The stronger claim

Chapter I

The insufferable heat of the Indian hot-weather day was slowly abating, and the sun sank sullenly below the straight, misty horizon in a copper-coloured haze of dust raised by the cattle returning from the jungle. It was little enough that the poor beasts had found to graze on during many weeks past, for the rains were long overdue, and leaves and grass were alike scorched and withered till they crumbled at the touch. The ground, hard as iron, had cracked and split into gaping fissures ; the powdery dust lay ankledeep on the roads ; the air was thick and stifling ; and the very birds gasped for breath, holding their dry beaks despairingly open.

Still the tantalising clouds gathered heavily and dispersed again; still the hot, unhealthy east wind came in faint puffs, only to die hopelessly away without bringing the longed-for rain; still the heat grew and grew till business was at a standstill, famine was daily drawing nearer, and long lists of deaths from fever and heat-apoplexy filled the domestic columns of the Anglo-Indian papers.

At Pragpur it seemed that matters must have reached their worst, for now that the rains had failed to come and wash away disease and dirt and fill up the miles of pestilential swamp along the widening river-edge, cholera of a particularly vicious type had made its way into the densely packed native city. Constant funeral processions filed towards the river; the air resounded with the wailing of mourners for the dead; the burning-grounds were crowded from sunrise to sunset; and in the Mahomedan cemeteries fresh graves were needed every hour. It was a time of misery, suffering, terror, and death, not only in the seething cholera-stricken city, but in Civil Lines and Cantonments also; when the white man, as weir as his dark brothers, rose each day with the probability staring him in the face that he might be lying cold and stiff before the sun went down.

Only that morning Paul Vereker, the young joint-magistrate, had risen from his bed to all appearances a strong, healthy man; and now in the evening he lay dead in the empty, echoing bungalow, with not a living soul near him save an old blind punkah-coolie seated in the verandah pulling mechanically at the rope, and fanning his master’s lifeless body with the regularity of clockwork.

The old native did not clearly understand what had happened. He had heard the sahib come in and speak to the mem-sahib ; then the doctor had been sent for; and he, the punkah-coolie, had been bidden to pull the bedroom punkah. This he had done for about an hour, and then he had heard a great commotion — the mem-sahib had screamed, and the servants had all begun to run backwards and forwards. Then the doctor had arrived, and after some time, perhaps another hour, had driven away again, and in a little while the mem-sahib and all the servants seemed to leave the house. Nobody had said anything to him, so he had continued to pull according to orders, and he would do so for any length of time in reason until he was either relieved at his post or told to cease. The room inside was quiet save for the regular flapping of the punkah-frill, and the occasional cry of an inquisitive bird through a ventilator in the ceiling. The minutes passed and dusk came slowly on ; and still he pulled, but more slowly now, for he was growing drowsy, and his wrinkled, sightless face drooped towards his knees.

Presently the sound of small, pattering footsteps on the paved floor of the verandah broke sharply on the stillness, and a little boy, dressed in a white sailor suit, ran into the house and pushed open the closed door. There was an expression of anxious inquiry in his large bright eyes ; but he trotted confidently up to the bed and looked into his father’s face.

“Dadda!” he said.

Receiving no answer, he shook the cold hand that hung heavily over the edge of the bed.

“ Dadda, arise ! ” he shouted in fluent Hindustani. “ Mamma is at my grandpapa's bungalow and the ayah and the servants also. She weeps and will not speak to me, and the ayah and the bearer forbade me to return here. What is the meaning of it all?”

He shook the hand again and called to his father repeatedly, till the echo of his shrill little voice rang up into the roof. Then he ceased, and glanced apprehensively over his shoulder. The room was growing dark, and his father lay so strangely still. There was nobody at hand to tell him what was the matter except the punkah-coolie, and the child felt afraid to cross the gloomy expanse of room that lay between himself and the door. A nameless terror crept into his baby mind. He burst into loud screams, and, with the self-abandonment common to Anglo- Indian children, he threw himself on the floor and rolled from side to side.

