Under the Deodars

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Under the Deodars

by Rudyard Kipling

Contents

The Education of Otis Yeere
At the Pit's Mouth
A Wayside Comedy
The Hill of Illusion
A Second-rate Woman
Only a Subaltern
In the Matter of a Private
The Enlightenments of Pagett. M. P.

Under the Deodars

The Education of Otis Yeere

I

In the pleasant orchard-closes
'God bless all our gains,' say we;
But 'May God bless all our losses,'
Better suits with our degree.
The Lost Bower.

This is the history of a failure; but the woman who failed said that
it might be an instructive tale to put into print for the benefit of the
younger generation. The younger generation does not want
instruction, being perfectly willing to instruct if any one will listen
to it. None the less, here begins the story where every right-minded
story should begin, that is to say at Simla, where all things begin
and many come to an evil end.

The mistake was due to a very clever woman making a blunder
and not retrieving it. Men are licensed to stumble, but a clever
woman's mistake is outside the regular course of Nature and
Providence; since all good people know that a woman is the only
infallible thing in this world, except Government Paper of the '79
issue, bearing interest at four and a half per cent. Yet, we have to
remember that six consecutive days of rehearsing the leading part
of The Fallen Angel, at the New Gaiety Theatre where the plaster
is not yet properly dry, might have brought about an unhingement
of spirits which, again, might have led to eccentricities.

Mrs. Hauksbee came to 'The Foundry' to tiffin with Mrs. Mallowe,
her one bosom friend, for she was in no sense 'a woman's woman.'
And it was a woman's tiffin, the door shut to all the world; and
they both talked chiffons, which is French for Mysteries.

'I've enjoyed an interval of sanity,' Mrs. Hauksbee announced, after
tiffin was over and the two were comfortably settled in the little
writing-room that opened out of Mrs. Mallowe's bedroom.

'My dear girl, what has he done?' said Mrs. Mallowe sweetly. It is
noticeable that ladies of a certain age call each other 'dear girl,' just
as commissioners of twenty-eight years' standing address their
equals in the Civil List as 'my boy.'

'There's no he in the case. Who am I that an imaginary man should
be always credited to me? Am I an Apache?'

'No, dear, but somebody's scalp is generally drying at your
wigwam-door. Soaking rather.'

This was an allusion to the Hawley Boy, who was in the habit of
riding all across Simla in the Rains, to call on Mrs. Hauksbee. That
lady laughed.

'For my sins, the Aide at Tyrconnel last night told me off to The
Mussuck. Hsh! Don't laugh. One of my most devoted admirers.
When the duff came some one really ought to teach them to make
puddings at Tyrconnel The Mussuck was at liberty to attend to me.'

'Sweet soul! I know his appetite,' said Mrs. Mallowe. 'Did he, oh
did he, begin his wooing?'

'By a special mercy of Providence, no. He explained his
importance as a Pillar of the Empire. I didn't laugh.'

'Lucy, I don't believe you.'

'Ask Captain Sangar; he was on the other side. Well, as I was
saying, The Mussuck dilated.'

'I think I can see him doing it,' said Mrs. Mallowe pensively,
scratching her fox-terrier's ears.

'I was properly impressed. Most properly. I yawned openly. ''Strict
supervision, and play them off one against the other," said The
Mussuck, shovelling down his ice by tureenfuls, I assure you.
''That, Mrs. Hauksbee, is the secret of our Government." '

Mrs. Mallowe laughed long and merrily. 'And what did you say?'

'Did you ever know me at loss for an answer yet? I said: ''So I have
observed in my dealings with you." The Mussuck swelled with
pride. He is coming to call on me to-morrow. The Hawley Boy is
coming too.'

' ''Strict supervision and play them off one against the other. That,
Mrs. Hauksbee, is the secret of our Government." And I daresay if
we could get to The Mussuck's heart, we should find that he
considers himself a man of the world.'

'As he is of the other two things. I like The

Mussuck, and I won't have you call him names. He amuses me.'

