The Sirdar's Oath: A Tale of the North-West Frontier Read online

  CHAPTER THREE.

  "ABOVE RUBIES."

  "What's the matter, Cynthia?" said the Vicar, looking up from hisafter-breakfast newspaper, spread out in crumpled irregularity ofsurface, upon the table in front of him.

  "Nothing, father, unless--well, I do wish people would learn to be alittle more regular. The world would be so much more comfortable aplace to live in."

  The Vicar had his doubts upon that subject. However, he only said,--

  "Well, it's only once in a way, and won't hurt anybody. And you can'task a man to stay with you, and then tie him down to rigid hours like aschoolboy."

  The time was nine o'clock on the second morning after Herbert Raynier'sarrival. It need hardly be said that he was the offender againstpunctuality.

  Cynthia frowned, rattling the crockery upon the tea-tray somewhatviciously.

  "Why not? I hate irregularity," she answered. "I should have thoughtregular habits would have been the first essential in Herbert'sdepartment--towards getting on in it, that is."

  "Well, he has got on in it, regular habits or not. You can't deny that,my dear, at any rate."

  "It delays everything so," went on the grievance-monger. "The servantscan't clear away, or get to their work. Herbert knows we have breakfastat half-past eight and now it's after nine, and there's no sign of him.I can't keep the house going on those lines, so it's of no use trying."

  "Well, you'll soon be in a position to reform him to your heart'scontent," said the Vicar with a twinkle in his eye--and there came agrim, set look about the other's rather thin-lipped mouth which auguredill for Raynier's domestic peace in the future.

  Cynthia Daintree had just missed being pretty. Her straight featureswere too coldly severe, and her grey eyes a trifle too steely, but herbrown hair was soft and abundant, and there were occasions when her facecould light up, and become attractive. She was tall, and had aremarkably fine figure, and as she managed to dress well on somewhatlimited resources, the verdict was that she was a striking-looking girl.But she had a temper, a very decided temper--which, it was whispered,was accountable for the fact that now, at very much nearer thirty thantwenty, her recent engagement to Herbert Raynier was by no means herfirst.

  Now the offender entered, characteristically careless.

  "Morning, Cynthia. Hallo, you look disobliged. What's the row?Morning, Vicar."

  This was not the best way of throwing oil upon the troubled sea, butthen the whole thing was so incomprehensible to Raynier. He could notunderstand how people could make a fuss over such a trifle as whetherone man ate a bit of toast, and played the fool with a boiled egg, halfan hour sooner or half an hour later. There was no train to catch, nobusiness of vital importance to be transacted, here in this sleepylittle country place. His _fiancee_ could have had precious littleexperience of the graver issues of life if that sort of thing disturbedher.

  "You've only yourself to thank if everything's cold," answered Cynthia,snappishly.

  "I don't mind--even if there isn't anything to get cold. Feeding atthis end of the day isn't in my line at all. I hardly ever touchanything between _chota hazri_ and tiffin over there."

  "Well, but over here you might try to be a little more punctual."

  "Too old. Besides, I'm on furlough," returned Raynier, maliciouslyteasing. It was the only way of veiling his resentment. He did nottake kindly to being perpetually found fault with, and still less so thefirst thing in the morning. "Don't you agree with me, Vicar? A man onfurlough should be allowed a few venial sins?"

  "Oh, I think so," said Mr Daintree, with a laugh. And then he began todiscuss the war news in that morning's paper, which soon led round tothe events wherewith our story opens.

  "That must have been after the fashion of our old Town and Gown rows atOxford," said the Vicar. "They are a thing of the past now, I'm told."

  "And a good thing too," struck in his daughter. "What horrid savagecreatures men are. Never happy unless they are fighting."

  "Don't know. I much prefer running away," said Raynier.

  "Pity you didn't carry out your preference. Then you wouldn't have comedown here looking such a sight," with a glance at his somewhatdisfigured visage.

  "And there'd have been one Oriental the less in the world. Phew! thatwas a vicious mob if ever there was one. By the way there's a sayingthat if you rescue anybody he's bound to do you a bad turn. Wonder ifit'll hold good here, and if in the order of fate that chap and I willmeet again out there. Stranger things have come off."

  "Only in books," said Cynthia, contemptuously.

  "No--in real life. I could tell you of at least three remarkable if notstartling circumstances of the kind that have come to my knowledge, butI won't, for two reasons--one that they wouldn't interest you--two, thatyou wouldn't believe a word of them."

  "What are you going to do to-day, Herbert?" said the Vicar.

  "Fish. You coming with me, Cynthia?"

  "No."

  "Meaning I'm not fit to be seen with," answered Raynier, interpretingher glance.

  "If you will go getting yourself disfigured in common street brawls youmust expect to suffer for it. So low, I call it."

  She was in a horrible humour that morning--so much was evident. Raynierwondered how she would receive the news of the loss of the malacca cane,and felt steeled to tell her about it then and there. In another momenthe would have done so when an interruption occurred. A girl's voicecame singing down the passage, and its owner burst into the room.

