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BY
(printer)
Edinburgh: T. and A. CONSTABLE, Printers to Her
Majesty
its hiding-place in the stair of the old tower. That, with its secret bribe of jewels, it would prove to the sahib that there was truth in the tale she had gathered during her nightly wanderings as a ghost about Hodinuggur. When that was done, she would be free in some of those nightly wanderings to kill the Diwan or his son, the man who killed her mother. Perhaps she might be able to kill both, and yet have some strength left for Chândni--Chândni who had told her so many lies. For there was a fire now in Azizan's light eyes, which quite accounted for the consideration which the courtesan had shown the girl when, more than once, Chândni had awakened to find them looking at her. Of course, by and by a stop must be put to this masquerading through the village, but at present it would be unsafe, when so much depended on good luck, and thus Azizan had hitherto been unmolested. Indeed, Chândni herself had taken malicious pleasure in countenancing current tales of the return of the potter's dead daughter; and once when Khush-hâl Beg, during his son's absence, had deemed it well to single her out for favour, she had sent the hoary old sinner back to his
swinging cradle like a quaking jelly from abject fear of what he might meet by the way. Still it was only when she was on the roof with the old Diwan that she ventured to speak in whispers of a time when this mad girl should be taught her own impotence for good or evil.
So in the meantime, the freedom from interruption, and the dread which
the mere thought of her existence roused in the simple village folk,
conspired to increase Azizan's faith in her own supernatural power,
and as she sat in the growing dusk no doubt of her own success assailed
her; for the chota sahib had returned--during the night. At least so
said the old man, who, with all his craziness, was to be trusted.
Therefore, in less than an hour, he would know all, since the day was dying
down quickly; smothered in a hot haze-like smoke. There was not a
shadow anywhere; only a dull darkness growing momentarily as the dull
darkness had grown upon her mind day by day. For all that she had the
power; the potter might mould the clay, the palace folk might plot and
plan, but she, the woman with the evil eye, was stronger than they!
'Aziz! Oh! thou art there still, Heaven
be praised!' The cry roused her from a sort of dream to find the old man beside her, breathless as from running, his mild face, seen dimly in the darkness, full of piteous entreaty. 'Go not from me this night, oh Heart's-joy! Leave me not again in the storm!'
'The storm! What storm, poor fool?' she asked
indifferently.
He laid his trembling hand on her arm. 'Listen! Thou canst hear
the noise of many waters. They came before, so the fathers sang, and made a
new world. Down yonder at the palace, where thou goest, 'twill run
like the race of a river, and the stones of the old wall where thou liest
will be crumbling into it. Go not there to-night, oh, Light of mine
Eyes! It is safe here on the heights.'
'There is no water,' she answered, with a short laugh,
'there will be none; save in the canal. The sahib will see to that
now he hath returned.'
'How can he see when he is dead--'
'Dead,' she echoed. 'Bah! thou liest! He is not dead.
There is no water, and there is no death--'
She broke off suddenly, silenced by his look
as he stood with one hand raised as if listening. In the breathless air a strange whispering reached her ear, and like an arrow from a bow, she flew to the gap in the palisade, whence she could see the dip between the ruins and the canal bank, and beyond that silver streak again to the bungalow dotted down upon the level plain.
'Dohai! Dohai!'
The Great Cry--the blind human cry of her race for justice burst
from her instinctively. The next moment found her bare-faced in the
open on her way to prove if the old man spoke truth in death also.
'Azizan! go not! Leave not the House of Safety! It is the Flood of
the Most High! Go not, oh! go not!'
His unavailing plea came back to him unanswered from the night which had
fallen suddenly, as the dust from below sprang electrically up to meet the
dust above and hide everything from sight. But through the thick veil that
rush of water rose louder and louder as the girl sped on her way. It was
true what the old man had said, and she had seen it. There was a river by
the old palace.
Was the other thing true also? Was the sahib dead? Had they killed him? The darkness lightened a little as she ran over the bridge so that she could see a great swirl of yellow water shooting past the piers not three inches below the keystone of the arch. Lower down it had found the open sluice-gates, hurled them from their foundations and carried them with it as it burst through the embankment weakened by the new-made cuttings of the villagers, and had raced in a mad river to fling itself against the mound of Hodinuggur, tearing down yard after yard of crumbling sand as it turned abruptly from the collision, to try conclusions by a flank movement. Azizan saw none of this; nothing but the dim white arches where she had waited once before.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
No answer, and in her eagerness she crouched down at the closed door,
tapping softly.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
There was only a quarter-inch planking between them, that was
all, for they had left him as he fell till some other white-face
should come to accept the responsibility of
interference. Yet it did the work as effectually as all the barriers of custom and culture which had divided them in life.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
Could it be true? It must be true that he was dead; otherwise he would
surely hear her cry!
'Sahib! Sahib!'
As she crouched she might have put out her hand and taken his, but for
that trivial quarter-inch of wood between them; but he did not hear.
Because he was dead? Perhaps, yet even in life he had not heard, he had not
known. The light in the potter's yard, lit by her passionate love and
care, had only served to arouse his contempt. Better darkness, he had
thought, than such a light as that.
'Sahib! Sahib!'
At last she rose and stumbled across to the servants' quarters,
seeking the certainty which she must gain somehow. A light glimmered behind
the grass palisades, sacred to her namesake's modesty, and from within
came the eager yet subdued tones of gossiping women. Azizan crept close,
and crouching in on herself held her breath to listen.
'Lo! I content myself with goodwill towards all men,' came
the widow's voice self-complacently. 'Yet, O Motiya! wife
of Ganesha the groom, I make bold to aver that this is no more or less than
a judgment on--'
'What? Dost think it to be really the Flood of Destruction?'
broke in Motiya, whimpering.
'Ai pargul! Who cares for the water? It flows
south, not north; so we are safe. No! 'tis the sahib's death.
Mayhap 'twill teach other folks' relations not to be in such a
hurry to thrust themselves into other folks' service against the
custom--'
'But--'
'Ai teri! wouldest deny my right--the
widow's right? Ai! meri adme, thy sahib is dead,
and there is none to see justice done and employ thy relations!
Ai! meri dil murgya! murgya!'
As the renewed sense of her wrongs rose in the familiar wail, the women
from within joined in it dutifully. Without, the girl, with her hands
clenched and her wild eyes straining into the shadows, seemed to be caught
and carried away by it also, and her shrill voice echoed theirs
instinctively.
'Ai! meri sahib murgya. Ai! meri dil murgya!
murgya!'
The women, scared to death at the unexpected aid, stopped suddenly, and
the young voice rose alone.
'Ai! meri dil murgya! murgya!'
The sound of her own wailing brought home to her the truth, rousing her
passion, her grief, her anger, to madness; and in one swift desire for
revenge she turned and ran.
'Meri sahib murgya!'
The wail echoed over the wild swirl of the flood-water as she
crossed the bridge once more. It was trembling now before its doom as the
water rose inch by inch. And could that be rain? that large warm drop upon
her hand, so large that it ran down between her fingers? Another on her
upturned face, blinding her. If those were raindrops, and many of them
came, it might, indeed, be the deluge of the Most High. And if it were? Had
not the end of all things come to her already? Yet as she ran she looked
curiously into the sky. Not a cloud was visible; only an even haze of grey
vapour, through which now
and again a great drop splashed down upon her, warm and soft.
'Ai! meri sahib! meri sahib!'
No more than a sob now; yet even that she hushed as the Mori gate showed
black before her. Should it be Chândni? No, not yet; but for Dalel
and the hopes of him, the woman would have cared nothing for water or no
water. So she passed on through the causeway. One or two villagers,
hurrying, like her, through the darkness, talking in scared whispers of the
strange flood, fell back from her path terrified. A knot of men in the
bazaar huddled aside as she slipped by like a shadow; even in the courtyard
of the palace the watchmen, gathered round one pipe for the comfort of
companionship in such uncanny times, gave no more than an uneasy glance at
the half-seen figure which they did not care to challenge.
Should it be Khush-hâl Beg in his swinging cradle? He had
betrayed her mother, and the knife she carried was long enough to reach
through the fat to his heart, long enough to do the mischief, when held in
reckless hands, even if aid came to the unwieldy body. No!
it should not be Khush-hâl either. Let him wait a while since he had done little to harm the sahib. The true quarry lay higher in the old man up yonder in his nest like a bird of prey; seeing all things with his keen old eyes, plotting and planning with his wise old brain. But for him, the others had not been; but for him the sahib would have been alive, and now he was dead. Each step of the stairs as she laboured up them seemed to need that cry of 'dead! dead!' to help her on her way; and they left her breathless on the first platform of the roof, where those huge drops of rain were falling in audible thuds upon the hard plaster. Faster and faster. This was no rain. Something must have given way in the sky, and, as the old man had said, it was 'Tofhân Ehlâi.' So much the better for her purpose. In the arcades on either side faint figures glimmering white in the shadows showed where some of the servants were sheltering. So much the better, also, since she might find the old man alone; not that she cared for that either, save in its greater assurance of success. He would not be in the pavilions at this time, but in the room to the
north end of the tower, of which she had heard the women speak. The room with the big jutting balcony whence you could see north, east, and west, everything except Hodinuggur itself.
By this time the raindrops, falling faster and faster, had become a
sheet of water streaming down straight with such curious force that she
staggered under it. A little sun-baked fireplace against which she
stumbled dissolved to sheer mud ere she had recovered her balance, and a
loosened brick on the last step upwards rolled down, beaten from its place
ere her foot touched it. It was the 'Tofhân
Elâhi' indeed, though every moment the sky grew
lighter and she could now see her way clearly.
'Meri sahib murgya! murgya!'
She kept the wild fire glowing in heart and eyes by the murmur, until
through an open door she saw what she sought--an old man seated at a
chess-table, still as a statue. With a cry she darted forward,
snatching at the knife in her girdle, then paused abruptly. Where was the
hurry? he could not move. So with a half laugh of exultation she turned
back deliberately to bolt the door--a strong door, as befitted one giving on the favourite sleeping-place of despotism. It would need time to force an entry there; more time than she would need to do her work. Meanwhile she must look at this arbiter of her fate ever since she was born--this tyrant whom she had never seen. What! was that all? that wreck of a man, with his head upon his breast? but as she came nearer, the light, such as it was, from the wide-arched balcony, aided by a cresset smoking in a niche, showed her something of the youth in his eyes. Perhaps it showed him something of the age in hers, for the Diwan paused in his first haughty challenge, then began again.
'Hast come to frighten me, as thou frightenest the villagers, oh!
Azizan, daughter of the potter's daughter?' he asked coldly. He
was defenceless, and he knew it, save for craft of the brain.
'Nay! I have come to kill thee, Zubr-ul-Zamân,
Diwan of Hodinuggur,' she replied; 'to kill thee as thou hast
killed the sahib.'
A sound which might have been a laugh reached her as she took a step
nearer, brand-
ishing the knife; perhaps it was that which made her pause again in her turn; for laughter was hardly what she expected.