'He has reformed you, too, by what appears. Explain the interval of
sanity, and hit Tim on the nose with the paper-cutter, please. That
dog is too fond of sugar. Do you take milk in yours?'

'No, thanks. Polly, I'm wearied of this life. It's hollow.'

'Turn religious, then. I always said that Rome would be your fate.'

'Only exchanging half-a-dozen attach‚s in red for one in black, and
if I fasted, the wrinkles would come, and never, never go. Has it
ever struck you, dear, that I'm getting old?'

'Thanks for your courtesy. I'll return it. Ye-es, we are both not
exactly how shall I put it?'

'What we have been. ''I feel it in my bones," as Mrs. Crossley says.
Polly, I've wasted my life.'

'As how?'

'Never mind how. I feel it. I want to be a Power before I die.'

'Be a Power then. You've wits enough for anything and beauty!'

Mrs. Hauksbee pointed a teaspoon straight at her hostess. 'Polly, if
you heap compliments on me like this, I shall cease to believe that
you're a woman. Tell me how I am to be a Power.'

'Inform The Mussuck that he is the most fascinating and slimmest
man in Asia, and he'll tell you anything and everything you please.'

'Bother The Mussuck! I mean an intellectual Power not a
gas-power. Polly, I'm going to start a salon.'

Mrs. Mallowe turned lazily on the sofa and rested her head on her
hand. 'Hear the words of the Preacher, the son of Baruch,' she said.

'Will you talk sensibly?'

'I will, dear, for I see that you are going to make a mistake.'

'I never made a mistake in my life at least, never one that I couldn't
explain away afterwards.'

'Going to make a mistake,' went on Mrs. Mallowe composedly. 'It
is impossible to start a salon in Simla. A bar would be much more
to the point.'

'Perhaps, but why? It seems so easy.'

'Just what makes it so difficult. How many clever women are there
in Simla?'

'Myself and yourself,' said Mrs. Hauksbee, without a moment's
hesitation.

'Modest woman! Mrs. Feardon would thank you for that. And how
many clever men?'

'Oh er hundreds,' said Mrs. Hauksbee vaguely.

'What a fatal blunder! Not one. They are all bespoke by the
Government. Take my husband, for instance. Jack was a clever
man, though I say so who shouldn't. Government has eaten him up.
All his ideas and powers of conversation he really used to be a
good talker, even to his wife in the old days are taken from him by
this this kitchen-sink of a Government. That's the case with every
man up here who is at work. I don't suppose a Russian convict
under the knout is able to amuse the rest of his gang; and all our
men-folk here are gilded convicts.'

'But there are scores '

'I know what you're going to say. Scores of idle men up on leave. I
admit it, but they are all of two objectionable sets. The Civilian
who'd be delightful if he had the military man's knowledge of the
world and style, and the military man who'd be adorable if he had
the Civilian's culture.'

'Detestable word! Have Civilians culchaw? I never studied the
breed deeply.'

'Don't make fun of Jack's Service. Yes. They're like the teapoys in
the Lakka Bazar good material but not polished. They can't help
themselves, poor dears. A Civilian only begins to be tolerable after
he has knocked about the world for fifteen years.'

'And a military man?'

'When he has had the same amount of service. The young of both
species are horrible. You would have scores of them in your salon.'

'I would not!' said Mrs. Hauksbee fiercely.

'I would tell the bearer to darwaza band them. I'd put their own
colonels and commissioners at the door to turn them away. I'd give
them to the Topsham Girl to play with.'

'The Topsham Girl would be grateful for the gift. But to go back to
the salon. Allowing that you had gathered all your men and women
together, what would you do with them? Make them talk? They
would all with one accord begin to flirt. Your salon would become
a glorified Peliti's a ''Scandal Point" by lamplight.'

'There's a certain amount of wisdom in that view.'