“Aree!” and the ayah poked a fat, nervous countenance in at the door. “May evil befall that rascal of a bearer for permitting the child to run back! Come hither, sonny, — quick! — quick! See what is outside ! The man with the performing monkeys has arrived and awaits thine orders.” Then in a low voice, under her breath, she added : “ May Kali protect me ! but I cannot enter the room with the sahib lying there dead of the cholera!”

The child stopped crying and sat up to listen, his mouth still puckered, ready to resume his yells should the ayah’s words prove false ; but she reiterated her statement regarding the monkeys with so much emphasis that he was finally convinced; and also being rather glad than otherwise of her company, he allowed himself to be enticed through the doorway, where treachery awaited him, for there were no performing monkeys to be seen, and he was promptly caught up in the ayah’s stout arms and carried screaming and struggling to a house on the opposite side of the road.

The noise of his unwilling' departure had hardly died away before the civil surgeon drove rapidly in at the gate and up to the bungalow. As he sprang out of his trap the utter silence of the house and the surroundings struck him significantly. He entered the deserted drawing-room and passed through into the bedroom beyond. Only a little more than three hours ago he had seen Paul Vereker die of cholera, and almost at the same moment he had been summoned urgently to another case of the same description. Before responding to the message he had told the terrified, hysterical widow that he would return to her as soon as possible; and now he had come back to find the dead man alone except for the old coolie pulling sleepily at the punkah rope.

The doctor looked down at the handsome, rigid face, with pity in his eyes.

“ Poor chap ! " he murmured. “ Perhaps this was the best thing that could happen to him. Fancy her bolting off like that! I’m not surprised at the servants — but his wife! Well, if she'd had a little more English blood in her veins she couldn't have done it."

He folded the hands across the breast and drew the sheet over the white face, called to the coolie to cease pulling the punkah, and then, worn out though he was with days and nights of weary battle with death, he drove off to make arrangements for the funeral.

For twenty-four hours after her husband's death Mrs. Vereker lay on the bed in her mother's best bedroom in a state of tearful untidiness, her rich black hair in wild disorder, and a crumpled dressing-gown loosely covering her ample form, for since the arrival of the boy, little Paul, Mrs. Vereker had “ lost her figure." Seven years ago she had been a really beautiful girl of eighteen, and was now still a handsome woman as far as features were concerned; but the brilliant rose-colour in her cheeks had faded, her skin had grown thick and yellow, and her chin had multiplied by three.

It was a pity Paul Vereker could not have had a vision of the future that fatal evening at the Pragpur band-stand, when he had fallen in love with the beauty of Una Jahans. Certainly her mother, a copper-coloured lady attired in apricot silk, and redolent of musk and onions, ought to have been sufficient warning; but young Vereker had only been eighteen months in India, and though he was clever, well-born, and promising in every official way, he was unfortunately convinced that he knew his own business best, which, as is frequently the case, meant the following of the inclination of the moment, and led to his espousing Miss Una Jahans, the daughter of an Eurasian auctioneer. This gentleman trafficked in second-hand rubbish of every description, from articles of furniture to damaged tins of fish and sausages ; and he was a god-send to English officials when they were transferred from the station, for he either purchased from them litter that was not worth moving, or disposed of it on commission in the bazaar, realising astonishing prices for such things as useless lamps, worn-out clocks, old clothes, cracked crockery, and leaky kitchen utensils.

The ladies of Pragpur took it upon themselves to remonstrate with young Vereker on his engagement, and to tell him that the girl, though undoubtedly lovely, was by heritage ‘‘as black as his shoe,” and also practically uneducated; but vainly the well-meaning matrons talked, argued, and expostulated. It was useless for his men friends to chaff him on the subject of his pretty half-caste flame, or more seriously entreat him not to make an ass of himself. His nature was such that opposition and persuasion merely had the effect of making him more than ever determined to take his own line and to show that he had the courage of his opinions.

