanted from England. There was nothing irregular or picturesque about it--the windows were in rows, the roof was square and had a parapet, the sole innovation was a long verandah, which ran all round the building, and was apparently of recent date, a mere after-thought.

Mark, as he rode up to the steps, looked about him for the coolie; he had suddenly disappeared. There was no one to be seen. He ascended to the verandah, it was deserted, save for some fowl, who seemed delightfully at home. It was more the verandah of a native dwelling than the entrance to the home of an Englishman.

The new-comer gazed around expectantly, and saw three string charpoys, a bundle of dirty bedding, a pair of shoes, a huka, and a turban.

The door, which was innocent of paint or bells, was ajar. He pushed it open and found himself in a large, dim, very dirty hall. Here he was confronted by an old nanny goat, and two kids; to the left he saw a room, which appeared to be a mere repetition of the verandah.

As he hesitated and looked about, a man suddenly appeared, a servant presumably, wearing a huge red turban, and a comfortable blue cloth coat. He was stout and well to do, had a fat face, a black square beard, and remarkably thick lips.

He seemed considerably disconcerted, when he caught sight of the stranger, but drawing himself up pronounced the words, "Durwaza, Bund," with overwhelming dignity. Adding in English--

"The sahib never see no one."

"He will see me," said Mark, with decision.

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