'There's all the wisdom in the world in it. Surely, twelve Simla
seasons ought to have taught you that you can't focus anything in
India; and a salon, to be any good at all, must be permanent. In two
seasons your roomful would be scattered all over Asia. We are
only little bits of dirt on the hillsides here one day and blown down
the khud the next. We have lost the art of talking at least our men
have. We have no cohesion '

'George Eliot in the flesh,' interpolated Mrs. Hauksbee wickedly.

'And collectively, my dear scoffer, we, men and women alike, have
no influence. Come into the verandah and look at the Mall!'

The two looked down on the now rapidly filling road, for all Simla
was abroad to steal a stroll between a shower and a fog.

'How do you propose to fix that river? Look! There's The Mussuck
head of goodness knows what. He is a power in the land, though he
does eat like a costermonger. There's Colonel Blone, and General
Grucher, and Sir Dugald Delane, and Sir Henry Haughton, and Mr.
Jellalatty. All Heads of Departments, and all powerful.'

'And all my fervent admirers,' said Mrs. Hauksbee piously. 'Sir
Henry Haughton raves about me. But go on.'

'One by one, these men are worth something. Collectively, they're
just a mob of Anglo-Indians. Who cares for what Anglo-Indians
say? Your salon won't weld the Departments together and make
you mistress of India, dear. And these creatures won't talk
administrative ''shop" in a crowd your salon because they are so
afraid of the men in the lower ranks overhearing it. They have
forgotten what of Literature and Art they ever knew, and the
women '

'Can't talk about anything except the last Gymkhana, or the sins of
their last nurse. I was calling on Mrs. Derwills this morning.'

'You admit that? They can talk to the subalterns though, and the
subalterns can talk to them. Your salon would suit their views
admirably, if you respected the religious prejudices of the country
and provided plenty of kala juggahs.'

'Plenty of kala juggahs. Oh my poor little idea! Kala juggahs in a
salon! But who made you so awfully clever?'

'Perhaps I've tried myself; or perhaps I know a woman who has. I
have preached and expounded the whole matter and the conclusion
thereof '

'You needn't go on. ''Is Vanity." Polly, I thank you. These vermin'
Mrs. Hauksbee waved her hand from the verandah to two men in
the crowd below who had raised their hats to her 'these vermin
shall not rejoice in a new Scandal Point or an extra Peliti's. I will
abandon the notion of a salon. It did seem so tempting, though. But
what shall I do? I must do something.'

'Why? Are not Abana and Pharpar '

'Jack has made you nearly as bad as himself! I want to, of course.
I'm tired of everything and everybody, from a moonlight picnic at
Seepee to the blandishments of The Mussuck.'

'Yes that comes, too, sooner or later. Have you nerve enough to
make your bow yet?'

Mrs. Hauksbee's mouth shut grimly. Then she laughed. 'I think I
see myself doing it. Big pink placards on the Mall: ''Mrs.
Hauksbee! Positively her last appearance on any stage! This is to
give notice!" No more dances; no more rides; no more luncheons;
no more theatricals with supper to follow; no more sparring with
one's dearest, dearest friend; no more fencing with an inconvenient
man who hasn't wit enough to clothe what he's pleased to call his
sentiments in passable speech; no more parading of The Mussuck
while Mrs. Tarkass calls all round Simla, spreading horrible stories
about me! No more of anything that is thoroughly wearying,
abominable, and detestable, but, all the same, makes life worth the
having. Yes! I see it all! Don't interrupt, Polly, I'm inspired. A
mauve and white striped ''cloud" round my excellent shoulders, a
seat in the fifth row of the Gaiety, and both horses sold. Delightful
vision! A comfortable arm-chair, situated in three different
draughts, at every ball-room; and nice, large, sensible shoes for all
the couples to stumble over as they go into the verandah! Then at
supper. Can't you imagine the scene? The greedy mob gone away.
Reluctant subaltern, pink all over like a newly-powdered baby,
they really ought to tan subalterns before they are exported, Polly,
sent back by the hostess to do his duty. Slouches up to me across
the room, tugging at a glove two sizes too large for him I hate a
man who wears gloves like overcoats and trying to look as if he'd
thought of it from the first. ''May I ah-have the pleasure 'f takin'
you 'nt' supper?" Then I get up with a hungry smile. Just like this.'

