Arcadian Adventures With the Idle Rich (11 page)

As a result Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and her three hundred friends moved backward and forward on Plutoria Avenue, seeking novelty in vain. They washed in waves of silk from tango teas to bridge afternoons. They poured in liquid avalanches of colour into crowded receptions, and they sat in glittering rows and listened to lectures on the enfranchisement of the female sex. But for the moment all was weariness.

Now it happened, whether by accident or design, that just at this moment of general
ennui
Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown and her three hundred friends first heard of the presence in the city of Mr. Yahi-Bahi, the celebrated Oriental mystic. He was so celebrated that nobody even thought of asking who he was or where he came from. They merely told one another, and repeated it, that he was
the
celebrated Yahi-Bahi. They added for those who needed the knowledge that the name was pronounced Yahhy-Bahhy, and that the doctrine taught by Mr. Yahi-Bahi was Boohooism. This latter, if anyone inquired further, was explained to be a form of Shoodooism, only rather more intense. In fact, it was esoteric – on receipt of which information everybody remarked at once how infinitely superior the Oriental peoples are to ourselves.

Now as Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown was always a leader in everything that was done in the best circles on Plutoria Avenue, she was naturally among the first to visit Mr. Yahi-Bahi.

“My dear,” she said, in describing afterwards her experience to her bosom friend, Miss Snagg, “it was
most
interesting. We drove away down to the queerest part of the City, and went to the strangest little house imaginable, up the narrowest stairs one ever saw – quite Eastern, in fact, just like a scene out of the Koran.”

“How fascinating!” said Miss Snagg. But as a matter of fact, if Mr. Yahi-Bahi’s house had been inhabited, as it might have been, by a street-car conductor or a railway brakesman, Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown wouldn’t have thought it in any way peculiar or fascinating.

“It was all hung with curtains inside,” she went on, “with figures of snakes and Indian gods, perfectly weird.”

“And did you see Mr. Yahi-Bahi?” asked Miss Snagg.

“Oh no, my dear. I only saw his assistant, Mr. Ram Spudd; such a queer little round man, a Bengalee, I believe. He put his back against a curtain and spread out his arms sideways and wouldn’t let me pass. He said that Mr. Yahi-Bahi was in meditation and mustn’t be disturbed.”

“How delightful!” echoed Miss Snagg.

But in reality Mr. Yahi-Bahi was sitting behind the curtain eating a ten-cent can of pork and beans.

“What I like most about eastern people,” went on Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown, “is their wonderful delicacy of feeling. After I had explained about my invitation to Mr. Yahi-Bahi to come and speak to us on Boohooism, and was going away, I took a dollar bill out of my purse and laid it on the table. You should have seen the way Mr. Ram Spudd took it. He made the deepest salaam and said, ‘Isis guard you, beautiful lady.’ Such perfect courtesy, and yet with the air of scorning the money. As I passed out I couldn’t help slipping another dollar into his hand, and he took it as if utterly unaware of it, and muttered,
‘Osiris keep you, O flower of women!’ And as I got into the motor I gave him another dollar and he said, ‘Osis and Osiris both prolong your existence, O lily of the rice-field’; and after he had said it he stood beside the door of the motor and waited without moving till I left. He had such a strange, rapt look, as if he were still expecting something!”

“How exquisite!” murmured Miss Snagg. It was her business in life to murmur such things as this for Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. On the whole, reckoning Grand Opera tickets and dinners, she did very well out of it.

“Is it not?” said Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown. “So different from our men. I felt so ashamed of my chauffeur, our new man, you know; he seemed such a contrast beside Ram Spudd. The rude way in which he opened the door, and the rude way in which he climbed on to his own seat, and the
rudeness
with which he turned on the power – I felt positively ashamed. And he so managed it – I am sure he did it on purpose – that the car splashed a lot of mud over Mr. Spudd as it started.”

Yet, oddly enough, the opinion of other people on this new chauffeur, that of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown herself, for example, to whose service he was specially attached, was very different.

The great recommendation of him in the eyes of Miss Dulphemia and her friends, and the thing that gave him a touch of mystery was – and what higher qualification can a chauffeur want? – that he didn’t look like a chauffeur at all.

“My dear Dulphie,” whispered Miss Philippa Furlong, the rector’s sister (who was at that moment Dulphemia’s second self), as they sat behind the new chauffeur, “don’t tell me that he is a chauffeur, because he
isn’t
. He can chauffe, of course, but that’s nothing.”

