An American Girl in India/Chapter 6
CHAPTER VI
AN AMAZING MARRIAGE
'The Boy is going to be married to-morrow morning at eleven o'clock, and he wants you to go to the church,' the Major blurted out, turning and facing me suddenly, squaring himself with a half-defiant, half-apologetic sort of air, as if he guessed something of the storm his words would rouse.
We had left the carriages, and were strolling along in advance of the others, and nothing could have been more peaceful and amicable than we were just then, gazing at the sunset. His words fell like a thunderclap, and I stopped dumfounded and gazed at him. Though I knew that Boy had got it seriously, I had never really faced such an awful actuality as this.
For the moment I could find no words adequate to the occasion. I simply stood still and gazed at Major Street, and I noticed that he seemed to kind of squirm and wince. I have been told that I've got an expressive face, and if it expressed a half of what I felt just then, well, I guess it said lots. I was right down furious, and there being no one else handy, I had of course, womanlike, to vent it on the Major.
'It's all your fault,' I burst out angrily. 'If you had only gone the right way to work, a man of your position and experience—especially a man who has won the Kadir Cup,' I put in scornfully, 'could have made that Boy do anything he wanted, while instead of that you calmly come and ask me to go and see him make a right down fool of himself.'
I paused for breath, while the Major got rather red in the face. I'm sure if I had been a man he would have knocked me down, or said something dreadful, but being only a woman who was taking an unwarrantable advantage of her sex, he said nothing. That, of course, made me more angry still. If you want to annoy an angry woman, just say nothing. But if you happen to be that woman's husband, well, then, you'd best say something mighty quick, just for the sake of keeping the home together.
I turned away, and looked out across the glorious peaceful waters of the harbour bathed in the sunset glow. It quieted me a bit straight away, as nature always does, but I wasn't going to show that to the Major. It never does to show a man that you are quieting down. He at once plucks up his courage, and gets above himself again if you do. Men are all right so long as you hold the whip hand of them, but once let go the reins and they begin to buck.
'You can tell the Boy,' I said haughtily at last, getting tired even of looking at the beautiful waters of the bay and seeing that Major Street did not intend to speak, 'you can tell the Boy that I very much regret that I cannot attend his wedding. And now,' I added, turning back towards the carriage, 'if you are really quite ready, we will drive home.'
Of course, I knew all the time that it was quite unreasonable to be angry with Major Street. He, poor man, couldn't help the innocence of the Boy or the craft and subtlety of the woman. But there was nobody else, and, you see, I'm one of those people who must vent their wrath on somebody, and it naturally falls on the unfortunate person nearest—who, by the way, is often one's dearest too. I like to explode my wrath straight away and get it over. Of course, it's hard luck on the people who happen to get in the way at the time, but still it's so much better than being sulky. I know I was quite unreasonable just then, but no gentle reader with any experience whatever ever does expect the heroine to be reasonable. Just think what would happen to all the plots that hang on some little misunderstanding that never would have happened if the heroine had only been even just the least little bit reasonable.
It was rather a silent drive home. I had quite made up my mind that I didn't like Bombay at all. My views of a place, and of people too, always depend upon my frame of mind at the moment that I see them. What my frame of mind depends on is, of course, an unknown quantity. Lady Manifold's always depends upon the capacity of the cook who cooked her last meal. But mine is not like that. I rather wish I did know what mine really does depend upon, though perhaps if there was anything dependable about it, it might make one lose interest in one's self. It's just the variety that is so fascinating. When people say, 'Ah, so-and-so is so charming—always the same, you know,' I at once think how very dull that so-and-so must be. Now that variety, contrariness, never-know-your-luck sort of feeling about women is just what appeals to the born gamblers that all men really are. They never know what a woman is going to do next, and that keeps the interest going. Just take my advice if you really want to hook a man, and just be as variable as ever you can. Look at him for five minutes as if there was nobody else in the world, and talk like it too. Then suddenly get pensive as if you were thinking of another 'him' far away. Then brighten up and beam on any other 'him' you find handy—but this must be done with care and skill, with a glance out of the corner of your eye upon the real 'him,' lest you go too far and put him off. But, I forgot, I'm driving home along the Bombay streets with the Major, very cross and grumpy.