'Lucy, how can you be so absurd?'

'And sweep out on his arm. So! After supper I shall go away early,
you know, because I shall be afraid of catching cold. No one will
look for my 'rickshaw. Mine, so please you! I shall stand, always
with that mauve and white ''cloud" over my head, while the wet
soaks into my dear, old, venerable feet, and Tom swears and
shouts for the mem-sahib's gharri. Then home to bed at half-past
eleven! Truly excellent life helped out by the visits of the Padri,
just fresh from burying somebody down below there.' She pointed
through the pines toward the Cemetery, and continued with
vigorous dramatic gesture

'Listen! I see it all down, down even to the stays! Such stays!
Six-eight a pair, Polly, with red flannel or list, is it? that they put
into the tops of those fearful things. I can draw you a picture of
them.'

'Lucy, for Heaven's sake, don't go waving your arms about in that
idiotic manner! Recollect every one can see you from the Mall.'

'Let them see! They'll think I am rehearsing for The Fallen Angel.
Look! There's The Mussuck. How badly he rides. There!'

She blew a kiss to the venerable Indian administrator with infinite
grace.

'Now,' she continued, 'he'll be chaffed about that at the Club in the
delicate manner those brutes of men affect, and the Hawley Boy
will tell me all about it softening the details for fear of shocking
me. That boy is too good to live, Polly. I've serious thoughts of
recommending him to throw up his commission and go into the
Church. In his present frame of mind he would obey me. Happy,
happy child!'

'Never again,' said Mrs. Mallowe, with an affectation of
indignation, 'shall you tiffin here! ''Lucindy your behaviour is
scand'lus." '

'All your fault,' retorted Mrs. Hauksbee, 'for suggesting such a
thing as my abdication. No! jamais! nevaire! I will act, dance, ride,
frivol, talk scandal, dine out, and appropriate the legitimate
captives of any woman I choose, until I d-r-r-rop, or a better
woman than I puts me to shame before all Simla, and it's dust and
ashes in my mouth while I'm doing it!'

She swept into the drawing-room. Mrs. Mallowe followed and put
an arm round her waist.

'I'm not!' said Mrs. Hauksbee defiantly, rummaging for her
handkerchief. 'I've been dining out the last ten nights, and
rehearsing in the afternoon. You'd be tired yourself. It's only
because I'm tired.'

Mrs. Mallowe did not offer Mrs. Hauksbee any pity or ask her to
lie down, but gave her another cup of tea, and went on with the
talk.

'I've been through that too, dear,' she said.

'I remember,' said Mrs. Hauksbee, a gleam of fun on her face. 'In
'84, wasn't it? You went out a great deal less next season.'

Mrs. Mallowe smiled in a superior and Sphinx-like fashion.

'I became an Influence,' said she.

'Good gracious, child, you didn't join the Theosophists and kiss
Buddha's big toe, did you? I tried to get into their set once, but they
cast me out for a sceptic without a chance of improving my poor
little mind, too.'

'No, I didn't Theosophilander. Jack says '

'Never mind Jack. What a husband says is known before. What did
you do?'

'I made a lasting impression.'

'So have I for four months. But that didn't console me in the least. I
hated the man. Will you stop smiling in that inscrutable way and
tell me what you mean?'

Mrs. Mallowe told.

'And you mean to say that it is absolutely Platonic on both sides?'

'Absolutely, or I should never have taken it up.'

'And his last promotion was due to you?'

Mrs. Mallowe nodded.

'And you warned him against the Topsham Girl?'

Another nod.

'And told him of Sir Dugald Delane's private memo about him?'

A third nod.

'Why?'

'What a question to ask a woman! Because it amused me at first. I
am proud of my property now. If I live, he shall continue to be
successful. Yes, I will put him upon the straight road to
Knighthood, and everything else that a man values. The rest
depends upon himself.'

'Polly, you are a most extraordinary woman.'

