An American Girl in India/Chapter 9
CHAPTER IX
AN ADVENTURE IN THE NIGHT
Now, I admit I'm a bit of a coward sometimes—all women are—but I flatter myself I don't often show it.
'Never make an exhibition of your feelings in public. It's so ill-bred,' I remember was one of Aunt Agatha's copy-book maxims which she used to instil into us when we were young, while mother was away on a platform somewhere nobly sacrificing the education of us three children to the education of the country generally. 'If you don't like a person it's probably as much your fault as the other body's, so there's no need for you to show it. Just smile round on everybody. Life's too short to go and make things unpleasant. In the same way if you're in love or frightened or fingering your last cent in the bottom corner of your pocket, there's no good crying out and making a fuss about it. If you've got to die, you will die, and you may as well do it with a smile and make it as pleasant for other people as you can.'
It's one of the most wonderful things in life how one's early teaching flashes back upon one at times afterwards. Aunt Agatha always said that nothing ever mattered so much as one's first twelve years, and I believe she was right. Try as you will, you will never get away from the training of them, and the things you were taught to believe, in those early days, you will always cherish a kind of sneaking belief for somewhere in the back of your mind, long after reason tells you they were only ignorant survivals of the middle ages. It is sometimes quite wonderful how Aunt Agatha's well-remembered common-sense maxims come back to me just as if they were spoken in my ear, and keep me from making a fool of myself. I found them most sustaining that first dreadful night in the Indian Mofussil.
We had retired to our rooms early that first evening under Berengaria's roof, as I was naturally supposed to be fairly well tired out after my long journey. It was quite true that I was tired, but I was not sleepy. There's a great difference. I had that tiresome alert sort of feeling one sometimes gets after a long journey when one reaches a strange place, and although one really is just tired out, one knows beforehand that sleep won't come. With me that night it was doubtless partly the journey and partly the strange place, but above all it was that room. I looked round it uneasily as Ermyntrude busied herself making things ready for the night. That room was forty feet long by thirty-four feet wide—I know because Ermyntrude and I measured it next day with a tape—and it had eighteen doors. I know it sounds impossible, and I don't ask you to believe it if you don't want to, but it's true. Right away in the middle of the room stood a sort of camp bed of the smallest possible dimensions. With its white mosquito curtains carefully tucked in it stood out like an oasis in the desert. Against the walls, one at each end of the room, were two almirahs, and by the side of the bed was a strip of carpet laid down over the matting that covered the floor, and on the strip of carpet was a tiny tea-table. Then there was a dressing-table with another strip of carpet in front of it, and two wicker chairs. And that was all. Just imagine what that in the way of furniture looked like in a room forty by thirty-four, with eighteen curtainless doors. It looked positively naked and indecent, let alone the creepy, uncanny sort of feeling it gave you when you reflected on the fact that you had to sleep in it. I knew straight away that for any one constituted as I am sleep was not to be expected in a room like that.
Ermyntrude, for a wonder, had nothing to complain of. She had a nice cosy little room somewhere at the other end of the house, and was quite content. I privately determined to detain her with me as long as possible, but, of course, I could never let her see that I was afraid to be left alone. I should never have been able to pour contempt upon her many fears again if I had ever let her see that. So I thought of Aunt Agatha's maxims, and tried to look much braver than I felt.
'May I come in?' said a voice suddenly at one of the eighteen doors. It gave me a horrible start. It was impossible to be quite sure at which of the eighteen doors it was, but it certainly was not the door that I had come in by. That in itself was creepy. It wasn't exactly what you might call cosy and secluded-like to feel that anybody might spring in upon you any moment through any one of eighteen doors that encircled you all round. I guess it was the most indefensible position that I had ever been in.
A door opened quite in an unexpected place, and Berengaria entered. She was wreathed in smiles and the rose-pink dressing-gown. Ostensibly she came to see that I was all right; really, of course, to exhibit the rose-pink dressing-gown.
'Send your maid away,' she whispered, 'and let's talk cosy for five minutes.'
