No More Learning

Very few mistresses admit this sort of reasoning. Miss Vezzis was as
black as a boot, and to our standard of taste, hideously ugly.

She wore cotton-print gowns and bulged shoes; and when she lost her
temper with the children, she abused them in the language of the
Borderline--which is part English, part Portuguese, and part Native.
She was not attractive; but she had her pride, and she preferred being
called "Miss Vezzis. "

Every Sunday she dressed herself wonderfully and went to see her
Mamma, who lived, for the most part, on an old cane chair in a greasy
tussur-silk dressing-gown and a big rabbit-warren of a house full of
Vezzises, Pereiras, Ribieras, Lisboas and Gansalveses, and a floating
population of loafers; besides fragments of the day's bazar, garlic,
stale incense, clothes thrown on the floor, petticoats hung on strings
for screens, old bottles, pewter crucifixes, dried immortelles, pariah
puppies, plaster images of the Virgin, and hats without crowns. Miss
Vezzis drew twenty rupees a month for acting as nurse, and she
squabbled weekly with her Mamma as to the percentage to be given towards
housekeeping.

When the quarrel was over, Michele D'Cruze used to shamble across the
low mud wall of the compound and make love to Miss Vezzis after the
fashion of the Borderline, which is hedged about with much ceremony.
Michele was a poor, sickly weed and very black; but he had his pride.
He would not be seen smoking a huqa for anything; and he looked down on
natives as only a man with seven-eighths native blood in his veins can.
The Vezzis Family had their pride too. They traced their descent from
a mythical plate-layer who had worked on the Sone Bridge when railways
were new in India, and they valued their English origin. Michele was
a Telegraph Signaller on Rs. 35 a month. The fact that he was in
Government employ made Mrs. Vezzis lenient to the shortcomings of his
ancestors.
There was a compromising legend--Dom Anna the tailor brought it from
Poonani--that a black Jew of Cochin had once married into the D'Cruze
family; while it was an open secret that an uncle of Mrs. D'Cruze was at
that very time doing menial work, connected with cooking, for a Club in
Southern India! He sent Mrs D'Cruze seven rupees eight annas a month;
but she felt the disgrace to the family very keenly all the same.

However, in the course of a few Sundays, Mrs. Vezzis brought herself
to overlook these blemishes and gave her consent to the marriage of her
daughter with Michele, on condition that Michele should have at least
fifty rupees a month to start married life upon. This wonderful prudence
must have been a lingering touch of the mythical plate-layer's Yorkshire
blood; for across the Borderline people take a pride in marrying when
they please--not when they can.

Having regard to his departmental prospects, Miss Vezzis might as well
have asked Michele to go away and come back with the Moon in his pocket.
But Michele was deeply in love with Miss Vezzis, and that helped him to
endure. He accompanied Miss Vezzis to Mass one Sunday, and after Mass,
walking home through the hot stale dust with her hand in his, he swore
by several Saints, whose names would not interest you, never to forget
Miss Vezzis; and she swore by her Honor and the Saints--the oath runs
rather curiously; "In nomine Sanctissimae--" (whatever the name of the
she-Saint is) and so forth, ending with a kiss on the forehead, a kiss
on the left cheek, and a kiss on the mouth--never to forget Michele.

Next week Michele was transferred, and Miss Vezzis dropped tears
upon the window-sash of the "Intermediate" compartment as he left the
Station.

If you look at the telegraph-map of India you will see a long line
skirting the coast from Backergunge to Madras. Michele was ordered to
Tibasu, a little Sub-office one-third down this line, to send messages
on from Berhampur to Chicacola, and to think of Miss Vezzis and his
chances of getting fifty rupees a month out of office hours. He had the
noise of the Bay of Bengal and a Bengali Babu for company; nothing more.
He sent foolish letters, with crosses tucked inside the flaps of the
envelopes, to Miss Vezzis.

When he had been at Tibasu for nearly three weeks his chance came.

Never forget that unless the outward and visible signs of Our
Authority are always before a native he is as incapable as a child of
understanding what authority means, or where is the danger of disobeying
it.