I'm bound to say Major Street has an angelic temper. But I guess it isn't quite the thing for a man to be rude to a woman, and it's partly that. I always do think that we take advantage of men that way. We treat them anyhow because we know they can't answer back. Now, we're ever so much more careful with our own sex, because we know they won't hesitate to give us as good as they get. So it's a woman's privilege to be rude to men, and I regret to say we use it to the full.
Well, Major Street and I will never get back to that hotel if I keep running off the lines like this. We had got nearly there before the Major referred to the all-important subject again.
'I have to leave by to-night's train, so I can't see Boy through with it,' was all he said. It was his way of asking me again to go and countenance this amazing marriage.
'Nothing will induce me to go,' I said freezingly, as I got out of the carriage. 'Please tell the Boy that I am very sorry I cannot come.'
I passed on up the hotel steps, but like a woman, halfway, I half relented. I had been rather a brute to poor Major Street, and it really wasn't even just a little bit his fault. I turned round sharp midway up those steps. He was standing at the bottom of them, looking up after me with the most comical mixture of amusement and annoyance I have ever seen on any man's face. I beamed down upon him. He really was rather nice-looking.
'I'm so sorry you haven't had a pleasanter companion on the drive home,' I said.
He ran up half a dozen steps.
'So you will go to-morrow morning?' he asked eagerly.
Now, wasn't that just like a man. Only because I had turned round and smiled on him just to show there was no ill feeling he went and jumped straight away to the conclusion that I had caved in altogether right there. If you give any man an inch, he'll take an ell. I know, for I have given many men inches in my time and they all right there on the spot took ells straight away. I guess nine out of ten Englishmen don't even know the meaning of tact and finesse. Whenever there's a woman in the case they're no good at all. They just blurt out what they think, and they grab at the slightest encouragement as if you were a lifebuoy, and they were quite out of their depth and couldn't swim for nuts. Now most women dislike being made lifebuoys of. It crumples one's dresses and upsets one's hair much too much for any self-respecting woman to stand it. A woman likes fishing with a fly, like an angler for trout, and the more the trout nibbles and won't hang on the keener she gets. If that silly trout and his prototype, man, only knew, and kept on just nibbling, they would hold our interest ten times longer than they do. But when they swallow the bait whole right over the hook every time, well, it gets a bit wearisome anyway.
But Major Street and I are still standing on those steps.
'So you will go to-morrow?' he was saying again, as I looked down at him pityingly. He was so horribly in earnest, and I confess I always feel a sort of weakness somewhere round the corners of my heart when I see a strong man in earnest. That's why I am always so afraid that I shall get married some day and regret it afterwards. But I've survived quite a lot of earnestness already, so I suppose I am not really as weak as I sometimes feel.
'No,' I said sternly, 'certainly not. I absolutely refuse to countenance such a disgraceful marriage as that by being present.'
But the Major was a man who refused to take 'no' for an answer. He's the kind that will propose six times if necessary, but will get there in the end.
'Boy will be disappointed if you don't go,' he said, 'and it isn't as if your not going would do any good. If it would, I shouldn't ask you to go.'
'That's true enough,' I murmured, feeling that I was suddenly giving way to a man's logic. If my husband, when I get one, proves logical, then I'll find myself taking a back seat straight away. But you don't catch me marrying a logician if I can get anything else.
But just as I had said 'that's true enough' with a giving-way sort of feeling, I caught sight of Boy and that dreadful woman driving up to the hotel, and for the moment I was saved.
'If you don't stop that marriage taking place,' I said, laying my hand impressively on the Major's arm as I hurriedly turned to go, 'I—I'll never speak to you again.'
Then I fled into the hotel. I remember it struck me afterwards that it wasn't much of a threat to make to a man with a wife and three grown-up children, but it was all I could think of at the moment and it had to do.
