CHAPTER VI.

THE APPOINTMENT.

Tiffin over--the General's khansamah had excelled himself, for there were curried hares and quails (the spoil of Waller's rifle), roasted kid, the fat being spread on buttered toast, and well peppered; curried chickens, partridge pie, snipe and ortolans, sweet bread and stilton, champagne, claret, and Bass, with a dessert of Cabul grapes, oranges, and various other fruits _à discretion_--tiffin over, we say, like other civilized people in the land they had come from, as it had not been dinner, but simply luncheon, all filed back to the drawing-room together; and, in obedience to a glance from Rose, from whom his eyes seldom wandered, Denzil achieved a place by her side on a sofa.

So the day to which he had looked forward so anxiously, was not, perhaps, to pass away so inauspiciously after all, for, to Denzil, time seemed to be divided into two portions--that which was spent in the society of Rose, and that which seemed blankness, spent in absence from her.

Waller was hanging over Mabel, talking in a very confidential tone, so closely that his long fair whiskers brushed at times her rich brown hair. Mabel had that kind of pure profile one sometimes sees cut on a cameo, her head was gracefully set on her shoulders, and there were times when its bearing was queenly. Her complexion was brilliantly fair by day as well as by night, and her dark grey eyes had in them now a smile so winning, that Bob Waller could not help thinking that she was really a fine girl, and looking uncommonly well.

The ladies from the adjacent cantonment were now deep in "baby talk;" the officers were clustered about the two generals, engaged in discussing "shop," and the probability of Sir Robert Sale cutting his way to Jellalabad, even though he were beset by the Ghilzies; for a little space Denzil thought he would have Rose all to himself.

Long ere this he had learned that she and Mabel were somewhat discontented. This kind of station, in a species of enemy's country, and so remote from all the world, where steamers, telegraphs, and railways were all unknown, was not the India to which they had looked forward, and to which they had been previously accustomed. They should have preferred Calcutta, with its streets of snow-white palaces, its stately villas at Gardenreach, the spacious course for driving, riding, promenading, and most decidedly for flirting. At Cabul all was semi-barbarism, as compared with Chowringhee, the Park Lane, the Belgravia of the Indian capital.

Rose knew thoroughly the science of dress. She never, even when in England, chose colours merely for their beauty, but such as she knew by tone and contrast, enhanced the power of her own. She now wore a costume of light blue Cabul silk, trimmed with the most delicate white lace, and she knew that she looked to the utmost advantage. As she lay back on the sofa, playing with a feather-fan, vivacity and langour were alternately the expression of her sunny hazel eyes, for she was pre-eminently a coquette, and had resolved to amuse herself for a time with her new, and as yet, silently professed admirer.

"So you are not yet tired of Cabul?" she began, after a pause.

"Oh no, far from it," replied Denzil, with a glance which he thought, or wished to be thought, full of tender meaning.

"How odd! I used to think India a fine place, but this Cabul, oh, it is simply horrid! There is neither a piano or harp in the whole city. To be sure there are no Europeans here, save the Queen's troops."

"The climate is temperate in summer," urged Denzil for want of something better to say.

"But nevertheless, the place is unendurable, and I hope papa will soon get a command elsewhere, that we, at least, may leave."

"I trust not."

"Why?"

"Can you really ask me--why?" said Denzil, lowering his voice, while gazing into her laughing eyes, with undisguised tenderness; then he added, "we do not wish to lose you."

"Poor Mr. Devereaux! I think you are very fond of papa; for his Cornish name, perhaps," and as no one was looking, she patted his cheek with her fan.

"I love something more than the mere Cornish name of Trecarrel," said Denzil, tremulously; but Rose only bit the feathers of her fan, and eyed him laughingly over it.

"But I repeat that this place is tiresome," she resumed, as a pause had ensued, and pauses are always awkward; "think of the Residency parties, with their young ladies' quadrilles and married ladies' ditto! A man may dance in both sets, and yet have only one hand to dispose of. There is an absurdity, too, in having present those native chiefs like Taj Mohammed and Timour the Shahzadeh, who think the whole affair--the round dancing especially--a naughty and improper Nautch; so they curl their enormous mustaches, and turn up their cruel glittering eyes, and wonder that we laboriously do that which they pay others to do for their amusement. Sunday comes, and then we have to endure what Mab calls 'a regimental sermon,' wherein the chaplain sets forth little more than the heinousness of the slightest neglect of the Queen's regulations! Heavens! I would rather endure a trot on a newly-caught elephant, or a picnic in a wet jungle! Oh, may I trouble you, dear Mr. Devereaux?" she whispered suddenly, and so close that her auburn hair brushed his cheek; "my bracelet has fallen."