The idea of talking cosy in a room like that! However, we ensconced ourselves on the two wicker chairs, and in a weak moment I dismissed Ermyntrude. It only flashed across me after she had gone that I hadn't the remotest idea where her room was. Afterwards I knew what it felt like to have burned one's boats.
'I hope you like your room,' Berengaria was saying in her usual cheery way. 'You must find it nice and roomy after being so cramped up on board ship and in the train.'
'Yes, isn't it roomy?' I returned pleasantly. I never believe in telling lies unnecessarily, so I took refuge in a plain statement of fact. Nobody could have denied that that room was roomy.
'And it's so healthy having so many doors and windows,' continued Berengaria. 'That's one of the great advantages of Indian life—you get so much fresh air.'
I hadn't considered the eighteen doors from that point of view before, but, of course, it was undeniable that they did let in the air, though some people might have called it a draught, and again I murmured acquiescence.
'And in case of fire you could hardly fail to make your escape,' Berengaria chatted on, evidently having made it as much a rule to crack up things she had as to run down things like dressing-gowns and sponges that she didn't possess.
'Even in a very bad earthquake you would have an excellent chance,' she added cheerfully. 'You would be much more likely to get out of this room with eighteen doors in it than you would out of an ordinary room with only two or three.'
Which, of course, again was true. But talking of earthquakes wasn't exactly comforting to one in my frame of mind, and as I had privately determined to lock up every door securely before going to bed—if I ever had the courage to go—the fact that there were eighteen of them wouldn't count much from an-escape-in-an-earthquake point of view.
'Earthquakes?' I queried as unconcernedly as I could. 'You don't get many of them in Slumpanugger, do you?'
Berengaria seemed to hesitate between a desire to be truthful and at the same time not to rob Slumpanugger of any sensationalism that might be considered its due.
'Well, I can't say that we have many,' she considered, 'but what we do have are very severe,' she added more cheerfully. Only last year there was quite a bad one. It was just before we came, and the unfortunate Brown-Toogoods, who were here then, had an awful time of it. Poor Mr. Brown-Toogood had nerves, and Mrs. Brown-Toogood had three children, and what with the nerves and the children and the earthquake they nearly died. There were huge cracks all over the house, and the whole family spent several nights camped out in the garden in much fear and trembling in a tent in the rains. By the way, there was one tremendous crack all down the side of one of these walls.' Berengaria jumped up in the animated manner of one going to seek hidden treasure, and walked half-way along the forty feet of floor. Then she searched and found it. 'Ah, there it is. Do you see? It's been well patched up, of course; but you can still see the crack right down from the ceiling. They do say that it was so wide a crack that you could see daylight nearly the whole length of it from top to bottom.'
I stood behind Berengaria, peeping up at the signs of the crack, which were still distinctly visible. Now, unfortunately, I've been burdened with an imagination, and I saw that wall as it must once have looked, gaping open with the daylight streaming through, and it wasn't a pleasant thing to see when you're just going to be left alone in a strange room at night with a vivid imagination and eighteen doors.
'But anyway,' I said, somewhat irrelevantly, but feeling round for a bit of comfort somewhere, 'anyway, you don't get ghosts out here, do you?'
'Not get ghosts!' exclaimed Berengaria. 'Why, we've got the most celebrated one in the provinces at the dâk bungalow just across the way.'
Berengaria is nothing if not dramatic. She flung open one of the windows on the other side of the room.
'There it is,' she said, waving a hand out into the darkness. 'You can just see it from here.'
'What, the ghost?' I exclaimed, peering out nervously.
'Well, you may if you watch all night,' laughed Berengaria callously. 'But it's only a glimpse of the dâk bungalow you can see just now.'
'The dâk bungalow!' I gasped. 'What's that?' Berengaria explained. It's a public sort of resthouse where you can put up if you're just passing through, or if you're an official on inspection, or a stranger to the place. But if you're a nice kind of stranger, and you're staying any time, you won't be left long in the dâk bungalow. Somebody will offer to put you up. It's only the people whom nobody wants who make long stays in dâk bungalows.