'I did not kill the sahib, fool. He killed himself for love of the
mem sahib: the fair mem who took the Ayôdhya pot.'
The girl fell back the step she had taken, and the hand bearing the
knife went up to her forehead in a gesture matching her sharp cry of pain.
The truth struck home; yet she caught at denial desperately.
'Thou liest! She did not take it. I took it once--twice. I
have the pearls--the Hodinuggur pearls. I--I--not
she.'
One of those curious spasms of life came to the wreck of a man, as it
turned to look at the girl more closely.
'So! Thou also hast brains. 'Tis the woman's
yôg¹
now-a-days. My son, and my son's son, have none. Thou
shouldst have been my granddaughter, Azizan, had I but known. Thou mayest
be now.'
His granddaughter! Of course! she had suspected so all her life, had
known it to be so for months, yet she had never realised the
___________________¹ Reign.
Page 15
fact till now; and an odd, inexplicable sense of kindred rose up in her against her will.
'I shall kill thee, no matter who thou art,' she cried
quickly.
'Wherefore? What harm have I done to thee, Azizan? 'Twould
have suited me better had the sahib fancied thy face. Thou hadst thy
chance.'
Something in her shrank back abashed before the naked truth of the old
man's words. She had had her chance, according to her world, and she
had failed. She had failed utterly; and yet-- Something else in her,
strange, incomprehensible, clamoured against the verdict, and the deadly
weariness, the passionate apathy she had so often felt before came over
her. The knife dropped to her side, and half mechanically she looked out
through the arches of the balcony to where the red-brick bungalow
should stand. There was nothing to be seen but sheets of water streaming
from above, while from below came a rush and a roar. Suddenly as she
listened came another sound; a pit-pat pat-pit
on the floor in half a dozen places. The rain had conquered the
thick-domed roof.
'It is "Tofhân Elâhi,"
' she said, and even as she spoke a babel of voices rose
at the closed door.
'Open! open! The river saps the foundation. Ari
bhai! is he dead, that he hath no fear? Beat it down!--Oh,
Diwan sahib!--Oh! servant, who hath closed the door?--Open!
open!--Nay! without a smith 'tis hopeless--And I tarry
not!--Listen! there goes more of the wall--Open, fools!
open!'
Amid the roar and rush, the vain blows and shouting, the old man's
eyes were on Azizan's, not so much in appeal as in command. He could
not move and his faded voice would never reach through the clamour, so his
only safety lay in her obedience. But she shook her head, then crouched
down--as if to wait till they should once more be alone--in her
favourite attitude, her back against the wall, her knees drawn up to her
chin, the knife still clasped in her hand ready for use. A louder roar came
from without, a rattle as of bricks, mingled with cries of caution and
alarm. Then gradually the blows and voices dwindled away from the ceaseless
clamour of the rain and the intermittent rumblings of falling
masonry, as the smallest crack widened beneath the pressure to a breach until, bit by bit, the solid walls seemed to melt away.
'Why didst thou not open the door, fool?' The words in the
greater silence were just audible to the girl.
'Because I did not choose.'
Again the odd sound like a laugh came from that bent figure.
'The woman's reason. Why didst thou not choose,
Azizan?'
There was no anger, scarcely a trace of anxiety even, in his tone. He
was no novice to the ways of women, and the girl's face told him that
his chance of life was almost gone. What must be must, and death came to
all; to the mad fool in her turn. The sombre fire of her eyes met his
sullenly; but she made no answer, save to lay the knife down quietly on the
sill of the arch against which she leant. The steel rang clear upon the
hard red sandstone.
The old Diwan's wrinkled hand hovered for a moment over the pieces
on the board, then fell back upon his knees. So they sat staring at each
other silently in the bow of the bal-
cony. There was nothing more to be said. She had chosen; why, she knew not. And as the clamour of the rain and the rush of the river rose higher and higher, Zubr-ul-Zamân's head sank upon his breast with the old formula--
'Queen's mate; the game is done.'
The woman's reason, or unreason, had conquered the Strength of the
World. But that was no new thing to the Diwan's wisdom.
But to the people outside in the open, huddling together under the
pitiless downpour for safety's sake, it was more or less of an
amusement to wonder how long the old tower would hold out against the mad
stream sapping at its foundations. Not long; for already the ruined wall
had gone, disclosing a portion of the secret stair, where Zainub, the old
duenna, lay parched up almost to a mummy. A hideous sight, no doubt, had
there been light enough to see it; but there was not, and the refugees upon
the higher ground could discern nothing but the block of the old tower and
the swirling water below. A faint light came from the balcony of the room
where the Diwan was known to be;
and, as they watched it, people speculated how the door came to be fastened. Perhaps it had swung-to, perhaps-- Well, he must be dead, or would soon be dead since rescue was impossible; and, after all, he had lived his time. Khush-hâl had been saved from his swinging cradle, and then there was Dalel away up at Simla. Rulers enough for a poor country-side, if God spared it from the 'Tofhân Elân;' and if not, why then the old man was at least better off than they, exposed as they were to the elements. Far better; both he and the outcasts in their straw huts, which would hurt no one even if they fell. So the first in the land was as the last, and the last first. 'Sobhan ullah!'
As the rain slackened the night grew darker, until even the block of the
tower ceased to show against the sky, and the little company of watchers
could only hear the thunder of its fall.
'God rest him,' muttered a peasant, muffled into a formless
bundle in his blanket. 'He was a hard master, and the new one may be
harder still. There will be a good crop anyway.'
And down on the very edge of the boiling stream, when the rain ceased, a
light went twinkling up and down, up and down. It was the potter looking
for his dead daughter as the débris of
the old wall, beneath which she had been buried sixteen years before,
crumbled away bit by bit before the furious stream.
what had happened? An old woman or two had been drowned, the Diwan and his tower swept away. But the world held too many old women and more than enough of nobles. For the rest, it had not been the Flood of the Most High; and though Death came to all in the end, and the loneliness of it must be dreary, still it was somehow more terrifying to die in batches, wholesale.
So, clothed in their white, new-washed robes like the elect, they
went down after a time in companies to see the extent of damage done to
their belongings, and test how far it was possible to wade through the
water towards the village homestead or two which rose above the flood.
Canal-wards, of course, passage was barred, would be barred for days
until the stream ceased flowing or a boat was brought. So the horseman whom
they could see picking his way flounderingly along the northern bank might
be the only survivor of the big world beyond, and they be none the
wiser--for the time. It was Dan Fitzgerald who, after an enforced
shelter at the half-way village, was wondering who could have taken
the responsibility of anticipating the telegram he carried
in his pocket by opening the sluice-gates, and so, in all probability saving the big Sunowlie embankment farther down. For the sluice had been opened; that was evident to his experience at once, since without the lead of the current to cut, the flood would have swept on to do its worst elsewhere. Well! whoever had done it, be he watchman or Diwan, deserved something at the hands of the Department, and be the past record a bad one or not, this act should have its reward--its just reward--if he could compass it.
Ten minutes after, he had driven the chattering servant from the room,
and grief-stricken, yet convinced into a sort of calm acceptance of
the inevitable, had lifted the poor lad's body tenderly to the bed. He
scarcely even thought of a reason for the tragedy; perhaps there was none,
for Dan in his rough and ready life had seen such a thing before; had known
the useless search for some adequate cause. And was there not cause enough
here for a sudden loss of balance? That race down from Paradise to
Purgatory!--the intolerable journey--the horrible
home-coming; and then the cursed bottle he had
left. The remembrance sent his whole mind into useless regrets. If he had only ridden faster, if somehow he could have been there in time to prevent the loneliness, the awful desolation of it all! for he had been through such loneliness himself, and knew what it had meant to him. Perhaps, taking his own excitability as a standard, he over-estimated the effect on George's nature. At any rate, as he stooped mechanically to pick up the revolver round which the boy's dead hand had still been closed, he felt that, given the necessity for sudden return, the rest might be inferred. And then, beside the revolver he saw the open locket, with Gwen's smiling face staring up at him. Gwen! Great God! what did it mean? His own locket, of course, and yet--he sat down at the table white as death, looking first at the pretty face, then at the still figure on the bed, now decently shrouded from the glaring light of day. And by degrees the colour returned to his cheek. No! it could not be so. She was not cruel, only careless; and ah! what a grief this would be to her! Besides, George was not one to put a life-long regret of that sort into a friend's life. So
pondering, he realised that among other incidents of the home-coming had been that of learning who his sweetheart really was. That, then, did not happen at Simla, so that could not have been the cause of the lad's sudden return.
Why, then, had he come? The new lock and keys lying on the table, gave
him a clew, and his quick wits suggested danger to the gates. Then it came
to him in a flash confusedly, almost irrationally, that it had been done
for his sake and hers, and he was on his knees by the bed in a minute.
'Oh! George! George! why did you do it?'
So with the answering silence came a decision, impulsive, yet immutable.
Such blame as could be taken he would take. No one should know or dream of
failure. No one should ever say--'Ah, poor fellow, he shot
himself; must have been something wrong, you know.' Rapidly he
counted the costs, the possibility of silence. Hodinuggur, separated from
him by an impassable stream, could not be taken into account, so he must
accept the risk there. It would not be much, if the servants' tale was
true, that they had only
discovered their master's death when the storm began, and had done no more than send word to the palace. No one, then, could have seen the body save those four or five servants, who loved their master, and worshipped rupees, and, above all, desired peace and quiet, and not the dangerous rakings up of the past which always followed on the advent of the police. Then for the Department itself. What he had said in his ignorance was true. Whether George had opened the sluice when, as the servants said, he went out in the middle of the day, or whether the palace folk had done it, the Department, in either case, owed the opener a debt of gratitude. If the latter, the Moghuls would be glad to keep silence; if the former, even if they set up a claim for compensation for damage, they would have been due so much had he, Dan, arrived in time to carry out his orders; thus no injustice would be done.
So half an hour afterwards, one of the servants started along the path
to the outer world with a telegram to headquarters, and that evening, when
the flood had subsided a little, Dan chose out the driest spot he could
find
in the sandy compound, and read the Church service over his friend's body. No one, he told himself, should know the truth; except some day perhaps, Gwen, when she came there as his wife. Then he would tell her, the pity, the needlessness of it all; and yet the needlessness had this virtue in it, that it made concealment possible; for the flood had swept away the error, if error there had been.
The telegram reached Colonel Tweedie next morning, among many more
telling of disaster and death along the line of the great canal. Yet none
was more pitiful than this one which ran thus--
'Opening of sluice-gate, as ordered, saved Sunowlie
embankment, but palace injured. George Keene died yesterday of cholera.
Very prevalent here. Details by post.'
'Dear! dear!' fussed the Colonel. 'How very sad! What
a blow to poor Mrs. Boynton. She is so tenderhearted, and really, she was
almost unnecessarily interested in that boy.'
They all thought of her; even Lewis Gordon, as, yielding to that odd
desire to see for oneself which besets us all when bad news comes
by telegram, he sat looking at the flimsy message of evil; yet his first words were of Rose.