The ornament, an elaborate Delhi bangle--a golden miracle of carving--was, not very speedily, clasped by Denzil on the white, veined wrist; and while doing so she permitted her hand for an instant to touch, to linger in his. Was he awkward? was the clasp stiff, that a thrill went to his heart? But her eyes were sparkling with coquetry, as she expressed her thanks for the little service she had ensured by specially and purposely letting her bracelet fall.

"How that young fellow is 'going the pace,'" whispered Polwhele to Burgoyne, with a covert laugh.

"Of course you can never feel dull when in your quarters, Mr. Devereaux?" said Rose; "young officers are said to have so many resources."

"Far from it; and, to tell the truth, I am always dull, weary and even sad, when not--here. You can never know," he added, colouring at the pointedness of his own remark, "how stupidly we fellows pass the time in cantonments; it is getting through the day anyhow--sipping everything, from iced champagne to cold tea and pale ale; smoking everything, from Latakia to Chinsurrah cheroots, and making bets on everything, from drawing the longest straw out of the bungalow roof to naming the winner of the Derby or St. Leger, the bet to be determined six months after, perhaps, when the mail reaches us."

"A profitable way of spending one's day. Do none of you, as a pastime, ever attempt to fall in love?"

The question was one of positive cruelty; but the beautiful eyes only beamed brighter with fun as she put this perilous query, which she would never have uttered to men like Waller or Polwhele.

She fanned herself, and waited for a reply.

"For others I cannot say," said Denzil, in low voice; "for myself, never till I came to Cabul--never till I met, I dare not here say _who_."

"For a griff, Devereaux, you give a capital answer," said Burgoyne, who had been gradually drawing near them; "we both fall in love and out of it too," he added, with a laugh that was almost saucy, for he had already suffered something at Rose's hands. "Love, like a month's pay, does not last for ever."

"Even in marriage, do you mean?" asked a lady, looking up from a book of prints.

"Less then, perhaps, according to Mr. Polewhele," said Rose; "orange blossoms fade and die as well as summer leaves."

"What a lovely little cynic it is!" said Waller in Mabel's ear; "but she never means all she says."

The conversation now became general; and save for a speaking glance from time to time, and--once at least--when their hands touched (involuntarily, of course) Denzil felt that his chances with Rose were over for the day.

"Our band plays to-morrow at the grand-stand," said an officer of the 54th Native Infantry.

As he spoke, Denzil's eyes met those of Rose, and swift as lightning each knew where to look for the other on the morrow.

"Save with the regimental bands," said Mabel, "Rossini, Bellini and Chimarosa are all lost to us here. Papa strove hard to bring our piano up country; but it was lost in the Khyber Pass by the native artillery (who had tied it on a field piece) when some wild Khyberees appeared; and they, finding that the box emitted sounds, fired a score of juzail* balls through it on speculation."

* The Afghan rifle; hence _juzailchees_, or riflemen.

"When I was in the Ceylon Rifles," said a Queen's officer, "I have actually seen a piano placed in four bowls of water."

"For what purpose?" asked Mabel.

"To prevent the white ants from eating it up; and I was once at a dancing party in Trincomalee when, from the extreme humidity of climate, the piano--one of Broadwood's best--went all to pieces, like a house of cards; so up here, at Cabul, we can't say what might happen."

"Have you seen the account in an English paper of the late skirmish with Nott's people at Candahar, and the queer story about the wounded being carried off?" asked General Trecarrel.

"No," replied Burgoyne; "what was it? Something extremely 'verdant,' of course, if it referred to India."

"Exactly. General Nott reported that he had thirty rank and file killed, but thrice that number wounded, were all carried off by dhooleys to the hills; on which event the editor expresses his horror in having to record that the savage tribe, known as the _Dhooleys_, swooped down from their native mountains and bore away the helpless wounded in their remorseless clutches!"

Dhooleys, being simply palanquins or litters, the Indian reader may imagine--as a little fun goes a long way when "up country"--how the mistake was laughed at, and how it made old Elphinstone laugh so severely, that all became seriously alarmed lest a catastrophe might occur; but ere long his dhooley was announced, and the party began to disperse; and Denzil, the last to leave, lingered a moment behind his two friends.

"The band--you have heard--plays at two to-morrow," said Rose, in low voice.

There was a fleet glance exchanged, a swift, soft pressure of the slender fingers, and in these words an appointment--an assignation--was made, causing Denzil's heart to beat wildly with joy as he hurried after Waller and Polwhele, full of dread lest they should have discovered his secret understanding with Rose and proceed to rally him thereon. As it was, he did not escape; for as they walked leisurely towards their quarters in the fort, Waller began thus.