'Not in the least. I'm concentrated, that's all. You diffuse yourself,
dear; and though all Simla knows your skill in managing a team '

'Can't you choose a prettier word?'

'Team, of half-a-dozen, from The Mussuck to the Hawley Boy, you
gain nothing by it. Not even amusement.'

'And you?'

'Try my recipe. Take a man, not a boy, mind, but an almost mature,
unattached man, and be his guide, philosopher, and friend. You'll
find it the most interesting occupation that you ever embarked on.
It can be done you needn't look like that because I've done it.'

'There's an element of risk about it that makes the notion attractive.
I'll get such a man and say to him, ''Now, understand that there
must be no flirtation. Do exactly what I tell you, profit by my
instruction and counsels, and all will yet be well." Is that the idea?'

'More or less,' said Mrs. Mallowe, with an unfathomable smile.
'But be sure he understands.'

II

Dribble-dribble trickle-trickle

What a lot of raw dust!

My dollie's had an accident

And out came all the sawdust!

Nursery Rhyme.

So Mrs. Hauksbee, in 'The Foundry' which overlooks Simla Mall,
sat at the feet of Mrs. Mallowe and gathered wisdom. The end of
the Conference was the Great Idea upon which Mrs. Hauksbee so
plumed herself.

'I warn you,' said Mrs. Mallowe, beginning to repent of her
suggestion, 'that the matter is not half so easy as it looks. Any
woman even the Topsham Girl can catch a man, but very, very few
know how to manage him when caught.'

'My child,' was the answer, 'I've been a female St. Simon Stylites
looking down upon men for these these years past. Ask The
Mussuck whether I can manage them.'

Mrs. Hauksbee departed humming, 'I'll go to him and say to him in
manner most ironical.' Mrs. Mallowe laughed to herself. Then she
grew suddenly sober. 'I wonder whether I've done well in advising
that amusement? Lucy's a clever woman, but a thought too
careless.'

A week later the two met at a Monday Pop. 'Well?' said Mrs.
Mallowe.

'I've caught him!' said Mrs. Hauksbee: her eyes were dancing with
merriment.

'Who is it, mad woman? I'm sorry I ever spoke to you about it.'

'Look between the pillars. In the third row; fourth from the end.
You can see his face now. Look!'

'Otis Yeere! Of all the improbable and impossible people! I don't
believe you.'

'Hsh! Wait till Mrs. Tarkass begins murdering Milton Wellings;
and I'll tell you all about it. S-s-ss! That woman's voice always
reminds me of an Underground train coming into Earl's Court with
the brakes on. Now listen. It is really Otis Yeere.'

'So I see, but does it follow that he is your property!'

'He is! By right of trove. I found him, lonely and unbefriended, the
very next night after our talk, at the Dugald Delanes' burra-khana. I
liked his eyes, and I talked to him. Next day he called. Next day
we went for a ride together, and to-day he's tied to my
'richshaw-wheels hand and foot. You'll see when the concert's
over. He doesn't know I'm here yet.'

'Thank goodness you haven't chosen a boy. What are you going to
do with him, assuming that you've got him?'

'Assuming, indeed! Does a woman do I ever make a mistake in
that sort of thing? First' Mrs. Hauksbee ticked off the items
ostentatiously on her little gloved fingers 'First, my dear, I shall
dress him properly. At present his raiment is a disgrace, and he
wears a dress-shirt like a crumpled sheet of the Pioneer. Secondly,
after I have made him presentable, I shall form his manners his
morals are above reproach.'

'You seem to have discovered a great deal about him considering
the shortness of your acquaintance.'

'Surely you ought to know that the first proof a man gives of his
interest in a woman is by talking to her about his own sweet self. If
the woman listens without yawning, he begins to like her. If she
flatters the animal's vanity, he ends by adoring her.'

'In some cases.'

