THE DILEMMA.
CHAPTER IV.
Yorke was not the only person fascinated by Miss Cunningham's grace and beauty. On all sides the new arrival was pronounced to be a charming addition to Mustaphabad society, the general chorus of approval being subject perhaps to reservation in the case of the parents of the Misses Glumme and Peart, who must have felt that those young ladies were now displaced from the position of reigning belles which they had occupied since their arrival at Mustaphabad the previous cold season. Entertainments were set on foot in all directions in honour of the occasion, heralded by a ball given by the hussars, when the new Calcutta mat laid down in their spacious mess-room, and which those gallant officers had ordered specially for the fête, was pronounced on all sides to be even better with the pavement underneath, for dancing upon, than a wooden floor. Not so elastic, perhaps, but so slippery and even. Previous to that occasion our ardent young subaltern had been vouchsafed merely a few glimpses of the lady who now filled all his thoughts. Once, when he passed her driving again on the course with her father; but, alas! there was no band that evening, and the carriage did not stop. Then, one morning while the 76th were out at drill, and the old major was blundering away worse than ever, till all the officers were visibly out of temper, the adjutant offering his advice, without any pretence of concealment, for releasing the regiment out of its clubbed state, and even the stolid sepoys were laughing, Yorke — looking from his vantage-ground at the head of the light company across the plain which extended along the front of the station, and which served as parade-ground for the different regiments in garrison — saw some figures on horseback emerging from the cloud of dust which marked the spot where the dragoons were exercising — figures which, as they came nearer, he made out to be the commissioner and his daughter, accompanied by Captain Sparrow and the brigadier on his grey pony. They had evidently been watching the cavalry, and were now coming to look at the infantry. A sense of shame at the ridiculous figure the regiment presented almost overcame the rising at his heart as the fair vision approached them. Still, a lady would hardly detect the little faults of manœuvring so obvious to the military eye; the men, at any rate, marched well, for the major had not been long enough in command to diminish their efficiency in this respect, and a finer-looking set was not to be seen in the army. Miss Cunningham had expressed a wish to see a sepoy regiment on parade; the party was evidently coming this way at her suggestion. But no! just as they reached the point where the road to the city intersects the plain at right angles to the parade-grounds, and were near enough for Yorke to mark that she was riding a handsome chestnut Arab, and that she looked, if possible, even more graceful in her riding-habit than in ordinary costume, the party stopped, and after exchanging salutations separated, the brigadier alone continuing his course in the direction of the regiment, while the others cantered off towards the city, a slight cloud of dusk tracking their steps.
At sight of the approaching brigadier, evidently bent on criticism, for battalion drill was a strong point with him, Major Dumble hastily dismissed the regiment; and while the other officers adjourned to the mess-house, Yorke returned to his bungalow to chew the cud of disappointment.
The next time he saw the fair vision of his waking dreams, she was again driving with her father on the course, who this time occupied the back-seat with Dr. Mackenzie Maxwell, the civil surgeon, — a stranger sitting beside the young lady, a middle-aged, soldierlike man, in plain clothes, wearing a helmet of felt with a white turban round it, and who Yorke thought must be a traveller, such a sun-protecting head-dress not being commonly worn of an evening. Yorke, who did not venture to approach the carriage on this occasion when it stopped near the band, asked Buxey, the station paymaster, sitting alone in his buggy, who the visitor might be. "Be?" replied Buxey; "why, Falkland, of course," as if the question was a superfluous one; and, indeed, as soon as Yorke heard the name, he knew who the stranger was; for Colonel Falkland was famous both in war and peace, distinguished for gallantry and skill in various campaigns, and holding high office in that part of India, being at present commissioner of the territory adjacent to Mustaphabad. "Is Miss Cunningham's godfather, you know," continued Buxey. "She was born in '36, at Benares; Cunningham was assistant magistrate there,