I was afraid to go down to dinner that night for fear I might meet Boy. If he asked me to my face I knew I was not the sort of person to say 'no.' That's just me all over. I know what I think, and generally just say it straight out. That's one thing. But to do it, that's quite another thing altogether. I'm conscious of a weak sort of feeling underneath that would make me do quite other than what I said. It's a great mistake to have a strong brain and a weak heart. But still, anything's better than a weak head.
I didn't sleep much that first night in India, though I was dead tired. I kept thinking of snakes, and I didn't only think of cockroaches, I saw them. Big fat ones they were—you could hear them in imagination scrunch under your feet if you stepped on them. Then, too, I had never slept inside mosquito curtains before. They are a kind of net hung round from four posts at the corners of the bed, covered in across the top and tucked in under the mattress below. It's a bit stuffy inside, but when you're in a country where all sorts of awful creepy things are as like as not crawling over the floor and up the legs of your bed, they're a real comfort, let alone keeping out the mosquitoes, which they are really meant for. So you can guess I tucked mine in tight under the mattress that first night after having seen cockroaches and imagined snakes.
Well, I fell asleep at last, but only to wake with a start to find an apparition in white standing by my bed. It gave me a real right down shock. And if you had suddenly awoke and found that face peering down at you through the curtains, I guess you'd have had a shock too. White, rolling eyeballs seemed positively to bulge out of a black bearded face, and it kind of gave me wild waking thoughts of Blue Beard and the Arabian Nights as I leapt up in bed. The apparition took a sudden step backward as I sat up. Then I began to remember where I was. I don't think there's anything more awful than the first waking moment when you don't quite realise where you are.
'Missy wanting morning tea?' said an oily cringing voice that suddenly brought back recollection. And then I grew bold as I remembered I was in a country where strange and fearsome things happened, though, as a general rule, not dangerous to Europeans if they took sufficient precautions. So I pulled up the mosquito curtains on the side whence the voice came, and thrust out my head. A white-robed kitmatgar, balancing a small tea tray in one hand and salaaming profoundly with the other, proved to be the owner of the fearsome bulgy eyes. I looked at him angrily. I always do feel particularly angry with the person nearest to hand whenever I have had a fright. And there was nothing even very bulgy about his eyes when he raised them after his profound salaam. Perhaps it was only the sight of me asleep that made his eyes bulge out like that.
I took my tea and sent for Ermyntrude. She came rather pale and subdued, and, I think, a bit resentful that her prediction had not been fulfilled and that nothing awful had happend to her in the night on the roof. It was only just seven o'clock, but from the noise that was going on in the hotel, everyone seemed to be up and about. So I got up too. The only thing that I really enjoyed about my stay in that Bombay hotel was the luxury of a bathroom, adjoining my bedroom, all to myself. There was no furtive slinking along passages thickly populated with unknown doors on either side, no undignified scurrying at the sight of a man at the other end, no leaning over banisters anxiously watching one's chance and finally running a dead heat with the lady you particularly disliked from the floor below. I cannot think why people don't take to building houses in this style at home. If you have ever once enjoyed the luxury of a bathroom attached to your bedroom all to yourself, you will never be happy again with a bathroom at the end of the passage or on the floor below.
Neither Lady Manifold nor Marjory appeared at breakfast, and I hurried back to my room to hunt out one of my smartest frocks and hats—something not too gay but quite smart enough for a quiet wedding. For, of course, when it came to the point, there really wasn't any question of my going to Boy's wedding. I was even going to be quite sweet to Fluffy. I had vague notions of helping her back along the road to social success, and all sorts of nice things on Boy's behalf.
