Plain Tales from the Hills

Bronckhorst Sahib had told him to say. Between his terror of Strickland, the Judge, and Bronckhorst he collapsed, weeping.

Then began the panic among the witnesses. Janki, the ayah, leering chastely behind her veil, turned gray, and the bearer left the Court. He said that his Mamma was dying and that it was not wholesome for any man to lie unthriftily in the presence of «Estreeken Sahib.»

Biel said politely to Bronckhorst — «Your witnesses don’t seem to work. Haven’t you any forged letters to produce?» But Bronckhorst was swaying to and fro in his chair, and there was a dead pause after Biel had been called to order.

Bronckhorst’s Counsel saw the look on his client’s face, and without more ado, pitched his papers on the little green baize table, and mumbled something about having been misinformed. The whole Court applauded wildly, like soldiers at a theatre, and the Judge began to say what he thought.

* * *

Biel came out of the place, and Strickland dropped a gut trainer’s-whip in the verandah. Ten minutes later, Biel was cutting Bronckhorst into ribbons behind the old Court cells, quietly and without scandal. What was left of Bronckhorst was sent home in a carriage; and his wife wept over it and nursed it into a man again.

Later on, after Biel had managed to hush up the counter-charge against Bronckhorst of fabricating false evidence, Mrs. Bronckhorst, with her faint watery smile, said that there had been a mistake, but it wasn’t her Teddy’s fault altogether. She would wait till her Teddy came back to her. Perhaps he had grown tired of her, or she had tried his patience, and perhaps we wouldn’t cut her any more, and perhaps the mothers would let their children play with «little Teddy» again. He was so lonely. Then the Station invited Mrs. Bronckhorst everywhere, until Bronckhorst was fit to appear in public, when he went Home and took his wife with him. According to the latest advices, her Teddy did «come back to her,» and they are mod erately happy. Though, of course, he can never forgive her the thrashing that she was the indirect means of getting for him.

* * *

What Biel wants to know is — «Why didn’t I press home the charge against the Bronckhorst-brute, and have him run in?»

What Mrs. Strickland wants to know is — «How did my husband bring such a lovely, lovely Waler from your Station? I know all his money-affairs; and I’m certain he didn’t buy it.»

What I want to know is — How do women like Mrs. Bronckhorst come to marry men like Bronckhorst?

And my conundrum is the most unanswerable of the three.

VENUS ANNODOMINI

And the years went on as the years must do;

But our great Diana was always new—

Fresh, and blooming, and blonde, and fair,

With azure eyes and with aureate hair;

And all the folk, as they came or went,

Offered her praise to her heart’s content.

— Diana of Ephesus

She had nothing to do with Number Eighteen in the Braccio Nuovo of the Vatican, between Visconti’s Ceres and the God of the Nile. She was purely an Indian deity — an Anglo-Indian deity, that is to say — and we called her the Venus Annodomini, to distinguish her from other Annodominis of the same everlasting order. There was a legend among the Hills that she had once been young; but no living man was prepared to come forward and say boldly that the legend was true. Men rode up to Simla, and stayed, and went away and made their name and did their life’s work, and returned again to find the Venus Annodomini exactly as they had left her. She was as immutable as the Hills. But not quite so green. All that a girl of eighteen could do in the way of riding, walking, dancing, picnicking and over-exertion generally, the Venus Annodomini did, and showed no sign of fatigue or trace of weariness. Besides perpetual youth, she had discovered, men said, the secret of perpetual health; and her fame spread about the land. From a mere woman, she grew to be an Institution, insomuch that no young man could be said to be properly formed, who had not, at some time or another, worshipped at the shrine of the Venus Annodomini. There was no one like her, though there were many imitations. Six years in her eyes were no more than six months to ordinary women; and ten made less visible impression on her than does a week’s fever on an ordinary woman. Every one adored her, and in return she was pleasant and courteous to nearly every one. Youth had been a habit of hers for so long, that she could not part with it — never realized, in fact, the necessity of parting with it — and took for her more chosen associates young people.

Among the worshippers of the Venus Annodomini was young Gayerson. «Very Young» Gayerson, he was called to distinguish him from his father «Young» Gayerson, a Bengal Civilian, who affected the customs — as he had the heart — of youth. «Very Young» Gayerson was not content to worship placidly and for form’s sake, as the other young men did, or to accept a ride or a dance, or a talk from the Venus Annodomini in a properly humble and thankful spirit. He was exacting, and, therefore, the Venus Annodomini repressed him. He worried himself nearly sick in a futile sort of way over her; and his devotion and earnestness made him appear either shy or boisterous or rude, as his mood might vary, by the side of the older men who, with him, bowed before the Venus Annodomini. She was sorry for him. He reminded her of a lad who, three-and-twenty years ago, had professed a boundless devotion for her, and for whom in return she had felt something more than a week’s weakness. But that lad had fallen away and married another woman less than a year after he had worshipped her; and the Venus Annodomini had almost — not quite — forgotten his name. «Very Young» Gayerson had the same big blue eyes and the same way of pouting his underlip when he was excited or troubled. But the Venus Annodomini checked him sternly none the less. Too much zeal was a thing that she did not approve of; preferring instead, a tempered and sober tenderness.

«Very Young» Gayerson was miserable, and took no trouble to conceal his wretchedness. He was in the Army — a Line regiment I think, but am not certain — and, since his face was a looking-glass and his forehead an open book, by reason of his innocence, his brothers in arms made his life a burden to him and embittered his naturally sweet disposition. No one except «Very Young» Gayerson, and he never told his views, knew how old «Very Young» Gayerson believed the Venus Annodomini to be. Perhaps he thought her five and twenty, or perhaps she told him that she was this age. «Very Young» Gayerson would have forded the Gugger in flood to carry her lightest word, and had implicit faith in her. Every one liked him, and every one was sorry when they saw him so bound a slave of the Venus Annodomini. Every one, too, admitted that it was not her fault; for the Venus Annodomini differed from Mrs. Hauksbee and Mrs. Reiver in this particular — she never moved a finger to attract any one; but, like Ninon de l’Enclos, all men were attracted to her. One could admire and respect Mrs. Hauksbee, despise and avoid Mrs. Reiver, but one was forced to adore the Venus Annodomini.

«Very Young» Gayerson’s papa held a Division or a Collectorate or something administrative in a particularly unpleasant part of Bengal — full of Babus who edited newspapers proving that «Young» Gayerson was a «Nero» and a «Scylla» and a «Charybdis»; and, in addition to the Babus, there was a good deal of dysentery and cholera abroad for nine months of the year. «Young» Gayerson — he was about five and forty — rather liked Babus, they amused him, but he objects to dysentery, and when he could get away, went to Darjilling for the most part. This particular season he fancied that he would come up to Simla, and see his boy. The boy was not altogether pleased. He told the Venus Annodomini that his father was coming up, and she flushed a little and said that she should be delighted to make his acquaintance. Then she looked long and thoughtfully at «Very Young» Gayerson; because she was very, very sorry for him, and he was a very, very big idiot.

«My daughter is coming out in a fortnight, Mr. Gayerson,» she said.

«Your what?» said he.

«Daughter,» said the Venus Annodomini. «She’s been out for a year at Home already, and I want her to see a little of India. She is nineteen and a very sensible, nice girl I believe.»

«Very Young» Gayerson, who was a short twenty-two years old, nearly fell out of his chair with