'Your daughter will feel it also, sir; feel it very much I'm
afraid.' Then he paused, to resume in more ordinary tones. 'I
had, I think, better start at once, sir. I can report all along the line,
and wire if your presence seems necessary. I hardly think it will be, and
it is useless inconveniencing yourself for nothing.'
Colonel Tweedie bridled. 'I am not accustomed to consider my own
convenience as against the public service'--he was beginning
pompously, when Lewis cut him short.
'I'm afraid I wasn't thinking so much of you, sir, as of
Miss Tweedie. This will be a great blow to her.' He thought so
honestly, and as he jolted down the hill in a tonga half an hour afterwards
he told himself he was glad to have escaped the necessity for seeing her
grief, even while he was conscious of a curiosity to know how she would
take the news. There was no such difficulty in imagining Gwen's
behaviour. He could almost see the pretty pathetic face keeping back its
tears, and hear the soft voice saying
with a little thrill in it that George was the nicest, dearest boy she had ever met, and that she would never forget his kindness and goodness to her--never! never!
As he thought of this his expression was not pleasant, for Gwen had, in
his opinion, done her level best to turn the lad's head, and so must
surely know that she was talking bunkum. A man would know it; though
perhaps it was not fair to judge a woman by a man's standard of truth,
and Gwen, doubtless, was as genuine as she knew how to be; as genuine,
anyhow, as Rose Tweedie, with her pretensions of utter indifference to all
sentiment. Well, poor girl! she was face to face with realities now, for
she had certainly cared a good deal for George, even to the extent of
trying to keep him from Gwen's wiles. Poor George! a fine young
fellow, who, for one thing, had been saved a bad heartache.
He had intended passing on as quickly as possible to Hodinuggur, but
being delayed by the necessity for settling endless requisitions for
repairs, had barely reached Rajpore ere Dan Fitzgerald returned, reporting
that there was no reason for him to go out. Permanent repair
was impossible till the rains should be over, as every lesser flood must run down the channel cut out for it by this deluge, and everything to ensure the further safety of the palace had been done. Barring the Diwan's tower, there had not after all been much damage, as the jewels and treasure in the vaults below had been saved: besides, the bumper crops which would follow on the inundations would more than compensate for any loss. There was, however, a certain anxiety in Dan's face as he said this.
'Well, even if they were to claim,' replied Lewis
complacently, 'the saving of the Sunowlie bank would be dirt cheap at
a few thousands. It cost us over two lakhs, and I was in an awful funk
about it, thinking we must be too late. I tried to intercept poor George
with a wire, knowing he would take the order quicker as he was already on
the way.'
Dan's whole soul leaped towards the possibility. 'Then he got
it after all. I was wondering--' he paused, angry at his own
imprudence.
'Wondering what?' asked Lewis impatiently. 'I was
going to say I missed him, and then I didn't see how you could
possibly
get there in time. By the way, when did you get my wire?'
'About an hour after you sent it off,' said Dan uneasily. He
did not care for Lewis Gordon's sharp, practical eyes on these
details.
'That is, say, ten o'clock on the morning of the 6th, I
suppose. Good riding, indeed! And that reminds me. The report from the
Rajah's people, which came through your office, says that the water
first ran through the cut about middle day on the 6th. Manifestly
impossible. You had hardly left Hodinuggur. It's a trifle, of course,
but you had better stamp on the inaccuracy and show you are on the watch,
or they will go on to cooking generally.'
'Yes--,' replied Dan slowly. This simple difficulty in
concealing the discrepancy of time had escaped him before; but he was fully
alive to it now. Most men in his place would have set the question aside,
at all costs, for further consideration, and risked the possible
consequences of the evasion. But Dan's mind was of finer temper; he
could trust it to thrust home at any moment. This is the true test of
power, and it is only the second
thoughts of the commonplace which are better than their first. So he took advantage of the occasion calmly, knowing his man.
'But they are right. I did not open the gates. I believe George
did, but even of that I am not sure. However, you shall judge for yourself.
I don't ask for confidence, of course. I haven't the right; but I
expect you will give it all the same.' Then boldly, plainly, yet with
one reservation, he told the tale of what he knew and what he surmised.
George had shot himself--of that there was no doubt. The sluice had
been opened, in his opinion, by treachery, of which George, at Simla, had
received some hint, and which he had arrived too late to prevent; though
this also was mysterious, since the gates had not been opened till long
after George's arrival. The guard at the sluice had been drowned or
had disappeared, and the new Diwan, Khush-hâl, professed pious
ignorance. In fact, only this much was certain, that the Sunowlie
embankment had been saved, that George had taken the responsibility on
himself even to death, and that the flood had made it possible to keep his
memory from stain.
For the sake of his friends alone, was not this desirable? This hint, no more, he gave of the inner tragedy connected with the locket. Yet as those two men sat looking at each other across the office-table littered with papers, their thoughts, all unknown to each other, flew to the one woman; but the memory brought tears to Dan's dark eyes, and left Lewis's hard as the nether millstone in the conviction that Gwen was at least morally responsible for George Keene's death. It came to him as a certainty, and yet a contemptuous tolerance came with it. She had not meant, of course--women never did--to play fast and loose with the boy's head. Yet she had done so. He had spent too much money, he had been careless; honest, perhaps, though even that might not be so, no one could tell. Why then should they try to find out now, when it was all irrevocable, when no harm could come out of silence? And George had been a good sort; too good for such an end; besides, even for Gwen's sake silence was best. He felt very bitter against her, very sore; yet such things must not be said about his future wife as might be said if the truth were really known.
'I suppose it had better remain as it is,' he said at last,
moodily. 'Cholera has served its turn in such a case before--one
of the advantages of living in a land of sudden death. Poor George! I
daresay there was treachery.'
Dan, shading his eyes with his clasped hands, was silent a moment.
'If there was, he had no part in it. I wonder if you remember a
conversation in the balcony at Hodinuggur about what a man would
do--in such a case. "No, you wouldn't, not unless you
wanted to be thought guilty." Do you remember saying that,
Gordon?'
Lewis nodded; it was not a pleasant memory.
'I can't tell you the whole. But I am convinced George shot
himself to save me. He knew,--what, perhaps, you don't--that
I was engaged to a woman--'
Gordon pulled some papers towards him impatiently, and took up a pen, as
if to end the subject.
'I suppose it is always "cherchez la
femme"; yet it does not seem to me an agreeable factor in
existence.'
'Cherchez la femme!' echoed
Dan. 'Why
not? They are our mothers and sisters, our sweethearts and wives, after all. And have you ever thought, Gordon, what it must be like to look back over a lifetime, and see next to nothing that you would rather have left undone? Or, if you're pious, to take a sort of pride in pillorying yourself for a cross word or a tarradiddle? There isn't a man in a million with that record, but half the women one meets--ay! half the women one patronizes--have it. Perhaps it is small blame to anything but fate; still they have it.'
'Or think they have--which has the same effect! You remind me
of a countryman of yours, a doctor, I knew once. "The sex," he
said, "can't do wrong, and when it does it's
hysteria." However, let us leave that poor lad to rest in peace; in a
way that is more worth than the happiness of any woman who ever was born.
And, look here, make the tale of reports complete, send them to me, and
I'll consign them, dates and all, to a pigeon-hole. That is the
beauty of official mistakes; you can pigeon-hole them
and no one is the wiser, unless, indeed, some personal motive crops up. But
that is not likely. So far as I can see,
it is to no one's interest to make a row--not even if there is a woman at the bottom of it all.'
There was a concentrated bitterness in his tone, due to no cynicism, but
rather to an intensity of pain; for if Rose Tweedie belonged by birth to
that strange latter-day feminine development which unconsciously
sets passion aside both from mind and emotion, and will none of it
spiritually or physically, Lewis belonged to that still larger class of men
who have driven it from the mind: who say openly that it is despicable; but
that the world cannot get on without it; who insist in a breath in its
unworthiness and its necessity. Gwen, he said to himself after Dan had
gone, was very woman, capable of ruining any man in a week if she chose,
and then being sorrowfully surprised at the result. Still it would be
unkind to wound her needlessly by telling her that result; the more so
because she would certainly tell other people, and Rose Tweedie might break
her heart over it. Even if the pigeon-holed mistake were found out,
they might get up a fiction about the telegram having reached George after
all. The
com-
pensation might have to be given; but even in that case he could see no need for raking up the mud since the claim would be a just one.
Nevertheless a week after, when he and Dan were once more seated
opposite each other at the office table, he felt vaguely uncomfortable. For
a schedule of the dead lad's debts lay between them ready for the
Administrator-General, and that showed an item of six thousand
rupees borrowed on George's note of hand, backed by some youngsters on
the very day on which he had left Simla.
'It was a first holiday, you know,' said Dan regretfully.
'And Hodinuggur is such a hole. There were the races, you know,
and--and--'
'Cherchez la femme,' quoted
Lewis; 'I don't blame him, not a bit. But if there had been an
inquiry, Fitzgerald?--'
Dan shook his head and sighed fiercely. 'Yes! I know. For all
that, he was straight--straight as a die! My only regret in keeping
the thing dark is that some one has to go scot-free.'
Such was the method of Chândni's flight from Hodinuggur. Not
a comfortable one, but under the circumstances necessary; nor was she
altogether unprepared for that necessity. People of her trade know what to
expect when they are attached to petty intriguing courts, where one
ruler's meat is invariably the next ruler's poison. Besides, in
this case she had to reckon on Khush-hâl Beg's anger at
the repulse she had given him on more than one occasion; given him, of
course, with a view to future possibilities with his son Dalel,
but that rather increased than diminished the offence. And now her patron, old Zubr-ul-Zamân, was dead, Khush-hâl had supreme power, and what was more, three pearls were amissing from the Hodinuggur necklace; three pearls which could easily be traced home to her safe keeping, and no further, if needs be. So, at the first hint of inquiry, Chândni had deemed it wiser to seek the protection of the only man who knew something--if not all--about the intrigue which had ended so strangely in Providence setting aside the necessity for any intrigue at all. If Dalel chose to remain at Simla, where, no doubt, he was amusing himself hugely, she would not interfere with his amusements; that had never been her plan. She would only resume her empire over his weak, worn-out wickedness. And yet the flight entailed horrible discomfort. The splaying camel was to her what a bad passage across the channel is to a fashionable lady, and as she clutched wildly at the sides of the pannier, she decided that life was not long enough for a repetition of such experience. If she returned to Hodinuggur at all, it must be in a position which
would ensure a different style of locomotion. Even the night journey by rail, cooped up behind iron bars in the wild-beast-cage-like compartment, labelled in three languages for 'modest women,' was, in comparison, comfort itself. Huddled up decently into a shapeless white bundle, she could at least think over the odd turn affairs had taken, and make up her mind what had best be done. The first thing, of course, was to bring Dalel to her heel. That ought not to be difficult, for though--the water having been procured--he might, like his father, find it convenient to underrate her services in the matter, she had one or two good cards to play in her adversary's strong suits which might with care save the trick. At any rate they ought to prevent any reckless disregard of her claims. First, they wanted the pearls back, and now the Diwan was dead, she was the only person who could tell them the ins and outs of that transaction. Next, they wanted payment of the heavy douceur promised by the Rajah for good offices in making it possible for the water to irrigate that basin of alluvial soil to the south. But now the Diwan was dead, they would
find difficulty in proving that anything had been done--that the flood was not responsible for all, unless she chose to help them with her evidence.