“ I have no doubt,” he said to the Commissioner’s wife, when she frankly expressed her regret and vexation, “that you would like me better if, even now, I threw the girl over and broke her heart. In that case I should lose my own self-respect ; at present it appears that I only lose the respect of my so-called friends, though I cannot see that I am doing anything more reprehensible than marrying to please myself without harming any one else.”

Paul Vereker was his own master, as he reminded himself and every one who interfered with him. His parents were dead and his only sister, who was ten years his senior, was married and independent ; his other relations were distant and of little consequence in the matter. Accordingly he set public opinion at defiance in Pragpur, announced the date of his approaching marriage, drove the young lady about the station in his trap, and even appeared at the band-stand in the Jahanses’ waggonette, sitting behind with Una and her two small brown brothers, together with Mrs. Mactarn, an elderly snuff-coloured aunt of the family, whose late husband had claimed Scottish descent; Mrs. Jahans, arrayed in all the glory of the apricot silk, triumphantly occupied the box-seat beside her husband the auctioneer, an important Spanish-looking person with handsome features and long dyed whiskers.

So Paul Vereker was given up in despair by all his well-intentioned advisers, and was allowed to pursue his downward course without further molestation. At first he was very happy with the wife he had chosen, but the time came when he began to understand that he had brought official as well as social displeasure upon himself through his marriage. A civilian with an impossible " mem-sahib ” can hardly be selected for a transfer to places where there are social as well as official duties, and where the right description of hostess is necessary, or none at all. So he saw other men, who were his contemporaries, promoted to more important charges, or exalted to the secretariat, while he remained on in his old capacity at Pragpur, where everybody was aware of his wife's origin, where her people constituted an unfailing and inevitable aggravation of his mistake, and where he found himself forced to depend almost entirely on Una and her relations for companionship.

Mrs. Vereker herself was a self-centred young person who had justly been considered a great belle in her own circle, with all the bachelor half-caste clerks, and subordinates in the Government offices, at her feet. She had an album, the pride of her leisure hours, wherein her admirers had inscribed their sentiments after the cracker-motto style. She knew the language of flowers by heart, and she kept a manuscript-book in which she made extracts from novelettes. She was an extremely pretty and brainless girl, but brainless Paul Vereker did not discover it until it was too late. However, here his natural characteristics came to the fore. He would not admit by word or deed, or hardly to himself, that he had made a mistake. Una was the wife he had chosen ; nothing should induce him to allow that his judgment had been at fault; and circumstances should not control him. Therefore he continued to live his life with Una as though he were absolutely contented, and made no outward sign of his secret mortification.

But with Una it was different. She had been honestly in love with the young civilian, but her love was as nothing compared with her ambition. When he had proposed it had appeared to her that all her dreams of a splendid match were to be realised. Certainly he was not so handsome and dazzling as the young officers who danced with her at the Volunteer balls, or ogled her at the band, but he was a member of the senior service in India and some day would be a Commissioner, even perhaps a Lieutenant-Governor ! She would drive about in a lovely carriage, occupy an exalted social position, and have everything that represented happiness to her narrowed imagination.

So after her marriage Una became excessively “ select,” and proceeded to neglect all her former friends and to barely tolerate her relations — but ii on this point her husband interfered. The fact of her having married into a different class was to him no reason why she should behave badly to her own people; and at Mr. Vereker’s instigation, the Jahanses, the Passanahs, the de Souzas, and all his wife’s other belongings were given to understand that they would be welcome at the house whenever they chose to visit their relative — and they took full advantage of the permission.

Regarding the “ Upper ten ” of the station Una was bitterly disappointed; a few of the ladies called on her formally and she returned their visits punctiliously, but there the social recognition ceased. Some of the subalterns came for a joke, and made cruel fun afterwards of her “ chi-chi” accent and ridiculous little airs. Nobody came a second time, and when at last Una began to realise her position her exasperation with her husband for his calmness under such a state of affairs knew no bounds.

