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By Root 1024 0

no longer wore the poultice of flour...the temptation had been too much for her and she had eaten it. To make things worse the women had now discovered lice in their hair. He had visited the billiard room that morning and his nerves had been set on edge by the distressing scenes he had witnessed. Yet the sobbing of the unfortunate women who had found lice in their hair had been easier to endure than the malicious pleasure of those who had found none. Why in such wretched circumstances, faced by such great dangers, did they still prosecute these petty feuds? The Collector had flown into a rage. In tones that had reduced the cannon outside the window to an occasional discreet cough he had lectured them on their duties to each other. They must help each other through these difficult times. If one of them found lice it must be a tragedy for all of them...they must comb each other’s hair, help each other when they were sick, live as a community, in short.

They had listened meekly, shamed by his anger and, like children, trying to think of ways to please him; but once he had left the billiard room he knew that the feuds would start once more to germinate.

“Perhaps it is our fault that we keep them so much in idleness? Perhaps we should educate them more in the ways of the world? Perhaps it is us who have made them what they are?”

But the Collector was no better at suspecting himself of faults than of virtues. “But no. It’s their nature. Even a fine woman like Miriam is often malicious to the others of her sex.” And he remembered with satisfaction, because it proved that he was not at fault, that Miriam and Louise had both approached him with some wild tale about Miss Hughes leading their brothers into debauchery and sensuality. Simply because the poor girl had happened to faint while not fully clothed! Ridiculous! He had been a little surprised that Miriam should surrender to this sort of jealousy, but perhaps he was not altogether displeased, because he found it feminine...in an attractive women even faults and weaknesses are endearing.

“Besides, Miss Hughes is made for sensual love as surely as the heron is made for catching fish. It’s absurd to expect a heron to behave like a blackbird!”

Now the churching was over and it was time for the baptism to begin. The Collector was obliged to lift his heavy frame out of the chair on the verandah and advance to stand by the altar table, for he was to be godfather to the child. Meanwhile, the Padre had disappeared into the Residency for a moment. He came back carrying something draped in a table-cloth which, like a conjuror, he placed on the table.

As the Padre began the baptism the cannons fired almost in unison from the other side of the hospital and a faint stirring of breeze brought with it the brimstone smell of burnt powder. The infant, cradled in Miriam’s arms, began to cry, but so feebly that its noise made hardly any impression on the expanse of open air. Miriam was smiling down at it while it squirmed and stretched, screwing up its tiny face and fists with the effort it was making. The Collector’s mind wandered again as he thought of the baptism of his own children...how long ago it now seemed that the eldest had been baptized! Soon their own children would be born and he himself would become superfluous, an old man sitting in the chimney corner whom no one thought it worth their while to consult. He frowned at this suspected future injustice, but the next moment he remembered the siege and the fact that there was every chance that he would not live to suffer the humiliations of old age, and his thoughts promptly took a different line: “After so many hardships, how sad to be deprived of the tranquil evening of one’s life!”

The Collector’s face had assumed an alert expression, for the Padre was now addressing the godparents; but his still wandering mind was harrowed by the thought of the gentle, pious Mr Bradley of the Post Office department who, only the day before, had been deprived of the evening of his life, and the afternoon as well, come to that. By a singular misfortune