For the rest, give her Dalel and a bottle of champagne to herself for
one hour. If in that space he did not come back, as he had done a dozen
times before, to her empire of evil, she would have none of him. He would
be dead to all she had to offer in fullest perfection. He would be beyond
her influence, as it were, and so, useless for her purpose. She was not
going to marry a fool in order to wear a veil and live with a lot of
women.
By this time two coolies were carrying her up the hill from Solon, in a
thing like a bird-cage slung on poles; so small, so square, that she
had to sit in it cross-legged and bolt upright. But though she could
not sleep, even with the aid of opium, and though the hillsides, after the
first rush of the rains, were clothed with tinted blossoms, and the winding
valleys green as emeralds with young rice, Chândni never parted the
thick patchwork curtains shrouding her from the public gaze, until the
setting down of the dhooli warned her of an
oppor-
tunity for a gossip and a pipe. Then her feet came over the side with a challenging clash of their silver bells, and a quick stir run round the sleepy, sun-sodden stage where travellers, and coolies, and sweetmeat-sellers lay huddled together in the shade. Even the cowboy driving his cattle from the bales of fodder on their way up for the sahib-logue's ponies, paused to look at her with a grin, while his beasts ate on. The bees were flitting from flower to flower, a golden oriole flashed through the green transparency of the walnut-trees, and below the branches the great emerald hearts of the yam leaves outlined themselves against the sapphire distance of the valley, which was divided from the sapphire distance of the sky by the glittering pearly spikelets of the snowy range. Sapphires and pearls echoed and re-echoed in ever-receding distance by the white clouds dividing one sea of ether from another.
But in all this world there was nothing worth a look, apparently, save
Chândni, the courtesan, swinging her silver anklets over the edge of
a dhooli; to judge at any rate by those human eyes.
She did not go straight to her destination, but paused at a house in the
bazaar where such as she were all too welcome. There was never any mincing
of words or thoughts with Chândni. To one end she had been born a
Kanjari, and to this end she lived to the best of her
ability. So she paused to clothe herself in clean clear muslins, and hang
great garlands of tuberose and jasmine about the column of her massive
throat; to redden her lips, and give a deeper shadow to her eyes; looking
at herself the while in the thumb-mirror worn on her left hand. No
more, no less, intent upon appearing at her best than many a person who has
not been born to that end; many a decent, respectable person, who would be
dreadfully shocked at having her innocent half hour before the
cheval-glass evened to Chândni's most reprehensible
occupation. Perhaps the difference lies in the size of the mirrors; at any
rate it is not palpably apparent elsewhere.
Mirza Dalel Beg was living, she knew, in a European house, as the upper
ten of natives love to do. Why, is, in five cases out of six, a mystery.
The sixth, no doubt, has acquired
exotic tastes; the remaining five, no doubt, consider it good style to pretend them. So, after paying roundly for the privilege of toilet-sets and dinner-services, they prefer the water-carrier with his skin bag to a lavatory, and a big platter on the floor to all the neatly-laid dining-tables in creation.
A curious example of the fascination which useless comforts have for
some people came to light during one of the many Embassies from Cabul which
British diplomacy, or the want of it, has inveigled into India. During its
stay there, district-officers were instructed to provide the whole
horde of barbarians with house-room in European fashion so as to
avoid invidious distinctions. As a rule, the local Parsee was invited to
furnish a requisite number of empty houses with the necessary repp
curtains, French clocks, Britannia metal teapots, and German prints, needed
for the night's hospitality. Next day, so runs the tale, there never
was a soup-plate to be found. Occasionally the guests packed up a
French clock; once, it is affirmed, a sponge-bath went amissing, but
unless they ate them, that Embassy must have gone back to Cabul
with some hundreds of dozens of soup-plates stowed away among the official presents of watches that won't go, and guns that won't fire; and soup is not a national dish in Afghanistan.
So Dalel Khan had rented a house which he got cheap, because three of
its previous tenants had died of typhoid fever. It was a pretty place
enough, shut in somewhat by the ravines which furrow the lower part of the
ridge, but with an outlook beautiful beyond belief over the plains. The
single dahlias--refuse run wild from many a garden above--found
foothold in every cranny of the rocks, and great sheets of morning glories
climbed over the broken rails fencing the narrow path from the steep
khud, which seemed to leap at one bound to the pale blue
of the valley below. Chândni, stepping out of her dhooli, looked at
it all distastefully, reached forth a strong, ring-bedecked hand,
appropriated a yellow dahlia, which she stuck behind her ear, and called.
Then the bells clashed again as she walked with a free step over to the
verandah of the house, raised the chick, and looked in, while the
dhooli-bearers squatted down beside the railings, and apparently
resumed a conversation begun in the bazaar. For the rest, sunshine and silence.
Chândni, dazzled by the glare outside, could at first see nothing
clearly; the room, though to her unaccustomed eyes crammed full of useless
things, seemed empty of what she sought. Then suddenly there came a shrill,
unformed voice--
'Go away! We don't want you. Mam-ma, send her away.
Go, I tell you! The Mirza is married now; I am his wife.'
The girl who came forward was not more than fifteen by the look of her,
with a frizz of hot-pressed light hair over her forehead, and a skin
which gave one the impression of being bleached, perhaps because of the
coal-black eyes set in the narrow sharp face; yet with a certain
attractiveness about the figure, dressed as it was in the height of
fashion, with sleeves to the ears, and a waist requiring the surgical
bandage of folded silk to prevent it from breaking in two.
His wife! Chândni, from her full height and magnificent
development, looked at her as distastefully as she had looked at the view
from the terrace. Neither were to her liking:
they both appealed too much to the imagination. This other woman who came in answer to the call was better, though past her prime and pulpy; drowsy, too, from the snooze she had been enjoying on the sofa. Still with a torrent of capable, tell-tale abuse for the intruder.
'Ari!' laughed Chândni contemptuously, when the fat
lady paused for breath. 'So thou too hast been of the bazaar? But I
want not thee, or that half-fledged thing who calls herself a wife.
I want Dalel--where is he?'
'Mamma!' cried the unformed voice in English, breaking down
over its own feeble passion. 'Send her away, I tell you! The Mirza
will be back soon, and she must not be here. Don't fool with words.
Call the servants. Ai! budzart! (base-born). I
will throw you down the khud!'
Chândni laughed again--laughed louder as, in response to the
girl's cry, a face showed itself behind her.
'Salaam, oh bhai! (brother),' she said,
nodding her head at the new-comer. 'Ah! 'tis thou,
Mohammed I look you, this image saith she will fling me down the
khud. If it came to force, my pigeon, I know which
would have the Mirza; but I will not fight for him thus, he is not worth it. So, he fancies thee? God help him! Sure, thy mother is the better woman.'
'Come, come, mother Chândni,' urged the servant in
response to shrill commands. 'This is no place for thee now. These
are mem's. And he hath married her,' he went on fast and low.
'Yea! 'tis true, the nikka hath been read, so
abuse is vain. Come, thou canst see him elsewhere.'
'Nay! I will see him here--here with his mem,' retorted
Chândni airily. Then she turned swiftly on the elder woman, who,
going to the door, was about to call for further assistance. 'What
harm shall I do thee, fool, who art as I am with a piebald skin, or as this
one, who would be as I am had God made her a woman. Lo! ask thy servants
who Chândni the courtesan is, and what she has been, ay! and will
be--if she chooses.'
It was an odd scene. The room decorated into bastard civilisation; the
girl depending on a lack of pigment in her skin for all her claims to
mem-ship, that being the only trace of her unknown European father;
the mother
without even this distinction. yet clinging to her taint of Western blood, as to a patent of nobility; clinging to it farcically, in fringe and furbelow, in fashion generally. Before them, as it were, against them, stood Chândni, in her trailing white Delhi draperies and massive garlands, a figure which might have served as model for some of those strange solemn-eyed statues, half Greek, half Indian, which are found buried in the sand-hills of the frontier. There was a little crowd of dark expectant faces at the door now, towards which she nodded familiarly.
'Go back! oh brothers! I do no harm. 'Tis not my way with
women folk. I wait the Mirza's return. Then, if I am not wanted, I
will go. Lo! Chândni the courtesan hath no need to keep a man in a
leash; she hath no need to have the nikka read, my
little pigeon, as thou hast. Ari! so the pictures in the papers Dalel used
to bring me are true, and 'tis a beauty to have no body and a big
head.'
Beatrice Norma Elflida D'Eremao, presently her Highness Mrs. Dalel
Beg, gave a little scream of rage, and stamped her tiny high-
heeled shoes upon the floor. Mrs. Lily Violet D'Eremao, her mother, known in her time by many a sobriquet until she settled down to sobriety and the education of a fair daughter, screamed too, in voluble abuse; but they were both quite helpless before the white-robed figure standing between them and the sunlight with a laugh on its red lips, which did not leave them when into the midst of the scene came Dalel Beg, got up in his dandy riding gear; only the folded pugree remaining to tell the tale of his birth. Perhaps because the ideas within the head it covered needed some such excuse for their existence. His face was hideous in its sheer malice, livid, not with passion or fear, but from that hatred of opposition which belonged to his race. And Chândni, recognising this, swept him a low salaam, graceful to the uttermost curve of each finger, a salaam which would have made Turveydrop die of envy, a salaam such as one sees once or twice in a lifetime. A minute before she might have given it in derision; now she yielded it to the lingering majesty in this pitiful representative of a long line of tyrants.
'Long life attend my lord,' she said, in those liquid tones
of set ceremony, which her class pride themselves on acquiring. And even
among them Chândni had a silver tongue: none near her, so the report
ran.
Dalel Beg's eyes saw, his ears heard. They would not refuse their
wonted office, and yet as he took a step nearer, he raised the hunting crop
he held.
'Go!' he cried. 'Go! Mohammed! Fuggu--turn this
scum of the bazaars from the door.'
'Which scum of the bazaars?' she asked coolly.
'This--or that?'
It was not scorn exactly, it was an indifferent contempt which seemed to
leave no denial possible, and which held action arrested.
'Which is it to be, Mirza sahib?' she asked again, crossing
swiftly to where the girl stood as if to measure her height against that
small insignificant figure. 'There is not much to choose between us,
except in the outside--and thou hast eyes!'
'Fuggu! Mohammed! Dittu! Scoundrels, turn her out! call the
Kotwâl! Turn her out, I say!' shrieked the Mirza, fast loosing
all
dignity in a sort of animal admiration for this woman, who, he knew, would come back to him at a word. A word he dare not give,--which he did not wish to give, as yet.