It was useless for him to argue that the coveted friendship of the station ladies could scarcely be worth having, since it was evidently of little value. Una received such moralisings with scorn. What was the advantage of her having chosen such an elegant English carpet for the drawing-room all over yellow roses; and such fascinating mirrors, what-nots, and black and gold tables, if no one was to come near her? Where was the pleasure of being a future Lieutenant-Governor’s lady if there were no visitors to recognise her success save her own relations, whose admiration was now becoming exceedingly stale? Una wept many angry tears, and finally commanded “Pahl,” as she called her husband, to take her to England, where nobody would know that her father was only a bazaarauctioneer.

She relapsed into violent hysterics when he explained that furlough was not due to him, and that in any case he had no desire to go home just yet. To impart the truth, he felt inward qualms at the prospect of presenting Una to his sister. Lady Jar dine. He had written to the lattetr announcing his engagement, merely stating his fiancee's name, and adding that she was very handsome ; and Lady Jar dine, accustomed to her brother’s reticent nature, and being in no way inconvenienced by the marriage, had sent wedding presents and gushing letters of congratulation, serenely taking it for granted that Paul had chosen a wife from his own class.

So the years went by, Una falling back entirely on her old friends and admirers for companionship, and Paul becoming more and more impassive and reserved, until the day arrived when Death claimed him from the daily bitterness of his life’s mistake; and Una was left a fat, indolent widow, with a boy of five years old who had inherited much of his father’s obstinacy of character, combined with the strong strain of native blood from his mother’s side.

Chapter II

Two months had gone by since Paul Vereker was laid to rest in the Pragpur cemetery, and the heavens had been merciful. Rain had fallen, and continued to fall, the hard parched earth had spluttered and hissed beneath the welcome torrents of water, the air had been damp with steam in the intervals of the downpours, vegetation had revived as though by magic, and grass and plants had grown with a rapidity that was almost perceptible.

The Jahanses’ compound, instead of being a desolate patch of bare, dusty ground, was now a tropical forest in miniature, with festoons of flaming creepers, and vivid green tangles of giant weeds. Within the low thatched bungalow everything was sodden and mildewed with the damp ; small frogs hopped across the floors, fishinsects dotted the walls, the atmosphere smelt close and mouldy, and was strongly impregnated with the stale odour of native tobacco — for, in spite of the disapproval of his family, Mr. Jahans persisted in the indulgence of an evening “ hookah.”

In the broad verandah sat Mrs. Jahans packed into a comfortable rocking-chair, her front hair tightly screwed up in curling-pins, her feet thrust into yellow slippers made of antelope skin, and 13 her body clothed in a garment that was apparently built of check cotton dusters. The verandah was crowded with rickety chairs and tables (mostly spoils from the auctioneering business), rows of plants in pots, and wicker cages imprisoning pet squirrels, tame doves, a talking myna, and two noisy partridges. The floor was covered with tattered matting, rotten with the damp, and eaten into holes by the white ants.

Stretched indolently on a cane couch opposite her mother’s rocking-chair lay Mrs. Vereker, and the two ladies were deep in a discussion over a letter Mrs. Jahans was holding in her fat brown hands; her broad face glistened with excitement as she expostulated with her widowed daughter.

“ Oh, no ! ” she cried, “ do let me advise you. Don’t send the child all that way. He would forget us altogether in two weeks’ time. It would be a terrible t’ing ! ”

The letter which had thrown the good lady into such a state of perturbation was from the late Mr. Vereker’s only sister and nearest relative, offering a home in England to the widow and her child, and Mrs. Vereker had added considerably to her mother’s agitation by suggesting that it might be as well to accept the proposal on little Paul’s behalf, though she intended to decline it on her own. She was shrewd enough to have discovered during her married life that these relations of her husband’s were people of some importance, and she perceived how great an advantage it would be to the boy to have the rearing and education of an English gentleman.