Berengaria was launching herself full into the midst of the story of the ghost. I was too much upset all round to grasp the details intelligently, but, of course, it had all the usual ingredients of a ghost story. Somebody had died a nasty, sticky death, and not having had an Aunt Agatha to instil nice conventional copy-book maxims into it, had been creating a dreadful fuss about it ever since, and making it just as disagreeable for other people as it could. I shivered as I looked out into the pitchy darkness. Only a horrible patch of white where the dâk bungalow loomed up out of the surrounding gloom scarce a hundred yards away broke the blackness of the night.
Berengaria, having finished the ghost story to her own infinite satisfaction and my discomfiture, closed the window and prepared to depart.
'Now I really must say good night. I do hope you will sleep well,' she said cheerfully. 'There's a "chowkidar" in the veranda, so you will be quite safe.'
'A "chowkidar",' I asked eagerly, clinging to a last hope, 'what's that?'
'A "chowkidar",' said Berengaria slowly, as if she were repeating a lesson as she stood in one of the eighteen doorways, 'a "chowkidar " is the foundation-stone on which the whole British Constitution in India rests. I got that from John, so it must be true.' She nodded smilingly. 'And if you come just here you can distinctly hear him snoring.'
Whether it was the foundation-stone of the British Constitution in India or John that I should hear snoring didn't seem quite clear. Anyway, I went over and stood by Berengaria. It was quite dark outside, save for a small hand-lamp that stood on the floor at the further end of the veranda. From what looked like a long bundle of clothes beside it came a deep and sonorous snoring. It was evidently the foundation-stone of the British Constitution in India. I regarded it with some awe.
'It's generally very stupid, and it scarcely ever understands what you say to it, and its oftenest asleep,' laughed Berengaria, as she turned to bid me a final good night, 'but it's quite useful in its own way, and you're quite safe as long as you can hear it snore near by.'
And with a wave of the hand amidst a flutter of rose-pink silk dressing-gown Berengaria disappeared from sight. Nothing but Aunt Agatha's maxims had kept me from falling on her neck, and imploring her not to leave me.
I stood in the doorway—one of the eighteen—looking at the foundation-stone of the British Constitution in India. I can't truthfully say that the sight was calculated to inspire one with much confidence, but anyway I felt that it was something to fall back upon as a last resort in case of need. I was congratulating myself on that at least when something happened. I saw a kind of movement coming from somewhere very much inside the bundle. It was like the struggling of a cat in a bag. The snoring ceased. I hid behind the half-open door, and watched breathlessly. I had never yet seen the foundation-stone of the British Constitution in India, and my curiosity was great. Slowly it unwound itself like a cocoon from among various odd coverings, and struggled to its feet. It looked very dazed and sleepy, and seemed rather top-heavy, and all its movements were deliberate, but of course that was only to be expected of a foundation-stone. First it picked up a blue puggaree and put it on its head. Then one by one very slowly it gathered up all its other belongings, including a tiny little bolster for its head. Finally, to my speechless amazement, it picked up the lamp and solemnly marched away. It gave me a real depressed extinction-of-the-last-hope sort of feeling straight away. Even the very foundation of the British Constitution in India had gone away and left me.
I stood in that doorway—one of eighteen—feeling right down helpless. Everything was so horribly still. I felt myself straining my ears to catch a sound of any kind, yet knowing all the time that if I did hear one it would be even more aweinspiring than the silence. Slowly I turned and went inside, and locked the door There were probably seventeen others still unlocked. The huge room, only dimly lit by a single lamp, seemed to swallow me up. I felt like a very small cutlet in a very big meat-safe. Then I suddenly remembered one of Aunt Agatha's maxims, 'If you are going to die you will die,' with various sorts of exhortations to do it decently. So I tried to buck up. I was in a strange house in a strange land. I didn't know where anybody's rooms were. Even the very foundation-stone of the British Constitution in India had gone away and left me. There was no help for it. I must face things alone.