'Softly! softly! oh, my brothers,' came that liquid voice.
'There is no need to touch Chândni the courtesan. The master
hath his right, and I will go. I only ask a word, and sure my words are
better for the ear than theirs.'
It was incontestably true, for mother and daughter were now at the
highest pitch of the Eurasian accent aggravated by hysterics, and the men
stood uncertain, siding, every one of them, with that which was
familiar.
'The word is this,' she went on boldly, 'I have done
my part. Is there to be payment?'
Dalel's face lost its last trace of dignity and settled down into
mere spite.
'So! it is payment. Lo! mother-in-law, hold thy
peace! 'Tis nothing but a bad debt, a debt without a bond! Payment!
Go, fool, and ask it of the old man--the old devil who was drowned.
Ask not here--here we need all the money we can get.'
Then in his delight and content in this
op-
portunity for malice, he forgot a suspicion of fear which had been with him hitherto, and turned to the girl with a leer and a laugh: 'Aha! we want the oof ourself, don't we, Tricks? Lo! I give you gold watch and chain to-day. I give you gold bangle to-morrow, if you're good girl. But that one--nothing--nothing.'
He echoed the last words jeeringly in Hindustani, cutting with his whip
towards Chândni as one cuts at a dog to frighten it from the room.
Perhaps he was nearer than he thought; anyhow, the uttermost end of lash
touching the silver bells on her ankle set them jingling. A slight thing to
make two women cease their cries, and half a dozen men or more hold their
breath involuntarily; yet it did, commanding silence for that clear
voice.
'Lo! thou hast given me something, oh Mizra Dalel Beg! which no
man hath given before to Chândni the courtesan. It is enough. I
go.'
So far dignity went with her. But at the door she turned to give the
women back in kind and with interest the abuse which they had given to her.
Even with a despicable
cheat like the Mirza, there was a reputation to keep up--he was at least the descendant of worthy men who had done their best for such as she; but with those two women, even as herself, but without her claims, why should she be silent?
Yet ere she was half-way back to the bazaar she had forgotten
them and their abuse; forgotten everything save that clash of the silver
bells. That was an end--an end for ever to Dalel. In a way she was
glad, for he was unendurable when sober, and not much better when he was
drunk. Now nothing remained save the necessity for compensation and
revenge. If the Moghuls would not pay, there were others who would. The
mem, for instance, who had taken the pearls. And those who had spread it
abroad that the chota sahib had died in his bed, they would not care to
have their truth impugned. They had bribed the servants no doubt, the Diwan
was dead, and they had held the water sufficient inducement for the others.
But she? She had had nothing, and she meant to have something. And then
when she had got her money's worth for silence, she would go and sell
that silence
to the Rajah, unless indeed by that time the Moghuls had bidden higher for her speech. Without her evidence the question as to whether the bribe were honestly due for favours done could not be settled. She would begin with the mem; not by demanding money, but the pearls, since most likely they had been disposed of and the difficulty of getting hold of them again would, as it were, increase her power of screw. If at the end of a month the sahib-logues defied her, she would offer her silence or her speech to the highest bidder, and give her evidence for either. After that, a merry life, even if it had to be a short one; for the mere taste of comparative freedom she had had that morning in the wooden house in the Simla bazaar, had aroused the old reckless instincts, and before the evening was over the news that Chândni, singer and dancer from Delhi, had come to the place, was on the tip of every native's tongue.
one; yet, but for that lucky chance it might have fallen into Dan's hands while George was ill and brought needless pain into another kind heart; for there was, thank heaven! no more need for humiliation and confession and promises of restitution. She had torn open the letter in order to read it again, and had been quite satisfied with its straightforward avowal of responsibility and firm intention, should difficulties arise, of taking the whole blame on herself. Then she had put it away again as a perpetual witness to her repentance and amendment. And surely these virtues had a right to forgiveness? One person, she knew, would do more than forgive if he knew all, and this conviction joined to the sense of loss which his prolonged absence from her environment always produced in Gwen Boynton made her think very tenderly of Dan, who wrote her such kind, sympathetic letters from Hodinuggur about the dear lad. He was not jealous, and full of evil imaginings like Lewis, whose temper had certainly not been improved by his visit to the plains. Though she did not consciously feel the need of something stronger than the cousinly affection she had
for him, there is no doubt that the shock of her own lapses from strict honesty, joined to that of George Keene's sudden death, had made her disinclined for final decision; so the fact that Dan would, from pressure of work, be unable to get leave that year, and Lewis, from the same cause, was not likely to be urgent in love-making, suited her capitally. She would have time to recover her tone. To this end she proceeded, with a curious strength of purpose, to dismiss the nightmare of the past from her mind. It was over. What had been, had been. She would 'reach out to the things which were before;' no! not reach out! She would not again be premature; she would let fate and luck have their say to the full.
One small fact showed her state of mind exactly. She dismissed her ayah,
giving her as a parting present most of the articles which Manohar Lal had
forced her into buying from him. The woman sulked, yet held her tongue, no
doubt knowing through her patron, the jeweller, that so far as he was
concerned the mem was safe; besides, when all was said and done, the
bucksheesh was sufficient; under no
circumstances could more have been expected. So, on the whole, life went quite smoothly in the pretty little drawing-room where poor young George had sat with his head on the table dazed and stunned by his bitter pain.
Over the way, however, in Colonel Tweedie's house, things were
different. Lewis Gordon, up to the ears in endless calculations, yet found
time to notice that grief suited Rose very ill. And grief, forsooth, for a
boy who had not cared a pin for her, who had run into debt, and gambled and
lost his head completely over another woman; who, if the truth were known,
had shot himself because--to take the most charitable view of the
matter--he had not the pluck to bear disappointment. Naturally a young
fellow felt being fooled--more or less--by a woman, because
certain instincts were the strongest a man had--as a man. But one
expected something more--or less--in a gentleman. And there was
Miss Tweedie, who depended for attractiveness on the
beauté du diable, looking pale and
worn, over a mere sentimentalism; for she herself would be the first to
deny that she had been what he, Lewis, would call 'in love'
with
George. Finally, though he, knowing to the full Gwen's responsibility for the boy's suicide, had every right, if he chose, to be hard on his cousin, why should this girl, who knew nothing, stand aloof and show her disapproval so plainly?
'You don't understand girls,' said Gwen easily, in
reply to some hints of his to this effect. 'Dear Rose can't help
huffing me at present. I should feel the same, I'm sure, towards any
one who had, to my mind, stood between me and my dear dead.'
Lewis shifted irritably in his chair, and wished to goodness she would
talk sense.
'Sense! Why, you yourself are always blaming me in your heart
because that poor boy thought me the most perfect woman in the world! You
know you are! As if it was my fault. As if I ever encouraged such an idea
in any one, or set up for being perfection.'
It was true enough. She never posed as anything but a woman
pur et simple. That was one of her charms in
his eyes, and the injustice of cavilling at what he really liked made him
say more gently--
'I don't suppose you could help it, dear; and perhaps Miss
Tweedie can't either. I don't pretend to understand
women--have enough to do in trying to understand the atrocious English
men put into their reports. But I wish you could come over sometimes as you
used to do. The girl oughtn't to be allowed to eat nothing and grow so
disagreeably thin.'
Gwen gave an odd laugh. 'Well, I'll invite myself to luncheon
to-morrow. It is bad for the girl--and so useless, into the
bargain.'
The common-sense of the last remark lingered in Lewis
Gordon's mind comfortably as he went home. In more ways than one it
was quite useless to dwell on George Keene's unfortunate death. No
doubt Rose, if she knew all, would judge Gwen very harshly, and not only
Gwen, but those who, knowing what they did, went on as if nothing had
happened; but Rose Tweedie, the fates be praised, was not his judge.
And yet when he passed the window of her room on his way to his own, she
was in sober truth sitting in judgment on the figure she
saw for a second between the draped curtains. He had been over as usual to Mrs. Boynton's--to the woman who had been the last to see George Keene, and who would say so little of that interview; the woman who no doubt was to blame if, as her father said, George had run into debt, and gambled, and lost his head. Lewis must know all this, perhaps more, yet he went on approvingly. By and by he would marry this woman--for they were engaged, of course, even now. Was not that enough to make any one unhappy who cared for him as she cared? Rose leant forward over the book her eyes were studying, and tried hard to bend her mind also to its consideration.
Despite these thoughts she received Mrs. Boynton on the next day without
a sign of disapproval; for Rose, like most unmarried girls at the head of a
house, was intensely proud of her position. In society, if she did not care
to speak to Gwen, she would not speak; if she did not care to have her in
the house she would not ask her; but if she came, as she did now,
uninvited, she was nothing more nor less than a guest to be treated as a
guest should be treated. Perhaps Lewis
Gordon had an inkling as to the cause of her graciousness, but Colonel Tweedie saw nothing but a renewal of those amenities the loss of which he had helplessly deplored during the past fortnight. It had put him out terribly, and left him completely puzzled as to its cause. Certainly not to any change in his mind, for the coolness had checked a steadily growing conviction that he would not only like, but that he also ought, to ask Mrs. Boynton to marry him. Rose was too much alone; she brooded, as the former had kindly pointed out, over life, and fancied herself in love with subordinates. She was too sensible for that sort of thing to be real, but the constant companionship of a woman of the world was a necessity to a young girl. It is surprising how many second marriages are inspired by sensible considerations; still more surprising why such prudence should then be thought virtuous, moral, blameless, yet be deemed anathema maranatha in first marriages. There are some things which, as Dundreary said, 'no fellah can find out,' and one is the curious ethical code which has quite obscured the real issues of marriage, and made it possible
for quick-witted husbands and wives to quarrel desperately with each other about things that have nothing to do with the tie between them. Colonel Tweedie, however, treated his secondary reasons with the greatest respect, and beamed pompously round the luncheon table as he announced his infinite regret that the duties of his responsible position made it necessary for him to leave such pleasant company sooner than he would otherwise have done. Mrs. Boynton, however, would readily understand that Councils of State were paramount to the public servant. Whereupon Gwen, after her fashion, took the edge off his anguish by saying that she also had to be at home early, seeing she had promised to interview some dreadful Madrassee creature who had been recommended to her as an ayah.
'Why did you send old Fuzli away?' asked Rose suddenly. They
had risen as they were speaking, and she had been standing by the window
listening with certain weariness in her face to her father's ornate
regrets.
'The old reason, "I do not like thee, Dr.
Fell,"' laughed Gwen. 'I suppose it is very
illogical--therefore, as Lewis would say, very
womanly,--but I can't help disliking my world by instinct.'
'That is monstrously unkind,' broke in the Colonel, eager as
a boy over the opportunity, 'when your world can't help doing
the reverse.' There is something very satisfactory apparently in a
compliment to the person who makes it, and the Colonel felt and looked
quite light-hearted over his.
