The Elephant God, Gordon Casserly [best books to read all time txt] 📗

accommodated in rooms floored with marble, generally badly stained or broken. Two large chambers tiled and wainscoted with wonderfully carved blackwood panels were apportioned as dining-hall and sitting-room for the English visitors. All the windows of the wing, many of them closely screened, looked on an inner courtyard which was bounded on two sides by other buildings of the Palace. The fourth side was divided off from another courtyard by a high blank wall pierced by a large gateway, the leaves of the gate hanging broken and useless from the posts.

Ida and Noreen were given rooms beside each other and were amused at the heterogeneous collection of odd pieces of furniture in them. The old four-posted beds with funereal canopies and moth-eaten curtains had probably been brought from England a hundred years before. In small chambers off their rooms, with marble walls and floors, and windows filled with thin slabs of alabaster carved in the most exquisite tracery as delicate as lace, galvanised iron tubs to be used as baths looked sadly out of place.

When they had freshened themselves up after their long motor drive they went down to the dining-hall, where lunch was to be served. And when she entered the room the first person that Noreen saw was Dermot, seated at a small table with Payne and Granger.

On his return from a secret excursion across the Bhutan border the Major had found awaiting him at Ranga Duar the official invitation of the Lalpuri Durbar. He was very much surprised at it; for he knew that the State had never encouraged visits from Europeans, and had, when possible, invariably refused admission to all except important British officials, who could not be denied. Such a thing as actually entertaining Englishmen of its own accord was unknown in its annals. So he stared at the large card printed in gold and embossed with the coat-of-arms of Lalpuri in colours, and wondered what motive lay behind the invitation. That it betokened a fresh move in the conspiracy he was certain; but be the motive what it might he was glad of the unexpected opportunity of visiting Lalpuri and meeting those whom he believed to be playing a leading part in the plot. So he promptly wrote an acceptance.

He reached the Palace only half an hour before Daleham's party arrived from another direction, and had just met his two planter friends when Noreen entered the room. He had not known that she was to be at Lalpuri. The three men rose and bowed to her, and Dermot looked to see if Charlesworth were with her. But only the two women and Daleham followed Chunerbutty as he led the way to a table at the far end of the room.

There were about twenty English guests altogether, eight or nine of whom were from the district in which Malpura was situated, the Rices among them. The rest were planters from other parts of the Duars, a few members of the Indian Civil Service or Public Works Departments, and a young Deputy Superintendent of Police from Jalpaiguri.

At Chunerbutty's table the party consisted of the Rices, one of the Civil Servants, the Dalehams, and Noreen's friend. The planter's wife neglected the man beside her to stare at Mrs. Smith, taking in every detail of her dress, while Ida chattered gaily to Fred, whose good looks had attracted her the moment that she first saw him on the platform of Jalpaiguri station. She was already apparently quite consoled for the loss of her Calcutta admirer.

Noreen sat pale and abstracted beside Chunerbutty, answering his remarks in monosyllables, eating nothing, and alleging a headache as an explanation of her mood. The unexpected sight of Dermot had shaken her, and she dreaded the moment when she must greet him. Yet she was anxious to witness his meeting with Ida, hoping that she might glean from it some idea of how matters really stood between them.

After tiffin a move was made into the long chamber arranged as the guests' lounge. Here introductions between those who had not previously known each other and meetings between old acquaintances took place; and with an inward shrinking Noreen saw Dermot approaching. She was astonished to observe that Ida's careless and indifferent greeting was responded to by him in a coldly courteous manner almost indicative of strong dislike. The girl wondered if they were both consummate actors. Dermot turned to her. He spoke in his usual pleasant and friendly manner; but she seemed to detect a trace of reserve that he had never showed before. She was almost too confused to reply to him and turned with relief to shake hands with Payne and Granger, who had come up with him.

Chunerbutty played the host well, introduced those who were strangers to each other, and saw that the Palace servants, who were unused to European habits, brought the coffee, liqueurs, and smokes to all the guests, where they gathered under the long punkah that swung lazily from the painted ceiling and barely stirred the heated air.

As soon as it was cool enough to drive out in the State carriages and motor-cars that waited in the outer courtyard, the afternoon was devoted to sight-seeing. Chunerbutty, in the leading car with Noreen and the District Superintendent of Police, acted as guide and showed them about the city. Dermot noted the lowering looks of many of the natives in the narrow streets, and overhead more than one muttered insult to the English race from men huddling against the houses to escape the carriages.