Now this may not seem to you such a dreadful contingency as it was to me. Nobody would ever guess from knowing me by day how horribly nervous I am at night. I'm quite brave and ready to face anything in the daytime. Then you can see what's happening, and you do know just where you are. It's the thought of something rushing on you suddenly in the dark when you're alone and can't see what's going on that sort of paralyses me. It's not a feeling that I always have every night. I go on quite happily for a long time. Then I suddenly think about it, and it's all up. I had it that night very badly, and I begin to think now that it must have been presentiment as much as anything besides.
First of all I went carefully round locking every door. Perhaps I should explain that in India a door and a window are generally synonymous terms. You get what we call full-length French windows, generally a glass-door inside with outside venetians—shutters or jhilmils, as they call them out in India. I contented myself with bolting the jhilmils sometimes, though I had horrible doubts as to whether it might not be possible by carefully inserting one's hand to open them from the outside. But when I came to the eighteenth door I found to my horror that it had no inside glass window and no bolt at all on the jhilmil! And it was one of those that looked straight out towards the dâk bungalow across the compound—you always in India call the grounds round your house a compound, though it's no good asking why because nobody will be able to tell you.
My spirits sank still lower as I looked out into that compound. It was a pitch-dark night, and it didn't cheer me up to think that not even a bolt lay between me and that nasty, lonely, dark place outside. I pulled the jhilmil to, and sat down and looked at it sadly. That eighteenth boltless door was just typical of India all through. Everything may be very nice, but there's always something 'not just quite' about it that mars the general effect. What possible use is there in seventeen doors that lock if the eighteenth one is destitute of bolts and bars? One might just as well have saved the cost of the seventeen bolts on all the others. It's just the same all through. You see a splendid carriage and pair, real good horses, gorgeous harness, men in wonderful liveries, a regular smart turn-out, yet dangling underneath you'll probably find a bundle of grass or that little bit of string again personified in a coil of rope. It's the most comically incongruous sight you've ever seen. But it's a pity, because it spoils the general effect. You couldn't possibly do it anywhere except in India. When Berengaria borrows a Rajah's carriage that ugly coil of rope is always swinging somewhere underneath or in the rear, and I can't get over it. I enjoy the drive and the smartness of the equipage very much, but I'm always subconscious of that incongruous coil of rope. I once asked Berengaria why they carried it. She had got so used to it as people do get used to things in India, that she seemed quite surprised to see it, and the only guess she ventured on was that they must have brought it along to mend the harness with in case it broke.
And then as I contemplated that eighteenth door that wouldn't lock a brilliant idea struck me. I, too, would use a little bit of string. I began to search my trunks with hope renewed, but soon it began to dawn upon me that that was the one thing that I did not possess. Then it was that I resorted to a bootlace. I remember Aunt Agatha once saying that give a woman a bootlace and a hairpin, and there are few things she can't do. So I carefully tied those jhilmils together with a bootlace. I didn't flatter myself that it was very strong, but even a bootlace was better than nothing between me and that dreadful compound and the dâk bungalow outside. Then I looked timidly into the almirahs, and prodded my dresses to make sure there was nothing inside. Then I lowered the light. I should have liked to keep it on full, but it was such a tiny one that I doubted its capacity to last the whole night through, and to be left in the dark was too awful a possibility to contemplate. Then I crept under the mosquito-net into bed, and tucked myself in.
There was only one consolation about that room. It was quite impossible for anyone to be hiding under that camp-bed.