For the new chauffeur had a bronzed face, hard as metal, and a stern eye; and when he put on a chauffeur’s overcoat somehow it seemed to turn into a military greatcoat; and even when he put on the round cloth cap of his profession it was converted straightway into a military shako. And by Miss Dulphemia and her friends it was presently reported – or was invented? – that he had served in the Philippines; which explained at once the scar upon his forehead, which must have been received at Iloilo, or Huila-Huila, or some other suitable place.

But what affected Miss Dulphemia Brown herself was the splendid rudeness of the chauffeur’s manner. It was so different from that of the young men of the
salon
. Thus, when Mr. Sikleigh Snoop handed her into the car at any time he would dance about saying, “Allow me,” and, “Permit me,” and would dive forward to arrange the robes. But the Philippine chauffeur merely swung the door open and said to Dulphemia, “Get in,” and then slammed it.

This, of course, sent a thrill up the spine and through the imagination of Miss Dulphemia Rasselyer-Brown, because it showed that the chauffeur was a gentleman in disguise. She thought it very probable that he was a British nobleman, a younger son, very wild, of a ducal family; and she had her own theories as to why he had entered the service of the Rasselyer-Browns. To be quite candid about it, she expected that the Philippine chauffeur meant to elope with her, and every time he drove her from a dinner or a dance she sat back luxuriously, wishing and expecting the elopement to begin.

But for the time being the interest of Dulphemia, as of everybody else that was anybody at all, centred round Mr. Yahi-Bahi and the new cult of Boohooism.

After the visit of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown a great number of ladies, also in motors, drove down to the house of Mr. Yahi-Bahi. And all of them, whether they saw Mr. Yahi-Bahi himself or his Bengalee assistant, Mr. Ram Spudd, came back delighted.

“Such exquisite tact!” said one. “Such delicacy! As I was about to go I laid a five-dollar gold piece on the edge of the little table. Mr. Spudd scarcely seemed to see it. He murmured, ‘Osiris help you!’ and pointed to the ceiling. I raised my eyes instinctively, and when I lowered them the money had disappeared. I think he must have caused it to vanish.”

“Oh, I’m sure he did,” said the listener.

Others came back with wonderful stories of Mr. Yahi-Bahi’s occult powers, especially his marvellous gift of reading the future.

Mrs. Buncomhearst, who had just lost her third husband – by divorce – had received from Mr. Yahi-Bahi a glimpse into the future that was almost uncanny in its exactness. She had asked for a divination, and Mr. Yahi-Bahi had effected one by causing her to lay six ten-dollar pieces on the table arranged in the form of a mystic serpent. Over these he had bent and peered deeply, as if seeking to unravel their meaning, and finally he had given her the prophecy, “Many things are yet to happen before others begin.”

“How
does
he do it?” asked everybody.

As a result of all this it naturally came about that Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd were invited to appear at the residence of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown; and it was understood that steps would be taken to form a special society, to be known as the Yahi-Bahi Oriental Society.

Mr. Sikleigh Snoop, the sex-poet, was the leading spirit in the organisation. He had a special fitness for the
task: he had actually resided in India. In fact, he had spent six weeks there on a stop-over ticket of a round-the-world 635 dollar steamship pilgrimage; and he knew the whole country from Jehumbapore in Bhootal to Jehumbalabad in the Carnatic. So he was looked upon as a great authority on India, China, Mongolia, and all such places, by the ladies of Plutoria Avenue.

Next in importance was Mrs. Buncomhearst, who became later, by a perfectly natural process, the president of the society. She was already president of the Daughters of the Revolution, a society confined exclusively to the descendants of Washington’s officers and others; she was also president of the Sisters of England, an organisation limited exclusively to women born in England and elsewhere; of the Daughters of Kossuth, made up solely of Hungarians and friends of Hungary and other nations; and of the Circle of Franz Joseph, which was composed exclusively of the partisans, and others, of Austria. In fact, ever since she had lost her third husband, Mrs. Buncomhearst had thrown herself – that was her phrase – into outside activities. Her one wish was, on her own statement, to lose herself. So very naturally Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown looked at once to Mrs. Buncomhearst to preside over the meetings of the new society.

