Complete Works of Talbot Mundy

by Talbot Mundy

  The path twisted and wound until it passed the corner of the palace wing and brought them to a green lawn watered by a maze of sprinklers that flung whirling cascades of diamonds above the sunlit green. There were splendid ancient trees there, and a fountain long ago imported by a prince who liked the realistic sort of Gallic nudity which leaves imagination nothing to invent. There was a Queen Anne window in a semi-Gothic, near-ecclesiastic addition to an Italian wall of the Neapolitan ice-cream Renaissance period, all grafted on to ancient mouse-gray masonry. Art for the love of opulence had had her innings. The Queen Anne window opened on a classical Greek portico with Corinthian marble columns and a Byzantine roof of fluted copper sheeting. Quorn was pop-eyed. So were several of the palace women; they were sunning themselves, unveiled, against the marble columns. Three of them fled indoors. One stood her ground, one rather older than the others; it was she who insolently asked the babu what he wanted.

  Quorn knew enough of the language to follow the argument. The babu pointed to a little summer-house beyond the unchaste fountain. He declared he had the Maharajah’s written order to discuss important business with the Princess. He would interview her in the summer-house, and she must waste no time, since the matter was urgent. Where was the written order? How did anyone suppose he could have got into the garden without giving up the order to the gate man?

  “And besides,” he added, in a lower voice that blended impudence and confidence, “are you her enemy? If I snap fingers there will be a change of women here in sixty minutes!”

  Then he sat down, fat and friendly looking, on a marble pedestal beside the steps that led up to the portico. Quorn stood near him, sweating, too uncomfortable to explain his own sensations to himself.

  “Taking chances, aren’t we?” he suggested.

  “Million to one shot!” said the babu. “Is that not ridiculous enough without hysterics also? Fortunately I am sleepy so I can’t feel frightened. Should his Highness catch us, we are out of luck I tell you.”

  “Hell, he said for you to see her.”

  “Said the spider to the fly. Am using TNTmanship. It is the art of crashing thin ice to arrive at roots of riddles. As a skater I am no good. Can’t trust ice or women. If that woman is as shrewd as you are nervous, we are likely to resemble nothing much in less than half-a-jiffy. Verb sap. Did I tie that gateman tight enough? If he should break loose—”

  “Guess you killed him,” said Quorn.

  “Oh, I hope so! Did you ever kill a person? Murder is the only squeam remaining to me. As a composite immoralist one soon runs out of devilish sensations. As a solace, murder is dependable when all else seems so stupid. She is coming. I behold her. I regret to have to tell you that your fear was quite unnecessary. It is saddening to waste one’s worst emotions on an empty nothing. I must hope to do a little better for you next time.”

  It was gradually dawning on Quorn’s not too quick mind that behind a barricade of nonsense the babu was coolly intelligent. Unwilling to admit that he was beginning to like the man, he did feel less distrustful of him. He eyed him so narrowly that he hardly noticed the Princess. She was veiled and swathed in silken saris, hurrying between two women down a path toward the summer-house.

  “You quit your kidding,” he said to the babu. “Talk on the level to me, and I’ll treat you equal.”

  Solemnly the babu stared. His speculative, skeptical, alert eyes darkened with a kind of humorous inscrutability. He looked like a figure of self-control, in graven rock, by Rodin. Then his throat moved as if he tested it before he trusted it to speak.

  “Fraternity,” he said at last, “is scratch me and I scratch you, but the devil take the ‘hindmost. Liberty is live and let live, if the vested interests permit. What is equality?”

  “All men are born equal,” said Quorn. “Equal opportunity and equal rights. One man’s as good as another.”

  “Verb sap. Let us go and meet an equal,” said the babu. “Let us share and share alike such disillusion as awaits platonic libertines. Equality! If we are equal to a situation — three things equal to the same thing — Ah! you duffer — you forgot that Einstein has abolished Euclid. Relativity is female — aged eighteen, I tell you — TNTically disrespectful. Lead on. My equality has four flats. You go ahead and tell her you are equal to her. That way — to the right around the fountain, and then straight on.”

  Quorn went forward. Princess or no Princess, he was not going to be chaffed out of countenance by a heathen babu.