"I have been dying for a quiet cigar! By the way, what does some poetical fellow (Byron, is it?) say--that love is of man's life a thing apart--but woman's whole existence? I don't know the truth of the statement; but anyhow, flirtation or man-slaying is a part of the 'existence' of Rose Trecarrel; so, look alive, Denzil, my boy, or you'll have but a poor chance, if the order to move down on Jellalabad don't come soon. It is all very well for subs to be spooney; but rather absurd for one to be entertaining 'views,' you know."

"You seemed soft enough on her sister, at all events," retorted Denzil, angrily.

"It is a maxim of mine," replied Waller, caressing his fly-away whiskers alternately, "that 'a little bit of tenderness is never misplaced, so long as the object is young, pretty, and, still more than all, disposed for it.' But, Denzil Devereaux, that girl amuses herself with you, and orders you about, as if you were a Maltese terrier, a poodle, or a sepoy."

"By Jove! the Trecarrels are handsome, though," said Polwhele; "and if I had not acquired the habit of making love to a pretty face, merely as a pastime, I fear I should soon be doing it in downright earnest to Rose."

Now as Polwhele was a dangerously good-looking fellow, Denzil felt nettled by his complacent remark.

"But," added the former, "I have met scores of such girls wherever I have been quartered--at home, I mean--especially in London; just the kind of girls to do a bit of Park with; to open a pedal communication with, in mamma's carriage, or meet in a crush where Gunter's fellows have brought the ices; where Weippart's band invites to the light fantastic; and where there are covert squeezes of the hand in the Lancers, on the stairs, or under the supper tablecloth, flirtations in the conservatory, and soft things said between the figures of a quadrille, or in the breathing times of a round dance, when weary of chasing 'the glowing hours with flying feet.'"

"By Jove! Jack, how your tongue runs on!"

"Well, there is no general order against its doing so; and old Trecarrel's champagne was excellent. Oh, Lord! I have done all that sort of thing scores of times, and now find there was nothing in it; but Rose Trecarrel has the prettiest ankle I ever saw.

"Ah! you're a man of close observation."

"Well, I've seen a few in my time, on windy days, at Margate and Brighton especially."

"I am not a marrying man, and had I not been hopelessly insolvent since I came into the world, egad! I would pop to Mabel," said Waller, with a sudden earnestness to which the General's champagne perhaps contributed.

"Oh! you have got the length of calling her by her Christian name!'

"As you do Rose--well, but is it _not_ her name?"

"Of course; but----"

"But what?" asked Bob Waller, testily; "is a fellow to be everlastingly quizzed in that mess-room style, just because--because"--he stuttered and paused.

"What?" said Polwhele, laughing and pointing his black mustaches, which the Line wore in India long before the Crimean war.

"Because he has an honest fancy for a girl; and do you know, Jack, I think I _could_ love that girl--seriously now."

"Very probably; but do you think she could love you?"

"True, I am only a captain, with a small share in an old Cornish mine, and no end of expectations."

"It is only being up-country and idleness."

"I'd call you out, Jack, only it is not the fashion to treat one's friends so now," retorted Waller, as they reached their quarters in the old fort. "There bangs the evening gun from the Bala Hissa; and now to dress for mess."

Some of Polwhele's thoughtless speeches rankled more in the mind of Denzil than he quite cared to show; for he knew that if the idea struck the mind of that confident personage he would propose to Rose Trecarrel in a moment; and Polwhele, he was aware, had a handsome estate partly in Cornwall and partly in Devonshire, and was a most eligible _parti_.

_He_, himself, was but a junior subaltern, and he speculated on the years that must inevitably pass ere he could be a captain. Oh, Rose would never wait all that time, and be true.

Poor lad--would he? At least he thought so.

Long, long did Denzil lie awake that night, after leaving the mess-bungalow, anticipating the meeting of the morrow, and recalling the expression of Rose's clear brown eyes--the touch of her soft hand and her whispered words, while the hungry jackals howled like devils in the compound without; and while, on the metal ghurries of the adjacent cantonment, the sentinels struck the passing hours.

He might, had he known the true state of matters, had a sympathetic adviser in Bob Waller, who at that precise time was seated thoughtfully in his quarters--the white-washed room already described--with a leg over each arm of his bamboo chair and his eyes fixed pensively on the ceiling, for he was thinking over Mabel's rare beauty through the medium of a soothing pipe of Cavendish; and once or twice he muttered:

"I am quite bewildered--_gobrowed_, as the Niggers here have it--and know not what to think--matrimony or not." And, as the night stole on, foreseeing little or nothing of the dangers and horrors to come--of the cloud of battle that was gathering in the Khyber Pass,

"He smoked his pipe and often broke A sigh in suffocating smoke."