Now I always have objected to sleeping with my face turned away from the door. Of course that is easy enough to avoid in an ordinary sensible English room. But what could one do with a room with eighteen doors? As soon as ever I had got into bed I became doubly conscious of those nine doors that I couldn't see. It gave me a dreadful creepy sort of feeling. I imagined one of those unseen doors stealthily opening and someone coming in noiselessly, and I felt certain I should get an awful shock in a moment if I wasn't stabbed from behind or smothered straight away. It's so dreadful to think of people whom you can't see peeping in and seeing you. I felt as if I was shut up in a glass house as a sort of peep-show. I imagined eyes at each of the eighteen doors. I crouched down in bed, and tried to make myself invisible. Then I started up filled with a new fear. I was sure I had lost my bearings, and forgotten which door led where. I peered out looking for the bootlace to guide me, but everything looked dim and shadowy. Was the light burning lower, or was it only my imagination? If anything happened I had a presentiment that I should be paralysed and my limbs refuse to move. My throat was already too much parched to scream. Besides, what noise that one frightened woman might make in the inside of a room like that would have the ghost of a chance of being heard outside. Especially as I had carefully locked every door! How could I have been so foolish as to lock every door! If I had only left them all wide open I might have had eighteen chances of escape. Now I had none. I sat up in bed trying to see in front, on both sides, and behind at one and the same time. It was very tiring. I felt certain the lamp was going out. It threw such queer shadows. There was one of those dreadful green lizards on the wall just above it, waiting with that deadly still look they have to pounce upon a poor harmless fly just below. How do lizards manage to stand on the wall heads down in the way they do? The very sight of it seemed to fascinate that fly. When he had got wings why didn't he fly away? I took a sudden interest in that fly. I began to feel that I should be rather like it if anything were to happen to me just then. That fly, I guess, was just about as paralysed as I should be if I saw anything huge looming over me. I waited kind of breathless, peering through the mosquito-net. I could see the lizard's throat palpitating in a dreadful sort of way, as if he smacked his lips in anticipation of the coming dainty. I suppose it wasn't really long, but it seemed ages that they stood like that. The fly never moved, and the lizard seemed to gloat over it and prolong its agony. Then it was all over in a flash. It was like a conjuring trick. The lizard was a few inches lower down on the wall, and the fly had disappeared. That was all.
After that I lay down again sadly, and counted sheep going in and out of each of the eighteen doors. If only I could go to sleep and not wake up till it was light! How horribly still it was! But I went on steadily counting sheep. I had twelve of them, and I made them go in and out of every door all round the room one behind the other. I counted them as they came in at the door tied up with the bootlace. When they had all got through, I multiplied by eighteen before they had time to get round again. It was very difficult multiplying by eighteen, and the last thing I remember was thinking how much easier it would have been if only there had been twenty doors instead of eighteen.
'Oo-ugh, oo-ugh, oo-ugh!' I woke from a beautiful dreamless sleep with a start. 'Oo-ugh, oo-ugh, oo-ugh!' There was no mistaking it. There was something in the room. It was close by the bed. It was leering at me with its dreadful half human face through the mosquito nets. Its eyes weren't bulgy, but they were horribly wide open, and they had the kind of anticipatory gleam about them that the lizard's had when it looked down upon the fly. I knew that it would happen. I was absolutely paralysed. After that first start, which brought me to a half-sitting posture, I seemed fixed. I couldn't move; as for crying out, I didn't seem to have a throat at all. I and that baboon or gorilla, or whatever it was, faced one another with only the mosquito curtain in between.
Whether that baboon liked the look of me or not I can't say, but it seemed hours that he stood still and looked at me. He was quite silent now, and he put his hand—or should I call it a foot or a paw?—up to his chin, as if he were seriously considering me. It was real human. He had long grey hair and a pale, lined face, that was fearfully old and knowing and ugly, that reminded me of—but perhaps I had better not say whom, though you are sure to guess. How big he was I won't say either, because, as I said before, I've got a vivid imagination, and I don't feel that I could survive a real good cross examination on the events of that dreadful night.
I think he must have decided at last that he did like me as, suddenly, without any warning, he gave an awful whoop that made me nearly jump out of my skin, and then began waltzing round and round the bed waving his arms. I fell back, and put my head under the bedclothes. But that was worse. I felt I positively must see what he was doing. I peeped out. He was still waltzing round and round, and the uncanny thing was that he made no sound except an occasional whoop that made my blood run cold. His feet seemed to fall almost noiselessly on the floor, though he gave great leaps and bounds. Awful stories of baboons came back to me. One particularly dreadful one of Edgar Allan Poe's, dimly remembered before, stood out with terrible distinctness now. I wondered if he knew how flimsy was the mosquito net that was all there was between us. Fortunately, though once or twice he came up quite close to it and peered through at me, he never tried to touch it.