'When you have got rid of us all, Miss Tweedie,' said Lewis
Gordon in a low tone which yet covered Gwen's little laugh, 'you
should go out and have a jolly ride. I'm not using
Bronzewing--she frets at waiting--so she is at your service, if
you care--' he paused in quick surprise--
Such a very little thing upsets a woman's balance at times; and
Bronzewing had been the one subject over which she and Lewis had never
quarrelled since the day of his accident. It was foolish, but the look on
her face made him turn hastily from the window to his cousin, and catch at
the first thing likely to give the girl time to recover herself.
'I believe your ayah's coming here, Gwen; at least I see one
of those little covered
dhoolies descending from your house, and if there are to be purda-nishin women about, sir, it is time we men were going.'
'Don't be ridiculous, Lewis. It is somebody going to pay a
visit to the khansaman's wife. The ayah
wouldn't be purdah, and she wouldn't dare to
come here; and if she did, I am not going to make a
zenana out of Colonel Tweedie's
drawing-room.'
'But you could go into Rose's sitting-room, of
course,' protested the Colonel; 'couldn't she,
dear?'
'But indeed, good people,' began Gwen, laughing, 'it
can't--'
Just then a servant, entering stolidly, announced a woman waiting to see
Mem Boynton sahib.
'I told you so,' cried Lewis joyfully, 'and, as a
matter of fact, we ought to be off, sir. It will take us a good twenty
minutes to the Secretariat.'
'Show the woman into the Miss Sahib's office,' cried
the Colonel fussily. 'Rose, my dear--'
But the girl had taken the opportunity of escaping through the open
French window.
'Please don't mind,' said Mrs. Boynton. 'I know
my way about this house--at any rate I ought to, seeing how hospitable
and good you have been always. Good-bye. I hope your interview will
prove more pleasant than mine is likely to be.'
Their ponies were waiting, and she stayed to see them start and give a
parting nod as they rounded the last visible turn of the path leading to
the Mall. Gwen always added these pleasant friendly touches to the bareness
and business of life. They came to her by instinct, and she herself felt
cold and cheerless without them.
Then, very well satisfied with herself, she crossed the long matted
passage which ran from end to end of the house, separating the portion
Colonel Tweedie reserved for his own use from that occupied by the office.
Here, beside her father's private room, was Rose's little study,
and beyond that again Lewis Gordon's quarters and the big glazed
verandah where the clerks sat designing. It was quite a small room, and, as
Mrs. Boynton entered it, seemed to her over full of perfume, possibly from
the vase full of wild turk's-cap lilies
on the table. The window was shut too, and Gwen as she made her way to the most comfortable chair, with scarcely a glance at the white-robed figure standing in the shadow of the curtains, gave a quick yet languid order to set the glazed doors wide open.
'They are best shut if the Huzoor does not mind. I have that to
say which requires caution.'
Those round, suave tones, with almost the nightingale thrill in them
belonged to no ayah, surely! Gwen looked round hastily. That was no
ayah's figure either, tall, supple, unabashed. Instinctively the
Englishwoman stood up and confronted her visitor, more curious than
alarmed. Even to that ignorance of native life which is so typical of the
mem-sahib--an ignorance not altogether to be
deprecated--the woman's trade was unmistakable. That was writ
large in the trimness and cleanliness, the spotless white, the chaplets of
flowers, the scent of musk and ambergris filling the room; all the more
reason for surprise at her presence there. Yet, even so, curiosity
outweighed indignation and resentment in Gwen's cold questioning.
'Who are you? What do you want?'
The answer came quick, so quickly that it left the hearer with that
breathless sense of pained relief that the worst is over, which comes with
the clean sharp cut of a surgeon's knife.
'I am Chândni of Delhi. I want the Hodinuggur pearls which
the Huzoor took out of the Ayôdhya pot.'
There was no mincing of the matter here; none of that beating about the
bush which, as a rule, Gwen loved. Yet the directness did not displease
her; it seemed to rouse in her a novel combativeness, taking form in
similar effrontery and cool assertion.
'I don't know what you are talking about,' she said
indifferently, 'and I don't want you. Go!'
Her Hindustani, though limited, was of the imperative order and suited
the occasion; yet it evoked one of Chândni's shrill mocking
laughs.
'The mem sahiba mistakes. She is not as I am, a daughter of the
bazaars, and if it comes to words Chândni hath two to her one. So I
come quietly to ask reasonably for my rights; not to dispute after the
manner of
my kind. There is no need to tell the mem sahiba the story. She remembers it perfectly. She knows it all as well as I. But this she does not know: The pearls are mine, and I will have them back, or their price in revenge.'
'I think you are mad!' cried Gwen more hastily.
'Go! go instantly, or I will call the
servants.'
'That were not wise! Lo! I know all about the papers of safety,
which Manohar Lal gave in exchange for the chota sahib's rupees. But
the pearls went not once, but twice.'
'Twice!' The involuntary echo had a surprise in which
angered the courtesan.
'Yes, twice! The mem knows that as well as I do. The Ayôdhya
pot--'
'Was stolen from me in the Palace,' put in Gwen; 'you
stole it, I dare say.'
Again Chândni laughed. 'If I did, what then? The mem got it
again and sent it back through the post for more pearls. But we did not
send it thus; we sent it by the chota sahib, who gave it to the mem, and
she sent the key in return. The papers are about the first pearls. These
are the second, and there is no safety paper about them.'
'It is not true!--it is a lie--he never took
them--he never gave them to me,' cried Gwen, her courage, oddly
enough, failing before what was to her an absolutely novel and unfounded
accusation. 'I will not listen! Go! or I will call.'
Chândni took a step nearer, lowering her voice. 'What!
wouldst let the truth be known; when thou canst conceal it--for ever!
Give me the pearls and no one shall know--no one shall cast dirt on
the mem, and on the chota sahib--no one shall know how he took the
bribes for you--no one shall know thou didst beguile him as men are
beguiled.'
'I--I did not--it is a lie, I--' faltered
Gwen, falling back till Chândni's hand closed like a vice on her
wrist.
'Wah! What use to deny it to me? Do I not know
the trick? A word, a look, no more. What! do men send bullets through their
hearts as Keene sahib did for no cause? Ari, sister! we know
better.'
The jeering comradeship was too much for caution, even though the story
of poor George's death passed by her as a wanton lie. Gwen, struggling
madly, gave one scream after
another for help, and, breaking from her persecutor, turned to fly. At the same moment Rose, who had been into her father's study for a book, burst through the door and stood bewildered at the scene.
'Send her away! She tells lies--lies about me and
George--lies about everything. Oh! have her sent away, Rose. Please
send her away.'
The girl, clasping the hands with which Gwen clung to her, turned on the
intruder angrily, and an indescribable hardness and contempt came to her
face, as she took in the meaning of the figure and its dress.
'How dare you come here? Go this instant! Put on your veil, hide
yourself, and go! Impertinent! Shameless!'
There was no answering laugh now. 'The Huzoor speaks truth,'
replied the courtesan quietly. 'I have no business here. I came but
to see the mem, bethinking me she might listen better in the house of those
who were friends to the chota sahib--'
But Gwen's immediate terror had passed, leaving her face to face
with future fears.
'Don't listen, Rose!' she interrupted in
English. 'You should never listen to what women of that sort say about any one. She frightened me at first with her lies, but the wisest plan is to send her away. I'll call a servant.'
Chândni, listening to the quick whisper, smiled.
'The mem sahiba wants silence,' she said, nodding her head;
'but silence is ever unsafe unless tongues are tied. And mine will
wag if not here, elsewhere, unless I get the Ayôdhya pot.'
Rose gave a quick exclamation, but Gwen's hand was on her arm, her
voice full of passionate entreaty.
'Don't, Rose! don't speak to her. I can tell you all. It
is all lies; some rigmarole declaring that after the pot had been stolen at
Hodinuggur it was sent back to me here at Simla, and that I returned it
again. There isn't a word of truth in it; I never--'
But the girl set aside her detaining hand with an impatient gesture, and
crossed to where Chândni stood watching them.
'You have made a mistake,' came the clear unfaltering voice.
'The Ayôdhya pot was not sent to the mem sahiba, it was sent to
me; and it was I who returned it. What then?'
The frank admission brought a curiously similar expression to those two
listening faces; it seemed to leave both, abashed, uncertain, so that Rose
had to repeat her clear question before it gained reply.
'What then?' echoed the courtesan at last, somewhat sulkily.
'How can I tell if this be so; and if it be so, how can I tell what
came? Only this I do know: the pot went to Keene sahib the day he left. He
gave it to some one. Let that some one answer. I care not who 'tis, so
I have my pearls that were hidden in the pot.'
'Pearls! There were no pearls in it when it came to me,'
cried Rose quickly; then remembering the jagged edge of clay she had
noticed inside, she turned to Gwen: 'Did you notice anything
like a false bottom when you had it before?'
The face into which she looked paled. 'You don't
understand!' said Gwen, petulantly; 'the woman says that these
pearls were put there after it was stolen, so how could I notice anything
when I tell you I
never saw, never heard of it again? I told the woman so just now. I will tell her again before you! then I must, I will have her sent away, she has no business here.'
But Chândni's recklessness had grown. 'I care not who
has them. See! there are three of us here in this room who have handled the
pot. Let her who hath it and its hoard speak truth, and save the chota
sahib. For he had it, sure enough; of that there is proof.'
'Three of us!' repeated Rose absently, as if struck by a
thought. Then obeying a sudden impulse, she went over to a portfolio
standing in one corner of the room. 'You mistake,' she
continued, her eyes full on the courtesan. 'There are not three, but
four of us. Look! Keene sahib painted that.'
Chândni fell back, averting her face from the portrait of Azizan,
which Rose placed against an easel on the table.
'The evil eye! the evil eye! God save us from the witch,'
she muttered, thrusting out her right hand in that two-fingered
gesture, which is used against a baleful glance in both East and West. But
Gwen pressing closer
looked at the picture with a dawning light of relieved comprehension in her face.
'Did he paint that--how pretty it is! And it
explains--it explains--a--a great deal. He gave her the pot,
I suppose--Well! it is a pity, but one ought not to
be--'
'Ought not to be what?' interrupted Rose fiercely, with a
fine scorn in her face, scarcely less concealed than the contempt with
which she turned to the other woman.
'You both seem to know or understand this picture better than I
do,' she said superbly. 'Perhaps you can tell me whom it
represents?'
'My dear Rose,' expostulated Gwen, aside; 'don't
for pity's sake ask that creature. What would your father say if he
knew? You may mix yourself up--'
'Whose picture is it, I ask?' repeated Rose, unheeding. Then
in the silence of Chândni's smile, and Gwen's frown, she
turned passionately to the portrait itself. 'Why don't you speak
and shame them? You look as if you could tell the truth, and if he made you
so, it was true!' The very vehemence of her own fanciful appeal
imposed on her, and she paused
as if waiting a reply. It came with a laugh from Chândni.
'She was another of the chota sahib's friends. The miss saith
true. There are three of them here. Which will give back the pearls and
save him?'