The visitors were invited by Chunerbutty to enter an ornate temple of Kali, in which a number of Hindu women squatted on the ground before a gigantic idol representing the goddess in whose honour the Puja festival is held. The image was that of a fierce-looking woman with ten arms, each hand holding a weapon, her right leg resting on a lion, her left on a buffalo-demon.

"I say, Chunerbutty, who's the lady?" asked Granger. "I can't say I like her looks."

"No, she certainly isn't a beauty," said the Brahmin with a contemptuous laugh. "Yet these superstitious fools believe in her, ignorant people that they are."

He indicated the female worshippers, who had been staring with malevolent curiosity at the English ladies, the first that most of them had ever seen. So these were the mem-logue, they whispered to each other, these shameless white women who went about openly with men and met all the world brazenly with unveiled countenances. And the whisperers modestly drew their saris before their own faces.

"She is the goddess Kali or Durgá, the wife of Shiva, one of the Hindu Trinity. She is supposed to be the patron of smallpox and lots of other unpleasant things, so no wonder she is ugly," continued Chunerbutty.

"Oh, you have goddesses then in the Hindu religion," observed Ida carelessly.

"Yes, Mrs. Smith; but these are the sort we have in India," he answered with an unpleasant leer. "The English people are more fortunate, for they have you ladies."

The remark was one that would have gained him smiles and approbation from his female acquaintances in the Bayswater boarding-house, but Ida glared haughtily at him and most of the men longed to kick him.

Dreading a cutting and sarcastic speech from her friend, Noreen hurriedly interposed.

"Isn't the Puja festival in her honour, Mr. Chunerbutty?"

"Yes, Miss Daleham, it is. It is another of these silly superstitions of the Hindus that make one really ashamed of being an Indian. The festival is meant to commemorate the old lady's victory over a buffalo-headed demon. Hence the weird-looking beast under her left leg."

"And do these people really believe in that sort of rot?" asked Mrs. Rice.

"Oh, yes, lots of the ignorant, uneducated lower class do," replied the atheistical Brahmin. "Durgá is the favourite deity. Her husband and Krishna and old Brahma are back numbers. The fact is that the common people are afraid of Kali. They think she can do them such a lot of harm."

"What does the festival consist of, old chap?" asked Daleham. "What do the Hindus do?"

"Well, the image is worshipped for nine days and then chucked into the water," replied the engineer. "Tomorrow, the fourth day, is the one on which the sacrifices are made—sheep, buck goats, and buffaloes are used. Their heads are cut off before this idol and their heads and blood are offered to it. Tomorrow you'll see the Rajah kill the bull that is to be the sacrifice. At least, he'll start the killing of it. Now, we'll go along back to the Palace."

The visitors' dinner that night was quite a magnificent affair. The catering for the time of their stay had been confided to an Italian firm in Calcutta. The cooking was excellent, but the waiting by the awkward Palace retainers was very bad. The food was eaten off the Rajah's State silver service, made in London for his father for the entertainment of a Viceroy. The wine was very good. So the guests enjoyed their meal, and most of them were quite prepared to think the Rajah a most excellent fellow when, at the conclusion of the meal, he entered the dining-room and came to the long table to propose and drink the health of the King-Emperor. He left the room immediately afterwards. This is the usual procedure on the part of Hindu rulers in India, since they are precluded by their religion and caste-customs from eating with Europeans.

After dinner the guests went to the lounge, where coffee was served. They broke up into groups or pairs and sat or stood about the room chatting. Mrs. Rice, who had been much impressed by Ida's appearance and expensive gowns, secured a chair beside her and endeavoured to monopolise her, despite many obvious snubs. At last Ida calmly turned her back on her and called Daleham to talk to her. Then the planter's wife espied Dermot sitting alone and pounced on him. He had tried to speak to Noreen after dinner, but it was so apparent that she wished to avoid him that he gave up the attempt. He endured Mrs. Rice's company with admirable resignation, but was thankful when the time for "good-night" came at last.

The men stayed up an hour or two later, and then after a final "peg" went off to bed. Dermot walked upstairs with Barclay, the young police officer, who was his nearest neighbour, although the Major's room was at the end of the building and separated from his by a long, narrow passage and several empty chambers.