At present she possessed nothing beyond her own pension and that of the child, and she knew that Sir Robert and Lady Jardine were rich even for dwellers in England, where she had a hazy notion that every one was well-to-do. She remembered the photograph in her husband’s possession of a stately massive house with pointed gables, mullioned windows, and stacks of chimneys, standing amidst wide sweeps of lawn varied with flower-beds and spreading trees. She had gathered that many servants were employed, and that the stables were full of carriages and horses. Undoubtedly the Jardines were great people, and, moreover, they were childless.

For herself the widow now shrank from the notion of leaving the country where she had been born and bred, and of which she was more than half a native. The thought of journeying to an unknown land and living amongst strangers terrified her — hence her suggestion that Paul should go alone, which had called down a storm of reproaches on her head. But she stuck to her point.

“ It would be better for him to go,” she said, and continued to reiterate the sentence at the end of every argument put forward by Mrs. Jahans, who was unable to grasp the advantages of the proposal. To her it seemed a monstrous and unnatural proceeding that her adored grandson should be torn from the bosom of his family and sent across the “ black water ” to face unknown dangers and discomforts.

“It would be better for him to go,” Mrs. Vereker had repeated for the twentieth time, when the dilapidated family waggonette, drawn by a gaunt country -bred horse (both acquired years previously at one of Mr. Jahans’ own auctions), rumbled up to the verandah steps, and the head of the household clambered down from the vehicle. He had had a long day’s work conducting an important sale, had shouted himself hoarse, and exhausted his brain inventing facetious remarks to encourage hilarity amongst the buyers; and he called petulantly for his tea as he threw himself into a wicker chair that loudly resented his weight.

His wife eagerly handed him the letter under discussion, and he read it thoughtfully, while he caressed his straggling whiskers, and ignored the ceaseless and voluble explanations of his spouse. When he had finished reading the letter he handed it back to her, and looked inquiringly at his daughter, who monotonously repeated her opinion.

“ It would be better for him to go — but not for me.”

“Una says right,” was the verdict of Mr. Jahans, delivered in a thick guttural voice.

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“Well, I never!” screamed his wife, “you bad, selfish man. You don’t know what is best for the child. He cannot speak much English, he has a tender stomach, he needs to be rubbed every night with mustard-oil. Who would take care of him ? There is no mustard-oil in England, and there is too much cold and rain ! He would die; he shall not go — you cannot understand — you are a dull!”

Una placidly watched her mother weeping tears of distress, while Mr. Jahans stroked his whiskers and regarded with concern the black stain that came off on his fingers, until an interruption occurred in the shape of a disreputable Mahomedan servant in dirty white clothing who issued noisily from the house with the tea-things, which he proceeded to arrange on one of the wooden tables. Then Mrs. Mactarn appeared, half asleep after a recent siesta, and wearing a startling blouse of a tartan persuasion. She was immediately attacked by her sister, made to read the letter, and invited to give her opinion. But Mrs. Mactarn was in favour of the scheme from vague patriotic motives — only regretting that the Jardines did not live in Scotland, “ though they go there, of course, for the hot weather, like all ! ” she added conclusively.

Una’s two brothers, who had now blossomed into their father’s assistants, next joined the circle, and, when appealed to by their indignant mother, unhesitatingly decided against her, for the child meddled with their belongings while they were safely out of the house at business, stole their photographs and love-letters, told tales of their misdoings, and made himself generally obnoxious.

Poor Mrs. Jahans was in despair.

“ You are all against me ! ” she sobbed. “ The dear child shall say himself if he wants to go away from, this home.” And she lifted up her voice and shrieked discordantly in Hindustani for the ayah, ordering her to bring the boy hither without delay ; and though neither ayah nor child were in sight, the ear-piercing accents had scarcely died away before the two appeared round the corner of the house together.

The little boy wore a battered pith sun-hat several sizes too large for him, which sank down on his ears, causing them to spread wide from his head. His small face was thin and pointed; his eyes were of a curious olive-green colour and unnaturally large, with a fretful expression in their depths; his mouth was dirty; and he clutched some sickly native sweetmeats in his slender hands. He ran forward and scrambled on to his grandfather's knee.