I began to get more confidence as the dance went on and nothing happened. Several of Aunt Agatha's maxims recurred to me. After all, this might not be a criminal baboon like Edgar Allan Poe's. It might only have come to pay me a visit, and found me at home instead of 'Ghussal Karte.' But of course this was only a chance, and it struck me as being so very ignominious to be killed by a baboon, and I don't think one would look at all nice afterwards. 'Make things as pleasant as you can for other people,' was one of Aunt Agatha's chief maxims. Well, I shouldn't be making it exactly pleasant for Berengaria and John if I went and died a nasty sticky death in their house the very first night. So it behoved me for everybody's sake as well as for my own to outwit that baboon.
Presently the circuit he was making round and round my bed grew wider, until at last he caught sight of himself in the looking glass that stood on the dressing table against the wall. He stopped at once, evidently very much interested. Very cautiously he approached and surveyed himself. He didn't take his presentment for another baboon, as I thought he would—as a dog or a cat generally does. He seemed quite to understand that it was himself he was looking at, and quite anxious about his personal appearance. His movements were all so grotesquely human that I was perfectly fascinated and almost forgot to be afraid any more. He put up his hand and smoothed his hair; he looked at his teeth, and made quaint faces at himself, giving vent to strange gurgling noises like a pleased infant. He seemed to have forgotten all about me.
Now was my time to escape if I could only manage it. The question was whether I could reach one of the eighteen doors, unlock it, and get away outside without his seeing me. I made up my mind to risk it. With one eye on the baboon I began to work my way cautiously and silently under the mosquito curtains out of bed. That was my undoing. It's a bit of an art until you understand the thing well to get out quickly and neatly from under a mosquito net that has been carefully tucked in. I had got both my feet outside all right, and was just going to duck my head to scramble through when that wretched baboon looked round. He came dancing towards me at once with a dreadful whoop that brought back all my fears straight away. I was half in and half out of bed, and as I scrambled back I got horribly mixed up in the mosquito net. The more frantic the efforts I made to get inside it the more I seemed to be outside, and by the time the baboon got round the bed I was quite inextricably muddled up. There was one leg I could not get inside anyhow, and a last despairing effort brought half the mosquito net down. A nasty cold damp hand placed suddenly on my knee finished me off. I don't remember anything more.
Now I have never fainted before or since in my life, but I suppose I must have done so then. The next thing I was conscious of was opening my eyes, and seeing Ermyntrude looking down at me with a look of horror and solicitude never previously attained even on her expressive countenance. And it was not surprising under the circusmtances, for—I was lying under the bed. How I came there remains a mystery to this day. Whether the baboon put me there or whether I put myself there I suppose I shall never know. The baboon may know, but my one consolation is that the baboon won't tell. If only one could be as certain of the discretion of one's friends!
'Oh, miss,' Ermyntrude was gasping out, her hand, as usual in moments of excitement, wildly endeavouring to place itself upon her heart, 'oh, miss, what 'ave 'appened to you?'
The morning sunlight was streaming full into the room. The terrors of the night were passed. I felt quite brave in spirit again though most uncomfortably weak physically.
'My good Ermyntrude,' I said, getting out from underneath the bed with what dignity I could, 'if I choose from hygenic principles to sleep beneath the bed instead of upon it have you any objection?'
'Oh no, miss, none whatsoever,' exclaimed Ermyntrude hastily. A little sarcasm always has a wonderful effect on Ermyntrude.
