Star of India by Alice Perrin (best e book reader .TXT) 📕

"Greedy, greedy little Miss Jane, I'll never give her a present again. She spent her sixpence on raspberry rock, And spoilt her dinner as well as her frock."

Colonel Crayfield actually laughed; moreover, he accepted a gooseberry from Stella's grubby fingers and ate it fastidiously, burying the skin in the mould with the toe of his boot.

That evening grandmamma's hopes ran high. Augusta sent Stella to bed early, and afterwards Colonel Crayfield listened, apparently entranced, while Ellen played the piano—played "Yorkshire Bells" and "The Village Blacksmith."

[Pg 35]

CHAPTER III

Very early next morning Colonel Crayfield was awakened by a crash. His bedroom was alight with the dawn; the lemon scent of magnolia blossom floated in at the open window. What had aroused him? Involuntarily he glanced at the tea-tray, at the big teapot and breakfast cup for which he had Miss Ellen to thank; then he became aware of a curious sound, and sitting up he beheld the milk-jug in fragments on the floor and a cat complacently lapping the milk that had spread in a pool on the carpet. In a fury he sprang from the bed, clapping his hands, shouting at the thief; the cat, ears back, tail on end, made for the window and disappeared in a flash; he could hear her scrambling down the magnolia tree. What about his tea! He hated tea without milk, and probably the household would not be astir for hours. He formed a bold project—he would go downstairs and forage for more milk. No one need hear him; he could explain, relate the disaster at breakfast. Slippers on his feet, and a coat over his sleeping-suit, he crept into the long, low passage. All was still. But the stairs! The stairs might have been actually alive and the banisters too; how they did creak! It was a relief to arrive at the foot of the staircase without having aroused the household. Now there was a green baize door that evidently gave on to the kitchen quarters; it yielded silently to his push, and he was[Pg 36] confronted with a short flight of stone steps. At any rate, they could not creak. Quickly descending them, he found himself in a large, old-fashioned kitchen, stone-paved; beyond, surely, was the larder where milk might be found, if the cat had not been there before him. How different it all was from Indian establishments; in India, whether as a guest or in one's own house, one could demand tea at any hour of the night or day, and it was forthcoming as a matter of course; in India——

"Hallo!"

Colonel Crayfield jumped ingloriously, and only just saved himself from swearing aloud. His goddaughter was standing in the larder doorway, a cup in one hand, a crust of bread in the other. She had the advantage of him in the matter of toilet, being fully dressed in a blue washing frock that fell in straight lines from her neck to her ankles, and a wide straw hat bound with a ribbon of the same colour.

They looked at each other, amazed. Colonel Crayfield drew his coat closer about him, and passed his hand mechanically over his hair.

"Good gracious!" he said resentfully.

"Did you hear me go down?" she inquired.

"No; but I wonder you didn't hear me! The stairs made such a confounded noise."

"Yes, I know; aren't they awful! I always expect Aunt Augusta to burst from her room with a poker in her hand. Were you looking for something to eat?"

"I was looking for some milk," he admitted; "a[Pg 37] cat got into my room and knocked down the milk-jug. I don't like tea without milk."

"I expect it was Granny."

"Granny?" repeated Colonel Crayfield, mystified.

Stella laughed. "Not my grandmother! Was it an old black-and-white cat with a very long tail?"

"I really did not notice. Anyway, the brute broke the jug and was drinking the milk——"

"Here you are then," she handed him a jug.

He took it. "But have you all you want yourself?" he inquired politely.

"Heaps," she replied, munching her crust. "Have a piece of bread? It's lovely—home made. I only wish I had an onion, too. Don't you love onions?"

"I don't object to them——" he began; then suddenly the unfitness of the situation came home to him with something of a shock. Here was he, the ruler of a vast area in India, accustomed to ceremony and circumstance and state, pilfering a larder with a chit of a girl—discussing onions, of all things; and further than that he was not dressed! It might have been a silly dream.

"And what are you doing down here at this extraordinary hour?" he asked of his goddaughter with what dignity was left to him.

"Eating and drinking, as you can see," was her flippant reply. Then, as though conscious that she was perhaps not treating Colonel Crayfield quite with the respect that was his due, she added primly: "I often get up very early and go for a ramble"; she hesitated, and continued with diffidence, "would you care to come for a walk instead of going to bed again?"

[Pg 38]

"Well, I can't come as I am; but if you will wait till I've had my tea and dressed——"

"Of course I'll wait! I'll leave the side door open and you'll find me outside."

Later, when he joined her, his self-respect as Commissioner of Rassih restored, he said: "Indian life would suit you, since you are so fond of early rising. In India I am nearly always out soon after daybreak."

Stella sighed. "Oh! India—how I should love to go there!"

"Really? What about the heat and the exile and the insects?"—and he added playfully—"not to speak of snakes and tigers!"

"I'm not afraid of anything!" bragged Stella, and with the elimination of grandmamma this was true enough. "If it comes to exile, what could be worse than life at The Chestnuts—where nothing ever happens, and nothing will ever happen!"

Now they were out of the garden, out on a common that was ablaze with gorse—the spongy turf was silvered with dew, the air fragrant and fresh; birds' voices, the distant lowing of cattle, echoed in the sweet stillness.

"But some day you will marry," prophesied Colonel Crayfield, in a tone of encouragement.

"Marry!" derided Stella. "Who is there for me to marry?" She thought of Miss Spurt and of the young porter at the railway station.

He made no answer; he was appraising the slim, young form beside him, marking the grace of her limbs, the poise of the little head on the long, round neck, the clean turn of ankle and wrist—every point[Pg 39] was good; in a couple of years she must be a magnificent woman.

"What are you thinking about?" inquired Stella. "Here we are at the end of the common and you've hardly spoken a word. Are you tired?"

"Tired? Certainly not! It would take rather more than a walk across a common to tire me!" He stepped out with vigour.

"What long strides you are taking. Hadn't we better have a race while we are about it? See that oak tree over there—at the edge of the wood? I bet you I'll get there first. One, two, three—off!"

And the Commissioner of Rassih, who could still hold his own at tennis and rackets, accepted the challenge. The race ended in a dead heat.

Stella flung herself down beneath the oak tree, and Colonel Crayfield took a seat, formed by the roots, beside her. The fact that he was scarcely out of breath pleased him.

"Anyway, you can run!" pronounced Stella.

"Why not?" he demanded.

"Oh, I don't know." She was politely evasive; it would hardly do to explain that such agility in anyone of his age and bulk had surprised her, and she hastened to change the subject. "Now, do let us talk about India"—she looked up at him with eager, bright eyes—"you don't know how I long to see India. I suppose it's in my blood; all the Carringtons did things in India, and if I had been a boy I should have gone out to do things, too. I am the last young Carrington left—and I am only a girl!"

Colonel Crayfield took off his hat and ran his[Pg 40] fingers through his thick, grey hair; he was proud of its thickness; most men of his age in India were hopelessly bald.

"India isn't what it was; the spirit of romance and adventure has gone, the pagoda tree is dead, prices are rising, and exchange is falling——"

"But haven't you lovely big houses?" interrupted Stella, "and heaps of servants and horses, and the sun and gardens and fruit? What is your bungalow like in India?"

He checked his inclination to grumble. "It isn't a bungalow. It's part of a Moghul fort, built on the walls of the old city; the wall goes right round the compound; a compound is——"

"Yes, I know what compound means! I know compound, and tiffin, and chuprassee, and peg, and lots of words. I find them in all the old family letters put away in the lumber room. Do go on!"

"Well, I believe the city in the old days used to come close