  X

  “I Can Act As Crazy As A March Hare Too, I Reckon.”

  Quorn had manners. He stood facing the summer-house door with the natural dignity of an event that has happened. He appeared entirely unselfconscious and incurious. He waited to be spoken to. He rather wondered at his own poise — always had been rather puzzled by his own intuitive behavior whenever circumstances put him in a false position. Nervousness had a trick of deserting him at critical moments, leaving him nothing to carry on with but his own inherent good sense.

  “Gunga sahib,” said a voice as full of liquid laughter as a pebbly spring. He could see nothing, because the inside of the little shrine-shaped house was all in shadow. “Is it good-by? Are you a dream? Or are you real?”

  “Yours to command, Miss.” He could think of nothing else to answer.

  “Has Chullunder Ghose confided in you?”

  “Him, Miss? He’s said plenty. I’m not saying I believe him or I don’t believe him. Maybe you’ve opinions that you’d like to have me listen to?”

  “Would you believe me?”

  “Miss, it isn’t in my character to disbelieve a lady. But I’m good at keeping out of mischief. I could listen, supposing you wished that.”

  “Do you like being Gunga sahib?”

  “No, Miss.”

  “I don’t like my situation either. Shall we help each other?”

  “Miss, I’m an ignorant man. If you’ll forgive me giving you advice, I’d say you need an expert.”

  “Isn’t babu Chullunder Ghose an expert?”

  “Miss, according to him he’s the only one alive and out o’ prison.”

  “You don’t trust him?”

  “Miss, I’ve had to.”

  “Was it unsafe?”

  “I’m not dead yet.”

  “You don’t like him?”

  Quorn scratched his forehead. For the first time he was aware of the carmine that Chullunder Ghose had slyly smeared that morning when he bound the turban on so carefully. He examined his middle fingernail.

  “I like his cheek, Miss. He’s a slick customer. I’d trust him off my own bat maybe half as far as I could throw an elephant with one hand.”

  “But he promised me to have you appointed Master of the Elephants. Hasn’t he done it?”

  “Yes, Miss. When I see the contract I’ll believe my own eyes.”

  “Don’t you ever — what is the expression? — don’t you ever take a long chance?”

  “Seems to me, Miss, that I’m taking one this minute. Me and Maharajahs aren’t two of a kind. If what I’ve read in books is on the level, palace eunuchs aren’t particular how they hop to it. They give a man the works if they can catch him.”

  She gave a little squeal of laughter. “My attendants are women. The only eunuch is the gateman, and he is not at liberty to leave his post,” she answered.

  “I noticed that, Miss.”

  “But what a phrase! Give them the works! Is that right? Gunga sahib, that expresses it exactly! I intend to give the works to all Narada — and to all this stuffy conventional life — and all this cruelty — and all the priests — and superstition — and silly prejudice — and dirt — and uneconomical, unscientific misgovernment — and degradation of women — and unsanitary habits—”

  “Sounds, Miss, like a primary election platform.”

  “I will wear that as a motto! I will have it done in gold and jewels! Give them the works! Oh, wonderful!”

  “But we begin,” said a baritone voic
e, “by being less conspicuous. Sahiba, this babu is satisfied that three of your attendant ladies are dependable unless depended on too much. The others are amenable to expert flattery — too loving to betray you unless tempted. It is best that nobody should know too much, however. So, in view of unconventional intentions, please dismiss the two who sit there with you.”

  “But they don’t know English?”

  “Star of Heaven, secrets and a woman’s knowledge are identical. A woman only tells you what she doesn’t know. What she knows, she tells to others at the wrong time. Were they sleeping all the while you were at English lessons? It is bad enough for us to have to trust each other, Moon of Magnanimity! This fatness is not fatuous; I am a taker of tremendous chances. But about takeable chances there is some uncertainty. There is no uncertainty whatever about trusting more than one woman at once.”