But of course I couldn't expect to satisfy her perfectly natural curiosity as easily as that. She was still standing looking at me with a horrified expression. Suddenly I paused, arrested by a horrible thought. What could it be that she was staring at? Marie Antoinette and the prisoner of Chillon flashed across my memory. Could it—could it possibly be that I too had gone white with fright in a single night? My mind was already busy trying to remember the names of all the patent hair-washes I had always hitherto read of with such scorn. I tried to move towards the looking-glass, but my knees seemed to fail me. I turned, and looked Ermyntrude straight in the eyes.
'Ermyntrude,' I said solemnly, 'what colour do you call my hair?'
Ermyntrude backed perceptibly. I think she thought that I was mad.
'Oh, a beautiful golden brown, miss, as it always was, and I hope always will be,' she exclaimed hastily and propitiatingly.
'Ermyntrude,' I said, with a sigh of infinite relief, 'you shall have that pale-blue muslin to send home to your sister Beatrice as soon as ever I have worn it twice more.'
That seemed to restore Ermyntrude's faith in my sanity, and she evidently gave up the idea of madness at once. I went over to the looking-glass while she expressed her gratitude.
'But, oh, you do look pale, miss,' she said a moment later, her curiosity evidently reviving.
I not only looked pale as I surveyed myself critically in the glass but I felt pale, which is even worse. Yet I was not going to let Ermyntrude know it or she would be sure to fuss—nothing annoys me more than being fussed over when I'm not well—and bring out all Aunt Agatha's remedies, which were not at all what I wanted. There was only one thing that would do me any good, and that one thing was brandy, which, of course, being the one thing needful, was not included in Aunt Agatha's remedies. I felt that it was necessary to stifle Ermyntrude's curiosity once and for all.
'Ermyntrude,' I said slowly and expressively, and thinking what Bucklew in the 'Bride of Lammermoor' said to his friends after he too had had an adventure in the night, 'you found me under the bed when you came in this morning, and it's no good pretending the mosquito-net is not torn. I'm not going to tell you anything more as to how I came to be under the bed. You may accept the fact as due to a little eccentricity of mine, or as anything else you like, but I forbid you to mention it to anyone here.'
I'm afraid really that that only made Ermyntrude more curious still, but of course she had nothing more to say. I was determined at all costs that my adventure should not be known. I would not become a laughing-stock as the girl whose first visitor in Slumpanugger was a baboon.
I drank my tea in silence and great dignity, while Ermyntrude busied herself about the room. I still felt a little weak, but quite brave again. I suppose I must have an extraordinary constitution. Or is it quite a usual one? I've never known myself anything but brave by day, whereas by night—well you have heard.
'That's very strange,' I heard Ermyntrude murmur, searching all round the bare expanse of floor, on the other chair, on my trunks, and even in the almirahs. Then I saw that she held one of my black silk evening stockings in her hand. I paused with the cup of tea half way to my lips. Something dreadful was dawning upon me.
'There was one of your black silk stockings on this chair, miss,' Ermyntrude said at last, after much fruitless searching. 'But the other one is not to be found anywhere.'
I put down my cup of tea. I could not trust my hands to hold it any longer.
'Ermyntrude,' I asked hoarsely, 'was that stocking marked?'
'Marked, miss?' queried Ermyntrude, doubts as to my sanity evidently overcoming her again as she looked at me.
'Yes, marked,' I said feebly—'marked with my name or initials?'
Ermyntrude suddenly drew herself up primly.
'No, miss,' was all she said, but the variety of expressions that flashed across her face in those few seconds spoke volumes. All at once I realised what dreadful things Ermyntrude's vivid imagination might be conjuring up about that missing stocking. Partly at that, partly from relief that that stocking wasn't marked, I lay back and laughed hysterically.
When I recovered I told the horrified Ermyntrude the whole story of the night's adventures, of course leaving out the parts about my own personal feelings. In the narrative I appeared to have acted with great courage and discretion Ermyntrude was thrilled. It was much better and more real than the Family Herald.
'Only remember, Ermyntrude,' I said, as I finished the recital, 'I forbid you to mention it to anybody. I know how people gossip in India, and I will not be talked about in connection with a baboon.'