'Save him from what?' cried Rose, disregarding Gwen's
appeals for her to leave the mad woman to the servants. 'What has
Keene sahib done that you can dare to threaten?'
The girl's bitter contempt roused all Chândni's
savageness. After all she was the mistress, and this girl, despite her
courage, in her power too; and what is more, she should learn it.
'From what? from the shame which comes to the sahib-logue
when their pretence of honesty is found out--from the shame of having
friends--the shame of taking jewels for those friends--the shame
of being untrue to salt--Ask the mem how 'tis done, she
knows--the shame of sending the key of the sluice-gate so that
the water--'
Her voice had risen with each sentence; now it ended in a gasp and a
gurgle.
'Open the door, please,' said Rose to Mrs. Boynton, who
gasped also in the intense surprise of the girl's swift action.
'Don't struggle, fool!' she went on in the same hard tone,
only the dead whiteness of her face and a catch as she drew breath telling
of the wild passion surging in her veins. 'I won't choke you if
you hold your tongue.'
Once before Chândni had felt a girl's grip on her throat; a
hot, straining grip. This was neither. It was the grip of a strong healthy
hand made vigorous by constant use. Those fierce fights over bat and ball
with the dead lad had had their share in the sheer muscle of her defence of
him, before which Chândni's large softness gave way, leaving her
not even a slandering tongue.
'Put the veil over her face, please! I won't even have it
known who dared to come here!' continued the girl, forcing the woman
backwards step by step till they reached the door. Then she pushed her from
it magnificently. 'Now go! and tell what lies you like
elsewhere.'
But her face changed as she turned when the door was closed and bolted
to Gwen Boynton.
'Is it true? For God's sake tell me if there is a word of
truth in it, and I will find the money.'
Gwen dissolved into helpless tears at once; tears at once of vague
remorse, and a very real sense of injustice. 'True! oh, Rose, how can
you ask? Of course it isn't true. I wouldn't have done it for the
world. Indeed and indeed I never saw the Ayôdhya pot again, and I
don't believe George did. He was the soul of honour, and so
good--so good to me. It is all wicked, wicked lies, unless, indeed,
that girl--but there, I daresay she was bad like that horrid creature.
Perhaps they stole the pot between them and are now trying to blackmail
us.'
'Stole the pot!' repeated Rose slowly, for the first time
remembering her dream on the night of the storm at Hodinuggur. 'Yes!
that is possible, and yet--' She looked at Azizan's
picture, and then back at Gwen, who was dabbing her eyes with a soft pocket
handkerchief. 'You are sure?' she began again.
'Of course I am quite sure,' retorted Gwen, whose remorse
had vanished in grievance at this impudent attempt to amend and enlarge
the text of a past incident. 'I never saw or heard of the pot again. I may be weak, I may have done things for which I am sorry in the past, but whatever you may think, my conscience is clear. And as for the sluice? Dan opened it by order; besides, there was the flood. It is all an attempt to blackmail me, and I won't be blackmailed. I have done nothing they can take hold of, nothing--nothing.'
Rose gave a sigh, almost of dissatisfaction. If it really was a case of
blackmailing, payment would be but a temporary relief. Perhaps, as she had
also suggested, the girl in the picture was in league with Chândni.
She did not look that sort either. Nor did she look as if-- Rose
glanced from the pure oval of the cheek and the fine long curves of the
mouth to Mrs. Boynton's tear-stained face and frowned.
'Some one has the pearls,' she said, 'and
George's memory must be saved--somehow.'
The words were given in an impatient tone, for Lewis Gordon was busy,
and he hated being disturbed; especially when, as now, he had taken his
coat off, literally as well as figuratively, before a difficult file.
The garment hung on the back of his chair, which, in obedience to a fad
of his, was the only one in the office; a second one, he declared, being
easily sent for if required, while its absence shortened many a trivial
interruption. Otherwise it was a comfortable enough room, with a large
French window set wide on a magnificent view of the serrated snows resting
on the wall of blue distance, and framed by the curved tops of a forest of
young deodars. The day was bright as a morning in the rainy season can be;
bright by very contrast between the brilliant lights
and shadows in earth and sky; bright as a rain-cloud itself when the sun shines on it. A fresh breeze came in with Rose Tweedie through the opening door and blew some papers off the table.
'I beg your pardon,' came in duet as Lewis fumbled blindly
for his coat: his eye-glass having deserted him in the surprise,
after the manner of eye-glasses. As he did so, he felt injured. Not
that he was such a crass idiot as to be outraged by a pair of shirt sleeves
in himself or others. But he knew quite well that no man can look
dignified, when struggling, even into a lounge-coat, and he liked to
be dignified, especially with Rose Tweedie. His irritation, however, hid
itself under a different cloak; that is to say, annoyance at a most unusual
intrusion. Perhaps she read the expression of it in his face, for her first
words were an excuse.
'I came here--to your office, I mean--because I want to
ask you something, and I didn't want you to feel hampered--not as
a friend, you know.' Her eyes met his in confidence of being
understood so far, at any rate, and he gave rather a stiff little bow.
'You are very welcome. Won't you take a chair--the
chair, perhaps I ought to say? I've been sitting all the morning, and
shall be glad of a change; unless you require some time. If so, I will
send--'
'No, thanks, I prefer standing also,' she interrupted, with
a quick flush. 'I only wanted to ask you a question. It is about
George Keene.'
'Yes--' he replied coldly, unsympathetically; and yet
he was noting her anxious eyes and haggard face with a sort of angry wonder
why she should make herself so unhappy. Rose's fingers held nervously
to the edge of the table by which she stood.
'Have you any reason--I mean, is there officially any reason
to suppose that the Hodinuggur sluice was opened before the flood came
down, or before Mr. Fitzgerald--?' She paused with her eyes on
Lewis's face. She had lain awake almost all the night thinking of
Chândni's threats and hints, and with clear sight had seen that
their worth or unworth depended largely upon the official report of what
had actually happened at Hodinuggur. To her father she could not
go without danger from his want of judgment; there remained Lewis, who was always just, always to be trusted in such matters.
His heart gave quite a throb of dismayed surprise at her question, and
forced him by contraries into still greater chilliness of manner.
'I'm afraid I can't quite see your right to ask me such
a question--as yet. Perhaps if you could give me a
reason--'
'Oh yes! I can give you a reason,' she interrupted, with a
ring of scorn in her voice, 'though I think you might credit me with
a good one where George is concerned, surely? Only if I have to tell, you
had better send for the chair. I thought, perhaps, you would understand,
for once.'
The bitterness of her tone did not escape him, and accentuated his
annoyance. As he handed her the chair and leant negligently against the
table, his hands behind him, he told himself that he was in for
mauvais quart d'heure with this girl.
Man-like she would expect to know all, woman-like she would
expect sentiment to outweigh official integrity. These thoughts did not
serve to
soften his heart towards the dead lad even at the beginning, and as her story unfolded itself, his face grew sterner and sterner. Hers lightened. It was an infinite relief to have his advice--his help, and she told him so frankly, even while she appealed for it.
'You needn't even answer my question, Mr. Gordon,' she
went on earnestly. 'You will know so much better than I do what had
best be done. I thought of going to see the woman myself--'
'You didn't go, I hope?' put in Lewis hastily.
'No! I made up my mind to ask you first. You see, if there is no
truth in all this--no truth whatever--'
'That is unlikely, I warn you,' interrupted Lewis.
'These women-- Really, Miss Tweedie, if you follow my
advice--much as it may pain you at the time--you will leave this
business alone, absolutely alone. It is not one with which--excuse me
for even alluding to the fact--a girl such as you are should meddle.
Unfortunately, we men have to face these things, and they are not pleasant,
even for us.'
'You speak as if you thought George was
guilty,' said Rose hotly. 'What right have you to do that?'
'I may have more right than you suspect. Believe me Miss Tweedie,
I am heartily sorry--especially for you; and, so far as is compatible
with the facts, I will do my best to avoid official
esclandre should this matter really crop up.
In the meantime, I am afraid I must decline to interfere in what Mrs.
Boynton, you tell me, stigmatised as an impudent attempt at blackmailing.
She has her faults, no doubt, like everybody else; but she has, excuse me
for saying so, more knowledge of the world than you have. In fact, you
could scarcely do better than take her advice on this point.'
The girl, with a frown on her face, rose from her seat slowly.
'Then you refuse to find out the truth? You are content to let
this suspicion lie upon--upon me and upon your cousin?'
Lewis smiled. 'That is rather far-fetched, Miss Tweedie,
surely. The idea of suspicion with you is simply absurd; and as for Gwen!
Well, I know you are ready to admit she has her faults; but she has called
this claim
impudent blackmailing, and you must excuse me if I incline to believe her.'
'And for George Keene? Do you suspect him? Are you going to allow
his memory to be smirched?'
'I have told you I will do my best. For the rest, he must take the
consequence of his own acts, I'm afraid. Indeed, I am sorry, very
sorry,' he added hastily, impelled to it by the look on Rose
Tweedie's face. It had grown ashen pale, yet she stood steadily before
him, her eyes on his unflinchingly.
'Then there is truth in it? You had better tell me. It would be
kinder to tell me--if you can.'
Perhaps, after all, it would. Perhaps, if this scandal had to come to
light, it would be better she should be prepared. Even if it did not, was
it not wiser she should know the real truth about George Keene, and so be
able to judge him fairly? Not a bad boy, of course. That talk of bribery
was no doubt false, and he had done no more in other ways than hundreds of
boys in a like position. Even at Simla he had only run wild a bit, and for
that he was not the only one responsible.
Still, when all was said and done, he had shot himself, and that alone made the task of whitewashing him an impossibility if these women chose revenge.
'Yes! there is some truth in it,' he said gravely. 'If
you will sit down again, I will tell you everything I know, and then you
can judge for yourself. I should like you to understand, however, that in
spite of appearances, I don't believe George lent himself to anything
more than--what you would--not you, perhaps--but most of us
would expect in a young fellow of his age and his position. Life
is--is rather intoxicating to--to some of us.'
So, leaning against the table, he told her the truth, trying to do his
task calmly and kindly, yet beset by a certain impatience at the still
figure seated in his office chair, its elbows among his files, the coils of
its beautiful hair showing beyond the hands in which the face was hidden.
What business had it there? What business had the thought of its pain to
come so close to him? closer even than his own reason, his own sense of
justice?
'And you have known that he shot himself from the
beginning?' she asked, raising her
head suddenly to look him full in the face. He assented with a distinct self-complacency.
'Then what did you think made him do it? What did you think
then--before you knew anything about the debts or the opening of the
gates?'
The self-complacency vanished. 'There are many reasons or
want of reasons, for that sort of thing, Miss Tweedie,' he said
evasively. 'I did not--I mean it was impossible to say
absolutely, and that is why I acquiesced in Fitzgerald's plan. It was
more convenient to every one concerned.'
'Much more convenient,' echoed Rose sharply. 'And you
have known this all the time, and not--' she broke off, as if
incredulous of her own half-uttered thought.