  “Oh, very well.” There was a whispered interlude. Two veiled, a little too secretive looking women left the building by a back door. The babu watched them well on their way toward the palace before he thrust Quorn forward with a hand in the small of his back. They entered side by side into a small, octagonal, wide-windowed chamber that contained a divan and a few small tables. There was a fountain-pen on the table, a box of paper, and one of those leather-bound books with a brass lock in which financiers keep their real balances, and young folk write such secrets as they burn in later years. The room was rather dim, because creepers hung in dense cascades of green and yellow from the low eaves. But the Princess, on a straight chair by the table, sat where broken sunlight streamed in; and as they entered she threw off her veil with a shoulder-shrug and a little laugh of what was probably excitement. Quorn had seen a young girl at Atlantic City make exactly the same gesture as she threw off a beach-robe and dared propriety in an up-to-date bathing suit. She motioned to them, so they sat down on the divan, Chullunder Ghose bare-footed, drawing up his legs and squatting like a fat god.

  “Do you keep a diary, sahiba?” he demanded.

  She stared at him, almost as if he had questioned her about her underwear.

  “Burn it!” he commanded. “Burn it! An important diary is evidence of thought, and thought is treasonable anywhere, at all times and in all lands. An unimportant diary is worse. Whoever steals it learns your sentimental weakness, and you are at his mercy.”

  “It is only poetry,” she answered, locking the book in the table drawer.

  “Self am poet also,” said the babu, “but myself am poetry enough to keep me busy. Am a free verse — difficult indeed to set to music.”

  The Princess lighted a cigarette. “Let us lay aside all silly etiquette,” she proposed; and she appeared to believe that was easy to do. She knew — of course she knew, that she was lovelier to look at than a dewy rose in sunlight. She was perfectly aware of the line of her leg, and of the harmony of color where her ivory foot peeped forth from dawn-hued gossamer. Perhaps she thought that men are unobservant, or unemotional, and that they don’t rely on etiquette to govern impulse. “I enjoy being called Miss, it is so delightfully informal and democratic. I would be a communist, if communists would let me, but they think I’m anarchistic; and to me they seem such terrible old superstitious fogies, all afraid of new ideas. I will call you Gunga sahib. The name fits you. And besides, you will have to get used to it sooner or later.”

  “The sooner the better,” said the babu. “Moon of Modesty, are you used to the thought of trusting all your destiny to one throw of the Dice of Danger? There are fifty thousand women within a five-mile radius, not one of whom would hesitate to take a pink risk for a good fat profit. You have got to take a bloody red risk for a rat’s chance of a royal flush. There is a fortune in the kitty — but a cold deck.”

  She frowned a little. “What does that mean?”

  “Cards are stacked and you have nothing much to draw to, except the joker. Self am which. Do you intend to listen to me?”

  “I intend to trust you,” she answered.

  The babu glanced at Quorn sideways. “Self-esteem,” he remarked, “is sweeter than success but not so necessary. You prefer your comforts?”

  Quorn was noncommittal. “Talk horse,” he retorted.

  Suddenly the babu’s face changed. He assumed that graven rock expression that had made Quorn almost like him. He was serious, not solemn; it would have been impossible for him to be solemn and not ridiculous. But he was energy incarnate — concentrated sincerity, selfconsciously bent on realism.

  “Miss!” he said with emphasis. “I speak to you as dam-Dutch uncle, if you know what that is! Listen to me. Self am flotsam on a wave of circumstances, same as anybody. Disillusionment is my meat. Do you wish to be a heroine? Or are you human? Can you be a heroine from the heels up, but a human from the head down? Can you laugh at yourself?”

  She stared hard. “Am I funny?”

  “Yes — unless you see the joke,” he answered. “If you see it, you are hot stuff. Caesar, let me tell you, was irresistible and bad luck had to take a back seat, for as long as a sense of humor kept him laughing at himself. But when he was a hero in his own eyes, then the gang got dangerous and snickersneed him.”

  “Oh well, Caesar was a man,” she answered. “All men are victims of vanity.”

