Selected Stories by Rudyard Kipling Page B

freed from the embarrassment of Mrs Boulte’s presence, learned for the second time her opinion of himself and his actions.
    In the evenings it was the wont of all Kashima to meet at the platform on the Narkarra Road, to drink tea and discuss the trivialities of the day. Major Vansuythen and his wife found themselves alone at the gathering-place for almost the first time in their remembrance; and the cheery Major, in the teeth of his wife’s remarkably reasonable suggestion that the rest of the Station might be sick, insisted upon driving round to the two bungalows and unearthing the population.
    â€˜Sitting in the twilight!’ said he, with great indignation, to the Boultes. ‘That’ll never do! Hang it all, we’re one family here! You
must
come out, and so must Kurrell. I’ll make him bring his banjo.’
    So great is the power of honest simplicity and a good digestion over guilty consciences that all Kashima did turn out, even down to the banjo; and the Major embraced the company in one expansive grin. As he grinned, Mrs Vansuythen raised her eyes for an instant and looked at all Kashima. Her meaning was clear. Major Vansuythen would never know anything. He was to be the outsider in that happy family whose cage was the Dosehri hills.
    â€˜You’re singing villainously out of tune, Kurrell,’ said the Major truthfully. ‘Pass me that banjo.’
    And he sang in excruciating wise till the stars came out and all Kashima went to dinner.
    That was the beginning of the New Life of Kashima – the life that Mrs Boulte made when her tongue was loosened in the twilight.
    Mrs Vansuythen has never told the Major; and since he insists upon keeping up a burdensome geniality, she has been compelled to break her vow of not speaking to Kurrell. This speech, which must of necessity preserve the semblance of politeness and interest, serves admirably to keep alight the flames of jealousy and dull hatred in Boulte’s bosom, as it awakens the same passions in his wife’s heart. Mrs Boulte hates Mrs Vansuythen because she has taken Ted from her, and, in some curious fashion, hates her because Mrs Vansuythen – and here the wife’s eyes see far more clearly than the husband’s – detests Ted. And Ted – that gallant captain and honourable man – knows now that it is possible to hate a woman once loved, to the verge of wishing to silence her for ever with blows. Above all is he shocked that Mrs Boulte cannot see the error of her ways.
    Boulte and he go out tiger-shooting together in all friendship. Boulte has put their relationship on a most satisfactory footing.
    â€˜You’re a blackguard,’ he says to Kurrell, ‘and I’ve lost any self-respect I may ever have had; but when you’re with me, I can feelcertain that you are not with Mrs Vansuythen, or making Emma miserable.’
    Kurrell endures anything that Boulte may say to him. Sometimes they are away for three days together, and then the Major insists upon his wife going over to sit with Mrs Boulte; although Mrs Vansuythen has repeatedly declared that she prefers her husband’s company to any in the world. From the way in which she clings to him, she would certainly seem to be speaking the truth.
    But of course, as the Major says, ‘in a little Station we must all be friendly’.

Dray Wara Yow Dee 1
    For jealousy is the rage of a man: therefore he will not spare in the day of vengeance.
    Proverbs
vi: 34.
    Almonds and raisins, Sahib? Grapes from Kabul? Or a pony of the rarest if the Sahib will only come with me. He is thirteen-three, 2 Sahib, plays polo, goes in a cart, carries a lady and – Holy Kurshed 3 and the Blessed Imams, 4 it is the Sahib himself! My heart is made fat and my eye glad. May you never be tired! As is cold water in the Tirah, 5 so is the sight of a friend in a far place. And what do
you
in this accursed land? 6 South of Delhi, Sahib, you know the saying