It was just ten o'clock by my watch by the time I was ready. Major Street had told me that the wedding was to be at eleven o'clock at St. Judes, so I thought I should have time to go and buy Boy a present on the way. The hotel porter got me what he called a 'phitton gari'—a ramshackle sort of affair, driven by a wild-looking Jehu in dirty blue and yellow and drawn by two skinny horses, their harness tied with string and their food in a sack with a bundle of hay tied on behind. It wasn't at all the kind of conveyance you would choose to take you to a wedding, but I've been to one in a 'dandy' since then, and that's less dignified still. We had just started off when I suddenly remembered. There's something always wrong about the time in India. It's either half an hour too fast or half an hour too slow. It's like the starboard and the port side of a ship, nobody not to the manner born ever can remember which. There's one time known as local and another known as railway, and one is half an hour or so faster than the other—I'm afraid to say which just now on the spur of the moment. If you want to go by train, then the time is either half an hour ahead or behind the local time, I forget which, but it comes a bit awkward if you can't remember when you want to catch a train. Why it should be so nobody knows. Yet everybody passively submits in a helpless sort of way, in spite of the inconvenience of it. Talk about the survival of antiquated ideas at home, why, it's nothing to the survival of them in India. Just think what this uncertainty about the time is responsible for. It ruins the temper and breaks up the home, and yet nobody takes the trouble to alter it. The frightful recrimination it leads to between husband and wife is only one of its results. Say you and your husband are going out to dine. You neither of you can remember at the last minute whether the time is half an hour behind or half an hour ahead of what it ought to be. Now, being a woman, you know that nothing annoys a hostess more than her guests arriving half an hour too early, just when she's combing out her back hair, preparatory to twisting it up into a fascinating knot somewhere on top. The sound of early arrivals when she is only at that early stage of her toilet flusters her, and if a woman gets flustered before she begins to receive her guests that dinner is just doomed to failure right away. So the wife going out to dinner, knowing how she would feel herself if guests arrived half an hour too soon, insists upon her husband waiting half an hour before they start. Then, of course, they arrive half an hour too late, and the husband as they creep apologetically into the room full of angry, hungry people, whispers, 'I told you so,' and, of course, that upsets his wife, and she'd cry straight away if she dared. As for the hostess, with the soup getting cold and the other guests getting violent with hunger, she's got ruffled long ago. So that dinner, owing to the odd half hour either way, doesn't get a chance. Of course, you do have luck sometimes, and hit upon the exact time right there, but the chances are about ten to one against. Yet nothing would induce people in India to bestir themselves and get everybody to keep the same time. It's just apathy. They much prefer to get hustled and lose their tempers and their best friends at the same time rather than take the amount of trouble necessary to set things right once and for all.
Well, in consequence of this elusive half hour in the Indian time, a strange thing happened. It was ten o'clock, as I have said, by my watch. That might mean that it was only half past nine or it might mean that it was half past ten. That wouldn't matter a bit on an ordinary day in India, when time is of no account whatever, but on a wedding day one likes to strike the right time somewhere near about anyway. Well, it was no good my asking even if there had been anybody in sight to ask, because I knew I should forget again straight away within the next five minutes, so I thought I had best go right on to the church, and leave the shopping until afterwards. If I was somehow late already there was nothing for it but to drive fast. If I was early I could sit in St. Jude's, and work up a suitable wedding march frame of mind.