  “Cleopatra was a woman,” said the babu. “So were Catherine the Great and Queen Elizabeth. Until they thought of themselves as heroines they had it easy. Are you a heroine? If so, this babu isn’t having any! Martyrdom is no good. I assure you, it is no more dignified to die a Joan of Arc, with flames for a chemise, than it is to be a bawdy woman in a bad-house. Either way, you only minister to monstrous animality. Am animal, but attitudinist. An elementary idealism forces this babu to kid himself he isn’t foul enough to mislead bravery. But heroism isn’t honest. Honesty incorrigibly causes self-analysis. If same is competently undertaken, comedy is so self-evident that even flattery and appetite seem funny. Fun and fortune are the same thing. Fortune and solemnity are opposites.”

  “Am I to laugh myself out of this prison?” she asked. “I thought you came here to advise me seriously.”

  “Marvelous sahiba, seriousness is mere mountebankery compared to my emotion! Let us bargain. In exchange for nothing but my own self-entertainment, I will fly like fathead into face of Providence and beat the rules or bust, until you reign as Maharanee of Narada — if — but only if — you promise me to play, not prostitute your talents in the pro bono publico stews of self-humiliation.”

  “Pro bono what?” she demanded. “What does that mean?”

  “Soul of unborn Indiscretions, this babu, like Shakespere, has a very little Latin and a lot less Greek. But natural suspiciousness induces me to think the words may mean morality is mediocrity. If that is true, the public should be grateful if it gets no worse than what is coming to it. Verb sap. After you are Maharanee—”

  “I have promised. You shall be chief of my ministers.”

  “Am incorruptible immoralist. As helpmeet to a heroine, am worse than caviar to a giraffe. So we will cross that puddle of conundrums as per schedule, same as train on wet track, if we reach it. After you are Maharanee, you may do exactly as you dam-please. You may be a reformer. You may get religion. You may thumb your nose at Reason and behave like Gandhi on the greasy pole of popular approval. I am speaking of preliminaries. I exact a promise from you to be sensible to start with. Never mind what happens afterwards. You are neither a child of destiny, which was the skin of a banana that Napoleon set his heel on; nor a favorite of the gods, which was the gullibility that disillusioned Marie Antoinette; nor a credulous romanticist, which was the handicap of Mary Queen of Scots. And you are neither orthodox, which was the fault of Charles the First; nor pious, which was James the Second’s failing. You are not sentimental. You are not a superior young person. You are not cynical. You know morality is morbid jaundice, due to lack of an imagination; and you know imagination is the door of opportunity. But opportunity is damned exacting and demands a sense of humor. So you laug
h at yourself. But you take damned good care nobody else does, unless you foresee you will laugh last. Promise!”

  She smiled, a bit perplexed. “I will try to remember it all,” she answered.

  “Star of heaven, it is too late for a tryout. We have got to hit this unforgiving opportunity so accurately on the snout that it will know its master! To be merciful to opportunities is just as foolish as to cry for spilt milk. Do you know the temple where the Jains treat injured animals?”

  “I know it well,” she answered. “I have often sent them gifts. I sent a cat there to be treated, but it died. They set my mina’s broken leg, however, and—”

  “They weep,” the babu interrupted, “over spilt milk.”

  “Oh. Why?”

  “Orthodoxy,” said the babu. “Same old story. Applesauce for goose is good for turkey-buzzard — same hymn for a virgin and a venerable roué — ethics same for tiger and a titmouse. Jains don’t eat meat. Consequently, tigers mustn’t, dogma being as illogical as calculus but easier to preach. A tiger is sent to them — fine one — born in captivity — nice tame triple-extra treachery in stripes — incalculable very — very sick, though — calculably manageable pro tem. He is pap fed. He recovers. He is milk fed. Convalescence makes him ravenous, however. So he upsets milk in argumentative request for change of diet. Orthodoxy up against it, same as a Mohammedan with only ham and wine and some one looking. Do you get my idea?”

  “No,” she answered.

  “Point is: will you take a tigerish chance?”

  “I will take any chance you advise,” she answered val- iantly.

  “Miss, Miss! That’s not clever,” Quorn objected.

  “Have him tell you all about it first. You think it over, and then talk it over.”

  “Why?” she asked. “I said I trust him. If I live to trust nobody else, I will trust him.”

  “Why, Miss? He admits he isn’t moral.”

  “He is the only friend I have,” she answered. “If it turns out badly, I will not regret I trusted him. It would be much worse to go on living this way, than to die in a forlorn hope.”