  "Hallo, Herbert. You're jolly late again. I expect you have beencatching it," with a glance at the thunder-cloud on her elder sister'sface. This was the Vicar's youngest daughter, aged nineteen; there weretwo between her and the other, both married, likewise sons, helping tobuttress up the Empire in divers colonies.

  "Right you are. I have. I'm going to try for a trout or two, Silly.Feel like coming along?"

  "I sha'n't if you call me that," answered the girl, with a shade of hersister's expression coming over her face; "that," however, not being anepithet but a teasing abbreviation of her own name--Sylvia.

  "All right. I withdraw the Silly."

  "Then I'll go. But isn't Cynthia going?"

  "She says I'm too ugly just at present," returned Raynier, tranquilly."And I believe I am."

  "Yes. You're rather a sight," with a deliberate glance at his damagedfigurehead. "Never mind. There's no one to see us here. Where are wegoing?"

  "How about the hole below Blackadder Bridge?"

  "That's it," returned Sylvia. "There was a regular `boil' on there theday before you came, but that was in the evening. I took out seventrout in twenty-five minutes. Then the `boil' stopped and you couldn'tmove a fish. But we'd better start soon."

  "All right. I'll go and get my rod."

  The Vicar went out on to the lawn to see them off, and smoke hisafter-breakfast pipe.

  "Cynthia, my dear," he called. "Come outside and walk up and down abit."

  She made some excuse about seeing to the things being cleared away.However she soon joined him.

  "That nest of young thrushes is gone," he said, peering into the ivywhich hid the garden wall. "Some cat has found them, I expect. By theway, Cynthia, do you really intend to marry Herbert Raynier?"

  "Why, what on earth do you mean, father?" she answered, resentment andastonishment being about evenly divided in her tone.

  "Precisely what I say, dear--no more and no less. Because if you don'tyou're going the right way to work to let him see it."

  "If I don't. But I do--of course I do. I can't think what you'redriving at."

  "Oh, it's simple enough. Couldn't you manage now and then, if only fora change, to give him a civil word? Men don't like to be perpetuallyfound fault with and hauled over the coals," pronounced the Vicar,speaking with some feeling, moved thereto by sundry vivid recollectionsof his own, for he was a widower. Cynthia coloured.

  "But they require it--and--it's only for their good," s
he answered.

  "No deadlier motive could be adduced," returned her father, drily."Because, you see, if you use the whip too much they're apt to kick.And I descry symptoms of such a tendency on the part of Herbert Ithought I'd give you a hint, that's all. It would be a pity to losehim. His position is excellent and his prospects ditto; besides, he's athoroughly good fellow into the bargain."

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  The pool beneath Blackadder Bridge was wide enough for a rod on eachside, so that neither interfered with the other, but Raynier and hisfuture sister-in-law had met with scant sport. The surroundings,however, were lovely: the soft roll of the wooded hills resounding withthe joyous shout of the cuckoo, the blue haze of spring beneath thecloudless sky, and meadows spangled with myriad butter cups; while, hardby, skipping perkily in and out of their knob-like nest against thehoary mossiness of the buttressed bridge, a pair of water-ouzels took nocount whatever of their human disturbers. The bleating of young lambswas in the air, mingling with the tuneful murmur of the brown waterpurling out from the breadth of the deep pool into a miniature rapid.

  "Well, you two? What have you got to show for yourselves?"

  Raynier looked up, almost startled, so amazed was he. For the voice wasCynthia's--and it was quite pleasant, even affectionate. And there wasCynthia herself, looking exceedingly attractive in her plain, andtherefore tasteful, country attire. In her hand was a basket.

  "I thought I'd bring you something better for lunch than those dry oldsandwiches," she said, smilingly, as she proceeded to unpack itscontents. And Raynier, wondering, thought, could this be the sameCynthia whom he had last seen, acid and disagreeable, who, indeed, hadscarcely had a civil word to throw to him since his arrival.

  "Beastly bad luck," screamed Sylvia, from the other side, reeling in herline, preparatory to coming over to join in the lunch.

  This proved quite enjoyable. What on earth had happened to Cynthiabetween then and breakfast time, thought Raynier. No trace of aciditywas there about her now. Her manner was soft, indeed affectionate, andshe looked up into his disfigured countenance quite delightfully,instead of turning from it in aversion as heretofore. Why on earthcouldn't she be like this always, he thought regretfully, feelingsoftened and relenting, under the combined influence of the soothingsurroundings and an excellent lunch.

  In the afternoon sport mended, and more than once a "boil" came on thewater, for a few minutes only, but so lively while it lasted that theytook out trout almost with every cast, and then he noticed how carefullyin the background Cynthia kept, and when he hung up his cast in thatconfounded elder tree just as the rise began, she it was who came to therescue of his impatience, and so deftly and quickly disentangled theflies. Why on earth could not she always be like that? And then,during the two-mile walk home together in the glowing beauty of thecloudless evening there was simply no comparison between the delightfulattractiveness of this woman, and the frowning, shrewish scold of theopening of the day, and again and again he thought,--"If only she werealways like this!"