'Never mind the exceptions. I know which one you are thinking of.
Thirdly, and lastly, after he is polished and made pretty, I shall, as
you said, be his guide, philosopher, and friend, and he shall
become a success as great a success as your friend. I always
wondered how that man got on. Did The Mussuck come to you
with the Civil List and, dropping on one knee no, two knees, ˆ la
Gibbon hand it to you and say, ''Adorable angel, choose your
friend's appointment"?'

'Lucy, your long experiences of the Military Department have
demoralised you. One doesn't do that sort of thing on the Civil
Side.'

'No disrespect meant to Jack's Service, my dear. I only asked for
information. Give me three months, and see what changes I shall
work in my prey.'

'Go your own way since you must. But I'm sorry that I was weak
enough to suggest the amusement.'

' ''I am all discretion, and may be trusted to an in-fin-ite extent," '
quoted Mrs. Hauksbee from The Fallen Angel; and the
conversation ceased with Mrs. Tarkass's last, long-drawn
war-whoop.

Her bitterest enemies and she had many could hardly accuse Mrs.
Hauksbee of wasting her time. Otis Yeere was one of those
wandering 'dumb' characters, foredoomed through life to be
nobody's property. Ten years in Her Majesty's Bengal Civil
Service, spent, for the most part, in undesirable Districts, had
given him little to be proud of, and nothing to bring confidence.
Old enough to have lost the first fine careless rapture that showers
on the immature 'Stunt imaginary Commissionerships and Stars,
and sends him into the collar with coltish earnestness and
abandon; too young to be yet able to look back upon the progress
he had made, and thank Providence that under the conditions of
the day he had come even so far, he stood upon the dead-centre of
his career. And when a man stands still he feels the slightest
impulse from without. Fortune had ruled that Otis Yeere should
be, for the first part of his service, one of the rank and file who are
ground up in the wheels of the Administration; losing heart and
soul, and mind and strength, in the process. Until steam replaces
manual power in the working of the Empire, there must always be
this percentage must always be the men who are used up,
expended, in the mere mechanical routine. For these promotion is
far off and the mill-grind of every day very instant. The
Secretariats know them only by name; they are not the picked men
of the Districts with Divisions and Collectorates awaiting them.
They are simply the rank and file the food for fever sharing with
the ryot and the plough-bullock the honour of being the plinth on
which the State rests. The older ones have lost their aspirations;
the younger are putting theirs aside with a sigh. Both learn to
endure patiently until the end of the day. Twelve years in the rank
and file, men say, will sap the hearts of the bravest and dull the
wits of the most keen.

Out of this life Otis Yeere had fled for a few months; drifting, in
the hope of a little masculine society, into Simla. When his leave
was over he would return to his swampy, sour-green,
under-manned Bengal district; to the native Assistant, the native
Doctor, the native Magistrate, the steaming, sweltering Station, the
ill-kempt City, and the undisguised insolence of the Municipality
that babbled away the lives of men. Life was cheap, however. The
soil spawned humanity, as it bred frogs in the Rains, and the gap of
the sickness of one season was filled to overflowing by the
fecundity of the next. Otis was unfeignedly thankful to lay down
his work for a little while and escape from the seething, whining,
weakly hive, impotent to help itself, but strong in its power to
cripple, thwart, and annoy the sunkeneyed man who, by official
irony, was said to be 'in charge' of it.

'I knew there were women-dowdies in Bengal. They come up here
sometimes. But I didn't know that there were men-dowds, too.'

Then, for the first time, it occurred to Otis Yeere that his clothes
wore rather the mark of the ages. It will be seen that his friendship
with Mrs. Hauksbee had made great strides.

As that lady truthfully says, a man is never so happy as when he is
talking about himself. From Otis Yeere's lips Mrs. Hauksbee,
before long, learned everything that she wished to know about the
subject of her experiment: learned what manner of life he had led
in what she vaguely called 'those awful cholera districts'; learned,
too, but this knowledge came later, what manner of life he had
purposed to lead and what dreams he had dreamed in the year of
grace '77, before the reality had knocked the heart out of him. Very
pleasant are the shady bridle-paths round Prospect Hill for the
telling of such confidences.

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