The large dining-room at the Rasselyer-Browns’ had been cleared out as a sort of auditorium, and in it some fifty or sixty of Mrs. Rasselyer-Brown’s more intimate friends had gathered. The whole meeting was composed of ladies, except for the presence of one or two men who represented special cases. There was, of course, little Mr. Spillikins, with his vacuous face and football hair, who was there, as everybody knew, on account of Dulphemia; and there was old Judge Longerstill,
who sat leaning on a gold-headed stick with his head sideways, trying to hear some fraction of what was being said. He came to the gathering in the hope that it would prove a likely place for seconding a vote of thanks and saying a few words – half an hour’s talk, perhaps – on the constitution of the United States. Failing that, he felt sure that at least someone would call him “this eminent old gentleman,” and even that was better than staying at home.

But for the most part the audience was composed of women, and they sat in a little buzz of conversation waiting for Mr. Yahi-Bahi.

“I wonder,” called Mrs. Buncomhearst from the chair, “if some lady would be good enough to write minutes? Miss Snagg, I wonder if you would be kind enough to write minutes? Could you?”

“I shall be delighted,” said Miss Snagg, “but I’m afraid there’s hardly time to write them before we begin, is there?”

“Oh, but it would be all right to write them
afterwards
,” chorused several ladies who understood such things; “it’s quite often done that way.”

“And I should like to move that we vote a constitution,” said a stout lady with a double eye-glass.

“Is that carried?” said Mrs. Buncomhearst. “All those in favour please signify.”

Nobody stirred.

“Carried,” said the president. “And perhaps you would be good enough, Mrs. Fyshe,” she said, turning towards the stout lady, “to
write
the constitution.”

“Do you think it necessary to
write
it?” said Mrs. Fyshe. “I should like to move, if I may, that I almost wonder whether it is necessary to write the constitution – unless, of course, anybody thinks that we really ought to.”

“Ladies,” said the president, “you have heard the motion. All those against it –”

There was no sign.

“All those in favour of it –”

There was still no sign.

“Lost,” she said.

Then, looking across at the clock on the mantel-piece, and realising that Mr. Yahi-Bahi must have been delayed and that something must be done, she said:

“And now, ladies, as we have in our midst a most eminent gentleman who probably has thought more deeply about constitutions than –”

All eyes turned at once towards Judge Longerstill, but as fortune had it at this very moment Mr. Sikleigh Snoop entered, followed by Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Mr. Ram Spudd.

Mr. Yahi-Bahi was tall. His drooping Oriental costume made him taller still. He had a long brown face and liquid brown eyes of such depth that when he turned them full upon the ladies before him a shiver of interest and apprehension followed in the track of his glance.

“My dear,” said Miss Snagg afterwards, “he seemed simply to see right through us.”

This was correct. He did.

Mr. Ram Spudd presented a contrast to his superior. He was short and round, with a dimpled mahogany face and eyes that twinkled in it like little puddles of molasses. His head was bound in a turban and his body was swathed in so many bands and sashes that he looked almost circular. The clothes of both Mr. Yahi-Bahi and Ram Spudd were covered with the mystic signs of Buddha and the seven serpents of Vishnu.

It was impossible, of course, for Mr. Yahi-Bahi or Mr. Ram Spudd to address the audience. Their knowledge of
English was known to be too slight for that. Their communications were expressed entirely through the medium of Mr. Snoop, and even he explained afterwards that it was very difficult. The only languages of India which he was able to speak, he said, with any fluency were Gargamic and Gumaic, both of these being old Dravidian dialects with only two hundred and three words in each, and hence in themselves very difficult to converse in. Mr. Yahi-Bahi answered in what Mr. Snoop understood to be the Iramic of the Vedas, a very rich language, but one which unfortunately he did not understand. The dilemma is one familiar to all Oriental scholars.

All of this Mr. Snoop explained in the opening speech which he proceeded to make. And after this he went on to disclose, amid deep interest, the general nature of the cult of Boohooism. He said that they could best understand it if he told them that its central doctrine was that of Bahee. Indeed, the first aim of all followers of the cult was to attain to Bahee. Anybody who could spend a certain number of hours each day, say sixteen, in silent meditation on Boohooism would find his mind gradually reaching a condition of Bahee. The chief aim of Bahee itself was sacrifice: a true follower of the cult must be willing to sacrifice his friends, or his relatives, and even strangers, in order to reach Bahee. In this way one was able fully to realise oneself and enter into the Higher Indifference. Beyond this, further meditation and fasting – by which was meant living solely on fish, fruit, wine, and meat – one presently attained to complete Swaraj or Control of Self, and might in time pass into the absolute Nirvana, or the Negation of Emptiness, the supreme goal of Boohooism.