The driver deposited me at St. Jude's, and demanded quite twice the proper fare, which I meekly paid him, having no command of the language, and not wishing to create a scandal on the church steps on a wedding morning. The door was just ajar, and I cautiously pushed it open and passed inside. Then I was aware at once that I was late after all, and that the wedding had begun. There, at the far end of the church, at the chancel steps, stood the bride and bridegroom, a second man by the bridegroom's side and the verger hovering near by, with the clergyman reading the service in a subdued voice. Annoyed at being late, I tiptoed noiselessly up the aisle, and took a seat about six rows from the top. For a moment I knelt down, and then, getting up, I looked for the first time full at the bridal party. The shock of surprise I got was just about the biggest I have ever had, and I've had a good many in my day. I rubbed my eyes in petrified astonishment. There was Fluffy, large as life, but beside her stood not Boy but the doddery old General! I was so astonished that I plumped down heavily on the seat behind me. Of course, it creaked and groaned a bit under the sudden contact with my ten stone eight, and the whole wedding party looked round with a caught-in-the-very-act sort of jump. I suppose I did look a bit comic sitting there all alone. I have said before that I'm told that I have got an expressive face, and if it expressed just then the half of my surprise, eyes and mouth must have been open just as wide as they would go. Fluffy smiled. It was a wicked grin of triumph that made me feel cat-like and longing to scream, while the General and fatuous Major somebody or other who supported him looked as confused as two school-boys found out of bounds without leave. The clergyman paused, noticing my surprise and the wedding-party's guilty start, and looked as if he half believed he was going to hear for once in his life those most improbable words, 'I forbid the banns.' Then they all turned round again, and nothing happening, he hurried on, and before I had quite recovered my breath, they had all passed into the vestry. I found myself sitting in an empty church, with only the verger still hovering about and regarding me suspiciously. But I sat on. I didn't feel quite collected enough to get up and out of sight before the wedding party came out. Besides, I thought it would be rather sport to see the doddery old General and his bride coming out arm in arm. I hadn't had time to analyse my feelings yet. Of course, I was wildly glad for Boy's sake, and yet in an awful state of mind as to how he would take it. But I hadn't long to think. The vestry door opened, and the clergyman came out, closing it behind him. It was evident that the bridal party had left by another door. The clergyman, who was quite young and curate-like, came down the aisle, and I suddenly got up to meet him.
'Can you tell me the time?' I asked him breathlessly.
He looked at me rather doubtfully before pulling out his watch. Doubtless I did seem rather a strange young woman, rushing into his church in the middle of a private sort of wedding and flopping down in surprise on one of his pews like that.
'It's just twenty minutes past ten,' he said coldly.
'Then,' I said slowly, wondering if Boy already knew, 'aren't you expecting another wedding at eleven o'clock?'
'Yes,' he said, looking at me as if waiting for me to say something more.
'But you've just married the bride to somebody else,' I said, surveying him reproachfully, as if he were to blame. I felt I must have my revenge upon him for thinking me a strange young woman.
A momentary look of horror flashed across the poor man's face. He looked as if it might really have been possible for him to mix up the couples and make an awful hash of things.
'Do you know what the eleven o'clock bride's name is?' I asked, before he could gather his wits to reply.
'No,' he stammered, still with the startled look in his eyes. 'But, of course, it will be on the special license which I've got in the vestry. I will get it at once.'
He trotted off, and I awaited his return impatiently. Supposing Boy should come and find me there instead of his bride! It would be a bit awkward, to say the least, especially as the bride would never turn up to relieve the situation. But the clergyman quickly trotted back with a paper in his hand, and a troubled look on his face.
'It's just as you said, I've married the eleven o'clock bride to the ten o'clock bridegroom, but no one could say it was my fault,' he said pathetically, holding out the papers to me. 'You see, her name is in both licenses.'
'Oh,' I said, glancing at them, 'what a dreadful, brazen woman.'
'It's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard,' he exclaimed helplessly.
'Extraordinary!' I cried excitedly, and, I'm afraid, raising my voice, 'it's the wickedest, most deceitful, most devilish——'
'Hush, oh, hush, my dear young lady,' said the clergyman, looking round nervously, as if he thought the very stones would fall on us at my desecrating words.
'Very well,' I said, 'I won't stay here to use any more strong language. I'll just hustle straight away, and leave you to tell the eleven o'clock bridegroom that you've married his bride to somebody else at ten o'clock.'
I picked up my sunshade and prepared to go.
'I'd much rather you stayed,' he said anxiously, putting out his hand and almost touching me on the arm.
But my reply was arrested on my lips. The door at the far end of the church opened joyfully—I always think you can tell the temperament of anyone behind an opening door by the way they open it—and Boy's radiant figure stood silhouetted against the light from without.
I looked round wildly, the vestry was my only chance of escape. I made for it with all speed.
'Be sure you break it to him gently,' I said as I brushed the anxious clergyman aside.
'I do so wish you would stay and help me,' I heard him say plaintively as I disappeared into the vestry. But my heart was hardened against his appeal, for I could not meet Boy and tell him that his trust was betrayed, even though I was so glad that it had been betrayed just in time.