'Certainly, I have known it, and we would have kept the secret
too, Fitzgerald and I, but for this unfortunate business,' he
retorted, and his tone was not pleasant.
'Ah! he is different: he did not know!
he thought George had done it for his sake, to screen him. But
you? What did you believe?' The girl's very voice was a
challenge.
'I must say, Miss Tweedie, that I scarcely
see how my belief affects the question; or, pardon me, what it matters to you,' he replied, taking refuge once more in his indifference.
'Do you not? Then I do. Not that it matters now,' she added
in sudden passion, 'for I will have my own way in the future. If you
won't help me, I can't help that; but I will have the truth. I
will go down to this woman in the bazaar and make her tell me. Whether her
story is a lie or not, there shall be no more concealment. I will not have
it.'
'And George Keene's memory?' he suggested, angered
almost beyond his self-control by her unmistakable defiance.
'My advice is unwelcome, of course, but if you took it, and Mrs.
Boynton's--only that is unwelcome too--you might save all
scandal. I cannot say for certain that it would, but as I have told you, I
would do my best. Officially even, I would do my best. That seems to be an
offence also, for some reason, but I would do it as much for the sake of
the Department as for the boy's. You--I know--think only of
him--
She turned upon him like lightning, carried out of herself by her scorn,
by her passion.
'Of him! I was not thinking of him at all! I was thinking of
you--of you only, as I always do. Why should you not know the truth?
You will not care a pin whether I think of you or not. And I? I care for
nothing--nothing so long as you do not blindfold yourself
wilfully--so long as you are just and honest. Ah! you may think I am
mad--perhaps if what you believe about men and women is true, I
am--but it means everything--everything in the world to me that
you should be so--just and honest; because what you are is more to me
than all the world beside. That is the truth.' The last words came
slowly as the fire of her passion died down; yet there was no uncertainty
in them. 'I suppose I oughtn't to have said this,' she
went on, turning from him to lean her elbows on the table, and rest her
head on her hands wearily. 'But you won't mind, and I don't
care. It can't hurt any man to know that he is loved--it
can't.'
'Loved!' The word sent a thrill through the man
such as he had never felt before. 'Loved!' was
that what she meant? The thought broke through even his armour of surprise.
He stood for an instant looking down at her, then turned slowly and walked to the window, to return, however, in a second, with quick clear steps breaking the silence of the room.
'What do you mean?--I can't believe it. What do you
mean?'
His impatience would not wait for a reply in words. Her face would give
it truly, that he knew, and he stooped over her, taking her by the wrists,
in order to draw her hands apart. She turned to him then bravely
enough.
'Rose!'
It was almost a cry, as, stooping lower still, he knelt before her, his
eyes on hers incredulous, yet soft. Then suddenly, still clasping her
slender wrists, he buried his face upon them on her lap,
muttering--
'Oh, I am sorry!--I am sorry!'
Never since, as a child, he had said his prayers at his mother's
knee, had Lewis Gordon so knelt to man or woman. And something of the
child's unquestioning belief in an unselfish love came back to him,
joined to a perfect passion of the man's clear-sighted remorse
and regret for long years of past disbelief.
'Don't,' she said, gently bending over him;
'please don't. There is nothing for you to be sorry
about--indeed, there isn't.'
Nothing to be sorry about! Once more he echoed this girl's words to
himself with that strange thrill, as, recovering his self-command,
he stood straight and stiff beside her, conscious only of one vehement
desire to care for and to protect her.
'What is it you want me to do?' he said at last unsteadily.
'Tell me, and I'll do it.'
Then, woman-like, she began to cry; it is a way the good ones
have when they succeed in imposing their own will on those they love.
'I don't think I want you to do
anything--particular,' she answered, trying to conceal her
tears. 'I don't know; besides, I would much rather you did it
your own way.'
If the uttermost truth could be told about a man's emotion in such
scenes, as it can be regarding a woman's, it would have to be
confessed that Lewis Gordon came very near to crying also over this foolish
unconditional surrender on Rose Tweedie's part. For he understood the
irresolution of a generous nature before its own success and what is
more, the woman's desire to give the man she loves the glory of justifying her belief in him. He felt quite a lump in his throat, and had to seek escape from the tenderness of one sex in the decision of the other; for in nine cases out of ten these are but different methods of showing the same emotion.
'I will go down and see this woman to-day; and
then--' He paused, not in order to think over his next
move--that undoubtedly would be to see Gwen Boynton--but to
overcome a dislike to mentioning her name at all which suddenly assailed
him. Why, he scarcely knew except that it seemed mean, unmanly. Rose,
however saved him from the necessity by again repeating--this time
almost abjectly--that she would rather not know; that she would be
quite content to leave the matter his hands.
'Thank you,' replied Lewis, in such a very low tone that it
was almost a whisper. It did not lead, however, as might have been
expected, to a silence, but to a louder, more aggressive gratitude.
'I have to thank you--for many things. I won't affect to
ignore or set aside what--what you did me the
honour of telling me just now. That would be sheer impertinence on my--'
Now, when he had got so far in a perfectly admirable sentiment,
calculated to soothe both her feelings and his, why he should suddenly have
found his hands in hers again, his heart full of an unpremeditated
assertion that he was glad she loved him, cannot be explained logically;
but so it was. Yet before the scared look in her eyes his own fell, he
loosened his clasp, and the appeal died from his lips. There was no place
for him or his questionings in her avowal. That hedged itself about from
intrusion with a dignity he recognised. So what remained, save to pass on
with as much of the same quality as he could compass to the work assigned
to him.
'I will come in and tell you what I have done this afternoon about
five o'clock,' he said quietly; 'that is, if it is
convenient.'
'Quite, thank you.'
The baldest, most conventional of tones on both sides. The baldest, most
convenient holding open of the door for her to pass out--to pass out
from a scene that would linger in his memory; in nothing else. The descent
to
normal diapason comes sooner or later, no matter how highly strung the instrument may be to begin with, and melodrama fades into padding. In real life it generally leaves some of the actors dissatisfied with the way the scene has played. Lewis Gordon felt this distinctly as he was left looking at his own chair, as if he still saw a girl's figure seated there, her elbows resting on the litter of official papers, and the great coils of her burnished hair showing beyond the hands which hid her face.
'It can't hurt any man to know that he is loved.'
She had said so; but she was wrong. It did hurt confoundedly. So that
was what she meant by love, was it?--
If any of the trivial interruptions which Lewis Gordon so much dreaded
had come during the following five minutes, they would have found the
coveted chair vacant, though the owner's face was buried in his hands
among the files of memorandums and reports. Apparently he gained little
consolation from them, for when he resumed work he looked about as upset
and disordered as a tidy man
can do when he is cool and properly clothed. Nor did they gain much from him during the next hour, which ticked away remorselessly from the chronometer by which Lewis loved to map out his day. He thrust them aside at last impatiently, and ordered his pony, thinking that may be when he had been through that visit to the bazaar he might feel less of a duffer, and not quite so much knocked out of time. And yet she had said there was nothing to regret,--that he would not care,--that it would not matter to him if she thought of him or not!
It was a queer world! He set his teeth over it as he rode reluctantly
between the shingled arcades of the big bazaar, and then through a narrow
paved alley, pitching, as it were, sheer down into the blue mists of the
valley below; and so on to the balconied house where, from inquiries at the
Kotwâli, he learned that Chândni was lodging. The task before
him was a disagreeable one, and he swore inwardly as he thought that but
for his abject capitulation Rose would have attempted it herself. Rose! of
all people. He began to understand that the feminine world
could not be divided into two classes, since there was a third composed of one specimen. As he went on into the house the very cleanliness and order, contrasting so sharply with the dirt of surrounding respectability, struck him offensively on the girl's behalf, the giggling in the lower storey gave him a vicarious shock, and the obsequiousness of his introduction into the higher one, where Chândni sat secluded, actually made his cheek burn.
'It can't hurt any man to know that he is loved.'
He set aside the haunting words angrily, and began his task so soon as
the patchwork drapery at the door fell behind him, leaving him face to face
with white-robed salaaming grace.
'See here, my sister, this is for the truth. 'Tis not often
thy sort are asked for it; but I ask nothing else. I will take nothing
else.'
Checked thus in her languid welcome to the unknown guest, Chândni
looked distastefully at the hundred-rupee note thrust into her hand,
then at the giver; though both were to her liking. The latter she
recognised instantly, having seen him among the party
at Hodinuggur. So her seed of slander had taken root already.
'My lord shall have that which he requires, surely. Wherefore else
are there such as I?'
The cynical truth of her answer showed him her wit at once, and he
acknowledged it frankly when, half an hour afterwards, he felt himself
baffled by the calm simplicity of her story. Most of it he had already
heard, and the rest showed still more unpleasant details to have raked up
should the worst come to the worst. Azizan, he was told, had been a palace
lady, with whom George had had clandestine meetings, over which he had
first become mixed up with the intrigues about the water. The key of the
sluice had been sent from Simla, whether by the Mem or the Miss, or the
sahib himself, Chândni did not know, could not say. Was she not
telling the Huzoor the bare truth she knew to be true, and nothing
else?
'And how much do you want to keep all this quiet?' he asked
calmly, when she had finished. It was as well to know her price, at any
rate.
For an instant the immediate temptation to take the bird in the hand
made the courte-
san hesitate. Then she struck boldly for higher game.
'The pearls, Huzoor! The pearls, or my revenge!' This man,
with the cool, refined face and the contempt which made her involuntarily
remember the Miss sahib's also, affected indifference now, and would
most likely offer her some paltry sum. She could afford to wait for the
change which was sure to come; for she was not in the least afraid of
anything Lewis could do, and, without being absolutely insolent, took care
to show him the fact as she lolled about at her ease, chewing betel
ostentatiously. She had nothing to gain here by affecting delicacy, so he
might see her at her coarsest and worst; it contrasted better with his
brains.
The result being that Lewis Gordon came into Gwen's Boynton's
drawing-room for his next interview looking depressed; partly
because he had been riding through a tepid shower-bath, for
recurring rain had washed away the bright promises of the morning and was
falling drearily over the rank, dank grasses and beating down the fringes
of delicate ferns growing upon the dripping branches
of the oak trees, until they lost shape and became nothing but a green outline against the grey mist.
Within, however, by the light of a blazing pine-wood fire, Mrs.
Boynton looked bright yet soft, like a pastel painting, or a figure seen in
a looking-glass; for she soon recovered from her emotions, and took
pains to hide their effects even from herself. So the fact that she had
lain awake half the night wondering if by chance Chândni's
impudent lies had been prompted by any flaw in the chain-armour of
security which George and the flood had forged for her, did not show in her
face. For they were lies; even that tale of the dear lad's death,
which had given her such a shock at the time, was nothing but the vile
woman's wicked, cruel invention. Rose had evidently heard nothing and
still knew nothing of it; besides, Dan did not know, and even if
he had wished to keep the pain of such knowledge from her,
Lewis, with his jealous blame, would have been sure to point a moral; a
pointless moral at best, since George could have had no c