“ They want to send you away, sonny ! ” wailed his grandmother. “ They are cruel, selfish people — your mother and your uncles and all! You do not wish to go, do you, my batchaf ”

Little Paul preserved an inattentive silence ; but Mrs. Jahans continued to assure him vehemently that, but for her, he would be sent away at once, until at last, becoming alarmed, he took refuge in her lap, from whence he scowled at the rest of the company, though he declined to speak in answer to his grandmother's piteous entreaties as to whether he wished to go or stay.

“We will hear what others have to say,” she concluded at last; and with a gesture of determination she turned to the ayah and pointed to a small thatched bungalow in the next compound. “ Go and tell Passanah Mem-sahib and the Misssahibs to come and drink tea ! ” she commanded.

The ayah arranged her clothing and shuffled off, and the next diversion was the arrival of Mrs. Passanah and two gaudily dressed daughters, thin, weedy half-castes, cousins of Mrs. Jahans, who fed from the crumbs that fell from their more wealthy relatives' table, and clothed themselves on the earnings of the eldest girl, who went out as a daily nursery-governess. They seated themselves as near to the tea-table as possible, and were loud in their praises of little Paul — that being a safe short-cut to Mrs. Jahans' favour. The party then attacked the meal spread on the table : the Miss Passanahs ate large slices of bread and butter, spread with coarse country sugar; Mr. Jahans had a dish of poached eggs with some dal and rice; and the others preferred cake and buns, Paul refusing to eat anything, but calling thirstily for lime-juice and water. Mrs. Jahans explained the dilemma they were placed in by Lady Jardine’s letter, whereupon the Passanah trio took the view expressed by their hostess, for they dared not risk endangering the supply of native vegetables they were accustomed to receive every other morning from the Jahanses’ garden, not to speak of the eggs, goat’s milk, and clarified butter that found their way from the larger bungalow to the smaller one in the next compound.

So every one except Mrs. Vereker and her father talked at once, the boy screaming for things he was not allowed to have, and the myna chattering vigorously, while the two partridges became excited and called deafeningly from their cage.

While the hubbub was at its height, an ekka (or two-wheeled native vehicle) had approached the house unnoticed, and, halting in front of the verandah, attracted the attention of the party round the tea-table. Instantly the silence of an unpleasant surprise fell upon them, and they exchanged glances of impatient vexation as the frowsy cotton curtains that concealed the passenger inside were drawn slowly open.

An old native woman climbed painfully from her perch and stood gazing with piercing black eyes at the group of people before her. She wore a cotton petticoat, and a little white wrapper over her head and shoulders ; her mouth was almost toothless, her skin wrinkled and seamed, and her back was bent with age and rheumatism till she looked as if she were making a perpetual obeisance.

Mr. Jahans rose and stepped forward to meet her, and with his assistance she hobbled up the steps, muttering to herself and casting sharp, suspicious glances around her.

The family skeleton had appeared at the feast. This was the mother of Mr. Jahans and little Paul Vereker’s great-grandmother.

The story of Mr. Jahans' parentage was one that was common enough in the days when it took six months to reach England from India, when men settled down and made their homes in the East, and when English ladies were scarce.

In the compounds of some of the old official residences in out-of-the-way stations that have known better days, there may still be seen the ruins of square enclosures with high walls, and narrow rooms leading from the courtyard in the centre. Here in the old days dwelt the “ Zenana ” of the sahib, for high-caste native women were known to have thrown in their lot with English officials, and to have lived respected and honoured in orthodox seclusion until death, or the man’s retirement to the mother country, severed the connection. Sometimes a real marriage according to English law took place, and there is at least one authenticated case of a native woman, undoubtedly the widow of a Bengal civilian, who, after many years, was suddenly enlightened as to her legal right to a pension from the Government, and claimed, with partial success, the enormous sum due to herself and her family.